1965 Ford F100 Aero cap? Photoshop inside...

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by Sven7

Tentative plan is: half tonneau cover, deep front air dam, wheel skirts, passenger mirror delete, partial grille block(without covering any of the radiator). Also, oil/filter change, coolant flush, make sure stuff's working.

Once you get the supplies together the chin spoiler is less than a 2-hour job and that includes clean up, so do that step first.

Your truck would look good with a white 1/2 cover, the black colored product tends to swell in direct sun and remains quite distorted once it cools back down.

S10 4x4 Pick Up Photos by kach22i | Photobucket




A stiffer heavier material may be warranted.

Half the work is getting the supplies and details sorted out, it's a fast job after that. I'd make the cover the second thing on the list.

[Sven7]

^^^ Thanks on the topper. I didn't think about distortion, but it would just be plywood cut to fit anyway. None of that fancy rubberylonastica!

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

I've been running E10 in the '59 for 13 years now. I'm expecting valve recession but it still runs good. If/when I detect a valve issue I'll have hardened seats installed, no big deal.

Any MPG results? I run E10 with lead additive. (Planning to restore the truck at some point and the engine will get rebuilt too)

Now thinking that it might not be a big deal to just built an entire aero cap like the green '77 F100 here on EM. Even if it's just a triangle, it should save me almost $20 over the trip, increasing total savings to $30 or so... just speculative. A half-tonneau may not hold the improvements I'd like over that kind of mileage. Either way the ROI would be at the very end of the trip, or on future trips. More of a "what can this truck do" experiment...

[Frank Lee]

It gets driven so little I suspect a good portion of the fuel evaporates (no evap system). When I did check it IIRC it got 20. I've put about 12,000 miles on it over those years.

[slowmover]

Lead additive if it is being worked hard. Easy highway cruise, no.

- Age of your tires and their pressure is a higher concern (Firestone Transforce has an excellent price/reputation in oilfield work). Monroe Reflex shocks

- The big one is: coolant + pump + hoses + thermostat (MR GASKET 4363, the old ROBERTSHAW HD piece [see pics; buy from this range]; ck for fit and temps). I'd also add Radiator Master RMI-25 to the propoer blend of new coolant. If the radiator is at all questionable, repair or replace. Same for fan, clutch and shroud. This system is likely the most problematic due to lack of maintenance, and most likely to leave you stranded. Fuel pump a close second.

(My first car, 1973, was a 1966 V8-428 Ford Country Squire with every single option. Test runs out of Dallas on FM-455 blasting through Sanger, TX part of the tuning regimen back then. The old FE Ford motor ain't exciting, but it is reliable).

- New exterior lamps, fuses, etc, just because they are old. Keep current ones as spares. HD flasher unit (electronic) if not already in place.

- Wiper blades and brake linings.

- Steering slop.

Record your mechanical baseline (maintenance/repairs). On a truck it is even more important than with a car, and work will show larger FE changes.

.

[Sven7]

I always use lead additive and this most recent fillup was with 91 octane too, which seems to help it run smoother.

Unfortunately didn't have much time to prep the truck but it did great the whole way. No overheating or any issue besides the battery connections not working once. We (a friend rode along/co-drove) repositioned the cables and it worked fine.

Made an air dam with the deepest lawn edging available at Menards (over a trimmed 2x6 wooden frame and bolted to the frame) and threw on the plywood tonneau my dad had been using to protect the bed.

Ended up with 15, 17, 17, averaging 16.3mpg over the whole trip. Wow!



I don't think I'll be driving this on the freeway enough to really warrant any more aeromods and likely will just remove the air dam and tonneau since I don't like that look on this old truck.

But it was a success!

[Sven7]

So it's coming time to drive to MN and back. I've got to bring home a drill press and it's cheaper to drive Boo than take Amtrak then rent a pickup/minivan/car.

I've had a shop here do a lot of work to it last week (incl. carb rebuild), and am taking it in tonight to tie up loose ends and discuss concerns.

In the mean time, I'm trying to throw together some aeromods. Last time the air dam paid for its $20 self, and I'm hoping the addition of a well-designed tonneau will help even more. I bought two 4x8', 1/2" OSB sheets and am going to hopefully throw something together.

Putting the template over it, it appears that I can gain some efficiency by extending the [blue] tonneau back about 15" from the inside of the tailgate. The blueprint is incorrect; I added a new tailgate line where the bed really ends (7' long, 6' wide over top of bed rails).



I'd love to build some sides on it to create a box cavity, but don't think I'll have time for that. I'll taper the edges of the tonneau in about 10-15 degrees and hope for the best. I'd love to do a partial tonneau, but I'll be carrying bicycles in the back.



Other temporary mods will include passenger mirror removal, and perhaps some tape-on wheel skirts if I feel like messing with painter's tape again. I'd like to have a more aero-friendly mirror to throw on the driver's side, but it's not in the cards this time around. Also might try some airflow trips on the front leading edges of the truck. These trucks actually have pretty decent stock grille blocks though.

I suppose it will be something like 5-7% improvement, since the stock bed is too short to really create a phantom boat tail. Add to that the air dam that I kept from the last trip, and we might be talking about something from maybe 6-10% improvement, no?

So, maybe 17 mpg or so. Last time I topped out at 17mpg but it was running rich. I'm really hoping the new tune and new tonneau will bring it back up there, and maybe brush closer to 20 mpg. 18mpg would be about 38 gallons and $115 one-way. An Amtrak round trip ticket is ~$140 and renting a truck for the weekend is $600+

[aerohead]

18 seems like a reasonable expectation.
My grandfather's old Dodge went from 11-mpg,to 16 mpg with 4-speed OD and taller rear axle.
An aero nose/grille-block/ fan delete/Plex headlight covers/front wheel gap closures/side mirror delete and addition of small car mirrors/full rear skirts,and aeroshell got it to 21.5 mpg.On a weak slant-six.It already had full wheel discs.
No doubt the Ford has low 20s potential,but I think you'll have to take it further to get it.
Let us know!

[freebeard]

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/1965-ford-f100-aero-cap-photoshop-inside-19522-2.html#post271138

For when you get back, I like KamperBob's rendering from 2011. A little signage in a 60s typeface could 'age' it appropriately.

How big a drill press? I got this one at Goodwill for $45:



I have no idea why importing this picture un-rotated it.

[Xist]

Originally Posted by freebeard

I have no idea why importing this picture un-rotated it.

I have had stuff like that happens. It seems like it does not actually save changes to the file, it just makes a note of them, so when you copy or transfer the file, it leaves the notes, and "reverts."

[freebeard]

That's a reasonable theory, but I resized and rotated and the resizing stuck while the rotation dit-ent. So I'm still