new truck
 

so ive been having trouble finding a small 4 cylinder car to use for a daily driver to save on gas. then last night a friend was saying he needed a motor changed in his truck and offered me his old truck if i changed the motor for him. so now im the proud owner of a 1985 f150 short bed step side. the truck had a carborated 4.9 and a 4 speed manual. plans are to lower it remove as much weight as possible swap a 5 speed from a newer f150 and change the rear end gears from 3.55s to 3.08, all synthetic fluids electric fan, tune up, and more. ill be doing the mods in steps to document mpg gains for each mod. the truck came with all the necessary pieces to make it road worthy and came with the 5 speed trans and tons of other parts

Gotta love freebies. :cool:
I've personally seen 23mpg in mixed highway from a similar truck (4wd). I will be VERY interested to see if 25+ is obtainable with some mods on a 2wd.
Lowering could be a challenge with that twin I-Beam front though.
Good luck. :thumbup:

Great engine in that truck, you can really lug it in the lower RPMs! Awesome torque. Wish I still had mine, averaged 18mpg/tank with an automatic!

lowering shouldnt be to much of a problem i can go 2 inches in the front before alinement becomes an issue i plan on 2 in the front and what ever i need in the back to level it out though i already pulled some leafs to lower/reduce some weight. im contemplating on t5 out of a mustang for more mpg friendly gears and i got an aluminum drive shaft from the junkyard to lighten the truck a little more

Is it old enought to be smog-exempt back there? :D

yeah its old enough for smog-exempt as it is now i drove it home with no exhaust just open header cause some one stole the cat off it. tomorrow gonna fix the exhaust and get some base mpg numbers and then start modding

nice find!!!!!

some what of an update so today got most of the truck put togther just need to run to the junk yard and grab a few more bolts and a muffler and it should be ready for the first test run. i snap a few pictures tomorrow when there is some light out.

I just put some of the redline synthetic lightweight shock proof oil in the diff of the ranger, , much lighter than the 90 140 in there, so first run today , it has a bit of moly in it and is blue, big favorite with racers so should hold up fine for you also, they claim 40% less friction and earlier test i did years ago showed a distinctl y noticable off idle boost from less friction so 130 miles run today , good luck with the truck and a question , How will you lower it? , mine is also twin ibeam and would like to drop 2 inches like you plan,

forgot to mention , had the same setup motor wise in a van, the carb is a two piece design and the big phillips head screws that hold the top to the base come loose pretty easy and it will ping on you , offset screwdriver facing up should snug them up , very common and found others with same problem . on mine I made a block off plate for the egr out of a 1/8 sheet of brass stock helped a bit