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

to lower the front of the f150 im just gonna pull the coil seat off the beam and that'll give me 2 inches of drop which will be more then enough . on the ranger other then buying lowering springs you can always cut coils. the last ranger i cut the coils i thin i cut 1 complete coil off and it gave me 2 inches. if you cut yours cut it in increments of 1/4 of a loop cause once you cut it off you cant put it back, and usually anything more the 2 inches of drop will be hard to realign

Thanks will probably get some junkyard springs and go that route, I'll post any gains from the diff oil swap , my truck is pretty consistent , to the point where i can pull up to the pump check my miles and get it to the tenth , how much a fill up will be, no gas gauge so always fill it and 25 k miles a year , almost 381 k miles on it now, and all original except fresh motor about 40 k ago, rebuilt original with stock bore valve guides and all within specs, synthetic oil and many changes at 3k of oil , look on you tube some pretty wild looking 300's on there .

Is that the 300-cube straight six? That's a great motor, but if you have a household rule like, "No new trucks until the old one's broken," you might be stuck with it.

Start a vehicle page in the garage listing?

thats usually how it goes my girlfriend thinks im crazy never buying a truck or car thats newer then 95 and cost more then $1000. i don't like payments and i like the simplicity of the older trucks.

and for an update well the past few days ive been tinkering on the truck. i replaced the fuel filter and o2 sensor oil change and started putting the front end together.i also put a volt, oil pressure, and temp gauge set in to keep an eye on the truck vitals. on my to do list as of now is:

1. patch the floor
2.replace the computer controlled carb and tfi distributor with a normal carb and dura spark ignition.
3.full belly pan
4. lower it
5.put a radio in
6. convert the truck to manual steering
7.swap in a 5 speed and aluminum drive shaft
8.build a tonneau cover
9.remove any unnecessary weight
10.replace all fluids with synthetic
11.build a custom intake
12.upgrade all the power cables and grounds to 2 gauge wire
13.all new vacuum lines
14.replace all the brake and fuel lines with stainless steel lines
and lastly every one love pics

Computer-controlled carburettors never made any sense at all.

nope not at all every one ive owned never ran right mine the idle like to wander from 475rpm to 1000rpm on idle but even with that issue i still managed to squeak out 18mpg and thats with no ecomods but allot of coasting and planning on the routes i take when running errands . im thinking by replacing the 3 speed tranny/transfercase (truck was originally 4wd but was converted to 2wd) i should be able to break 20mpg easy by being able to keep the truck in optimal rpm range and probably losing over 200lbs (current trans and transfer case are cast iron and im also gonna use a aluminum driveshaft when i do the swap) im also gonna shave a little more weight by replacing the wooden floor in the bed with some thing gauge sheet metal and some cross bracing for strength.

I have a buddy at work with a Dodge Ram 50 (badgineered Mitsubishi Mighty Max) with the CC carb, he hates it. His truck is within a few centimeters of mine in every aspect and the weight is the same, but his mileage is dreadful. Low 20s on a good day, and the carb doesn't respond to tuning at all. I keep telling him to pull that carb and bolt in virtually anything else, but he's putting two kids through college so the workaday beater stays on the back burner.

yeah i have 2 kids myself and my projects usually get pushed to the back burner. today i fixed my exhaust i had a horrible leak right before the muffler cause i couldn't find the right adapter so i ended up welding it up. the factory tail pipe was rotted where it goes over the axle so i cut it off and used the last section with the 90* bend in it and made it exit in front of the passenger side tire. what a difference driving it now its so quiet other then the manifold gasket has a small leak in it now. but i plan on using manifolds off a newer fuel injected motor which are supposed to flow as good as long tube headers and have an o2 sensor bung which i plan on using for my air/fuel ratio gauge to help with tuning. but overall im very pleased with the truck so far i only have 200 into it and other then a electric draw that was killing the battery its been very reliable.

