Between 8 to 12 with a real good tune as high as 18, all depends on driving habits.
If i keep it under 50 on side streets and avoid the freeway i can get about 13/14 with my 360 in my 69 Crew Cab
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64 F100 "Christine" 472 EFI C6 and mean
63 F100 Uni Custom under construction 4" off the pavement and built to drive DOHC, EOD.
69 F250 Crew Hiboy 360 435. Driver.
05 Escape XLT
The standard rear axle ration will kill the mileage. If you change it to something more geared towards regular highway use, you can get closer to 15 consistently.
My good friends above, are being really kind, I think in real time you need to expect 8-10. Tune that puppy to the max with a 50 mph limit, you can enter their range.
My truck operates in their range, but it is not a 3/4 ton, and it has an econo setup.
John
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In the cool still quiet hours of night, you can hear chevies rusting away.
i`d have to agree with jowilker my 390 in 73 f-350 super camper special 4 speed only gets 7-8 up hill or down i keep a fresh tune on it. i have also tuned many over the past 28 years 8- 10 maybe 12 if you live in flatland maybe 15?
It so happens I have the same truck you're anticipating buying. It gets 12 max. It has the 352 with 390 heads...with 2 speed COM trans and 373 Dana 60, not an optimum set up for mileage. Don't drive it much...so I've not applied the advice I'm going to give.
It all depends what you want to do the truck, drive 50 miles one way to work every day or just put around town on weekends or go to the dump 4 times a year...
I've owned many, many Ford trucks, from 3 F100s, 5 F250s and up to a LN9000 and if mileage is your goal and you buy the truck take it to a carburetor specialist and have him rebuild the carb and calibrate for mileage. The $200~ you spend will be cheap money at today's gas prices...
BTW: I owned a 1968 F250 360 2V C6 Automatic that consistenly delivered 18 on the highway...when I owned the bulk of my trucks, gas was close to a buck or below and I wasn't that concerned about mileage...now that I own one that I drive fairly regularly once I put a 4V on it you know I'm going down and have it calibrated for mileage...there's plenty of torque on hand for what I do...
I don't know much about it..I'm no mechanic...but I know that in the right hands ...the big bad FE can deliver decent mileage...and that old 68 never failed to amaze me...between the 3 tanks it had I think it held like 50 gallons...and believe me on a trip that thing would wear you out between fuel stops...
th1567 has in his yard....the following
1966 F250 Custom Cab - Camper Special - 352 2V - NP435 - Cream Puff
1966 F250 Custom Cab - 352 - 4V - 2spd COM - dump run special
1970 F250 Custom - inherited from an Aunt - from my cold dead hands
1996 Aspire - I drive 50 miles one way to work
2002 Taurus Wagon - Plastic Banana - Jelly Bean anti-affair device
in short...if you get double digit fuel mileage you are doing good....and thats down hill, empty with the wind blowing you down the hill...
Ya gotta rememeber...when these beasts were built they were built to work and work hard...and most all have...fuel mileage was I highly doubt, on Fords or anyone elses checklist for that matter when designing a given car or truck....when was the last time you saw a truck or car ad from the 60s from anyone boasting about how great of fuel mileage their new V8 cars or trucks got....
now if gas stations gave out frequent visitor miles...lol...now that would be something...we truck owners would be way ahead of many
It so happens I have the same truck you're anticipating buying. It gets 12 max. It has the 352 with 390 heads...with 2 speed COM trans and 373 Dana 60
The 1965/67 F100/350's with the 352 2V engine used the exact same heads as the 1965/67 passenger cars with 352/390's = 2V or 4V...same-o same-o.
Ford later replaced the 1965/67 heads with 1968 360/390 heads (C8AZ-6049-M) for use as service part replacements. So..essentially, the 1965/72 352/360/390 heads are the same.
There is no such thing as a 2 speed Cruise-O-Matic.
There are two driving ranges on the shift quadrant. If you start off in O (later on C6's called Drive 2 or D2), the trans shifts once, start off in o (called Drive 1 on C6's or D1), the trans shifts twice.
__________________ Bill / Retired Ford Parts Manager ~ 1962/1997
Part Number Research: Trucks: 1928/2002 / Cars: 1928/2003
1963 Galaxie 500XL / 1965 F100 / 2008 Fusion S / 2008 Edge SEL
Nope, never could really brag about the mileage of these trucks...except that 68....
On my 66 F250 CC CSpecl 352+2V+4 Spd+373 if I take it easy...13 to 14 tops...but that's cruising like 50 MPH the entire way with an egg taped to my accelerator foot...tracked that on a trip to Oregon up 101..tough headwind some climbs..but lots of downhills too. My first trip home after buying it in Redding, CA (550~ mile run) I tracked 14-16 mpg...but that was with a camper shell, a tremendous tailwind and flat runs at 55-60 down I-5
Now, on that head issue...that's what I thought but I figured, what the heck do I know. On the 2 spd Auto....Bill, you're the expert...the transmission guy was flat wrong...the truck shifts 2x no matter where I put the selector...but that could be a linkage problem too...it goes from a low gear till about 15-20MPH and goes into to a final gear which will run up to 80 by then the truck is not happy....but the truck will cruise betwn 60 and 70....but after 60.001 MPH...that mileage drops like a lead balloon....I swear you can see that gauge move toward "E".....maybe I'll fiddle with the linkage...that is unless someone wants to buy the truck for like $500. Have pics will email, can deliver in CA.
I drove it to work for a week or two....and 11-13 was the max ...that would be a very costly exercise today...kind of was then too.
RE: Holding on to my trucks...I've got two that will be around a while..I've owned a string of them I reckon....
TH1567
Merle Haggard's "Fugitive" was on the radio as I headed home from the "Back Door"...that 68's wheel turned down my road and I woke up in the cab with the hot sun beating in...guess I was more at home in that truck than I was at home...and it was time to go to work.
If the truck shifts twice from either location, it's could be a linkage problem...it could also be a defective detent in the column.
On the bottom of the upper flange in the column is a half moon shaped detent aka shift gate, the shift lever has a tit on it that fits in between individual "gates." \ P I R I N I D I D I L /
What happens to it: the gates snap off. When you put the lever into the upper drive position, does the lever drop down on its own? Bad detent.
Gas mileage...my usual response is...making changes like going to a "hi speed" rear axle, fine tuning, yadda yadda yadda doesn't do much of anything except empty your wallet.
You can spend $1000.00 or you can spend $10,000.00, the mileage remains essentially the same.
And...all the money spent on "mods" trying to improve the MPG will buy one heck of a lotta gasoline.
These trucks are shaped like a brick, mid octane premium gas was less than 30 cents a gallon back then, and no one gave a hoot about gas mileage.
Want better MPG? Slow down and have the tires inflated to the maximum amount specified by the tire maker.
Those of us with the Borg Warner T85N Overdrive have a distinct advantage over the rest a y'all...but only on the highway.
Around town, dang near any Ford full sized truck from any year will only get around 8-12 max.
__________________ Bill / Retired Ford Parts Manager ~ 1962/1997
Part Number Research: Trucks: 1928/2002 / Cars: 1928/2003
1963 Galaxie 500XL / 1965 F100 / 2008 Fusion S / 2008 Edge SEL
Thanks on the detent advice...that thing only 'drops' in at L_ and the D_ next to neutral and more or less on its own...sort of slides in and you're there...I know what and where to look now...
th1567
Dino agreed that Dad could use his 66 F100 to tow my 64 Olds Starfire home...on Capitol Road heading toward the Ford "R" Plant we drove over a rail crossing...somehow the tow bar broke and that truck was its side... we slid for about 100 feet it seemed....we put the truck on its wheels, topped of the oil and gass then drove home...Dino refused to believe Dad. Later on I bought that same truck from Dino's son, Joe...my best friend still today...
Now I'm looking at some other trucks 60 f100 with a 298 and an AT, 65 f100 with 352 AT AC,or a 60 f100 with a 6 cyl 233. Thank you for the replies so far.