The tranny swap is a must. BTW is quite odd to figure out the truck still had a wooden bed floor.

well after thinking it over and looking over the cab on the truck i decided to swap the cab with the one off my parts truck while the cabs off it'll be the perfect time to swap the 5 speed in and por15 the frame. so im looking at as the glass half full situation while the cabs gonna be a pain it'll make the tranny swap easier. i'm also contemplating a 1 inch body drop which is popular with the mini truck crowd. to achieve it im gonna trim the cab bushing an inch instead of the traditional cutting of the floor and re-welding it and reducing head room. so with any luck the swap will take place this weekend goal is to do it in 1-2 days. ill make sure to get plenty of pics of the whole process.

I put the redline synthetic lightweight shockproof gear oil in the dif of the ranger and must say it works great , picked up an easy 10 lbs torque in the cold weather here now, much better, is a blue color and has some moly in it, flows like 30 weight oil versus the 90 weight and protects even better, at almost 400 k miles she's well broken in and now this week with a bit of warmer weather 40's she is flying, easy to notice a change in an 88 hp truck . all testing seat of the pants but early indication of at least 1/2 mpg gain and driving faster now because it seems to move along easier,

I'd be interested in hearing more about the rear end gear oil.

Any links or is redline a brand name?

I know a stupid question but hey, I've never claimed to be the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Thanks

Redline is a brand name you could look it up at summit racing or amazon, all their stuff is great , tried so far the shockproof gear oil ,the red bearing grease, the regular gear oil and the water wetter, which helps your engine transfer heat better to the coolant, also their regular motor oils are very good also , i think seem to remember one of the magazines i think it was muscle mustangs and fast fords, dyno testing and getting around 5 or more hp difference using their products, quite a bit for an oil change, but my own testing of just their gear oil is definitely noticable increase, weathers a bit variable now with the winds on my route and temps and all but truck feels livelier without a doubt.

update
 

so i successfully removed 120 pounds off of the truck i pulled off all the sound deadening from the floor removed replaced the bucket seats with a bench removed various interior panels, and moved the exhaust outlet from behind the rear tire to in front of it and the new mufflers 2 pounds lighter stock. i also changed the oil prior to the change i put a can of seafoam in to clean out the sludge. i didn't weigh the sludge that came out but there was a lot.

i also picked up some more parts to help with more efficiency they are :
1. 4 barrel intake (aluminum so it lighter and also will let me eliminate the feed back carb which isn't operating correctly)
2. 500 cfm holley carb
3. new distributor
4.efi exhaust manifolds (flow better the headers and cheaper too)
5.replaced the front tires with shorter one (this was just dumb luck belts broke in the old tires and all the local junk yard had was a fairly new pair which are significantly shorter and 4 lobs lighter)
6.also found a fiberglass cowl induction hood for free it needs a few cracks repaired but the price was right.

If you're into weight reduction, have you ever considered to get a custom-made fiberglass oil pan? It had been used in the Detroit Diesel Series 60 engines, and IIRC the valve cover was also made of composite materials.

if you want the truck to last as near as possible to forever, look up a accusump system from moroso, by putting a tee fitting on the oil sender switch you next run a hose to the bottom of this small tank. if you put a ball valve on the tank inlet you can store oil under pressure to prelube the motor and or use about a quart less oil in the pan and the tank iis always putting pressure in the system to cover any chance of the pump not having oil there, racers use them all the time instead of a dry sump, they make a cheap one quart model and a priceier three quart type, had one for years on my 302 mustang and really helped , since you can run a bit less oil in the pan this way you should pick up some FE. many have noticed a gain from less oil in the pan, this way there is no risk as the tank is there, nothing better than preoiling your motor,

ill have to look into that cause i gotta pull my pan soon to do a oil pan gasket and rear main seal anyways.

easiest way to lose weight now for you is the bumpers you can get aluminum u channel pretty reasonably might have to angle cut the u section near the end and bend around, probably could even polish it if you wanted to