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Just thought of something else. It could be angle of pic but from photo posted it appears your front alignment might be out of whack? That could really kill your MPG. Looks towed out or a camber issue. As I said could be just the angle of photo making it look that way but might not hurt to check unless you already had it aligned.
I'm just pointing out it's a good plan to have a fire extinguisher with you out on the road, on a cross country trip, not that you'll necessarily need it. Most commercial vehicles, and the .mil, trucks etc, they require this, along with warning triangles in case of breakdown, and a first aid kit.
In many cases once a fire gets going "good", it's too late, though not always. I think you'll find many here FTE forums with older or collectable trucks carry an extinguisher, partially no doubt because of some of the photographs of numerous burned out hulks they saw posted here over the years. That's what spurred me to get one.
A pretty good sized ABC extinguisher, not one of those cute little keychain jobbies. Even just a few leaves & twigs accumulated over the years in the heater blower box (for example) is enough to completely total a truck and has done this many times. There is a wire wound nichrome voltage dropping resistor exposed to air flow in there, for cooling, it gets red hot in operation. Then, there's typically old rotted from the inside rubber fuel line hose in these trucks, the el-cheapo imported fuel pumps, grease soaked engines ... Jus Sayin'.
More paranoia for you: When was the last time the front wheel bearings were inspected and repacked with fresh grease? Brake fluid? I drove my '64 cross country several times without particularly paying attention on too much of that stuff. Never had a problem but it was a close run a few times. Good old trucks! Be careful. You'll look back on it as fun, maybe not now, so much.
Yep that's me, seen a few pictures so shortly after getting my 81 F100, 4 year cab off rebuild, on the road I hit Walmart and picked up a good size one.
I was also looking to hit some shows and ones I have been to you had to have a extinguisher and placed by the left rear tire.
This way if ANYONE need a extinguisher EVERYONE knew where it was.
This is a cool trip and with only 600 miles before is a little brave LOL
I have about 4000 since Nov when I got mine on the road just using it to / from work, 35+ miles each way.
I just added an Advance Adaptor's over drive unit but don't have many miles on it, been to hot to drive the truck as it has no AC (yet).
Good luck and I will be checking in to see how you are make out.
Dave ----
I think overly ambitious is absolutely fair lol. But hey, here we are. I learn best on the job, and I’m definitely getting a crash course in this truck.
Object lesson for the day is points need to be clean for them to work.. obviously. Dirty points = motor don’t run right, or at all if they’re too far gone. I met some of the good people of Missouri this morning as I was pulled over at the gas station trying to sort things out. Gave me a few helpful pointers, chatted for a while and made sure I was good to go, then wished me well and said they’d pray for me as I’m driving. Didn’t catch their names, but very happy to have met them. Plenty of folks waving at me on the road and other such things. Makes me smile every time.
Here are a couple more pics to keep y’all happy. Side view so you can see the new wheels/tires. I went ahead and spent $60 to get a sheet of 20 ga mild steel and made myself a little bed cover for the trip. Helps with aero a little bit, but mostly good for keeping things in the bed and dry. Painted the forward half matte black just to keep the glare down. Didn’t feel like doing the other piece. It’s two 4’ sections.
Hit another snag. Stopped at a NAPA and found out the alternator I installed yesterday was faulty so got a new one (warranty), and then went to reset the points on the distributor. Since then, no spark. Highly confused, very frustrated. It was running before I did all this. Working on checking connections now.
Disconnect the coil wire from the distributor cap and position the terminal near a good ground, such as a head bolt, about 3/8" Should be a nice blue spark up to 1/2" or so. If a good spark there, then the fault lays in the cap, rotor, or wires, or plugs. If there isn't a spark from the coil wire, then the fault lays with the points, condenser, coil, primary ignition wiring, connections, ignition switch, etc. A jumper wire with alligator clips, and a simple test light is helpful.
Make sure points have continuity, from the moveable arm to ground. Set the gap when the rubbing block is on the cam lobe. You're using Motorcraft or Blue Streak points and condenser correct? Nod your head "Yes".. No el-cheapo no name scheisse..
When points have a few miles on them, the only accurate way to re-adjust them is to use a Dwell meter. All this means, is the gap is re-adjusted so the dwell reading (in degrees) is in specifications without regard to the actual point gap. The feeler gauge method just gets the points in the ballpark, so the engine will start, so the dwell can be measured. Once they start to wear the feeler gauge method doesn't work so well.
The engine doesn't need to be running to measure or adjust Dwell. That's why if you notice the flat blade screwdriver slot on the point base, tighten the hold down screw semi-snug, and the points can be adjusted with a screwdriver while turning the engine over and measure dwell. Tighten the hold down fully when Dwell is achieved and recheck. If you change the point gap (Dwell) ideally you should re-adjust or check the ignition timing.
When I did my cross country road trips I never messed with the points at all or the generator or anything. It didn't run all that great in hindsight, and sucked gas badly, but it never caused any trouble.
I think the points I got are duracraft.. They'll do in a pinch, but I'll follow your advice and get the good stuff when I've got a chance. Tonight was a mess and I'll be the first to say I definitely caused the mess I was in but hey, I guess I have to learn somehow.
Now, let me tell y'all about the people I met tonight.
Back up. I started the day about 20 miles west of Columbia, Missouri. Had that whole gas station bit with some nice folks early afternoon. Hopped back on the road. Made that rest stop post and then shortly thereafter stopped in Wentzville, Missouri because the motor was backfiring pretty badly. I'll admit, I messed with the distributor earlier and did a **** poor job of adjusting the timing. This, coupled with the alternator mess, got us to where the story begins. Pulled off in Wentzville and stopped by an Autozone (not my parts store of choice, but it was the closest thing and the motor was real rough). Picked up a cap and points, both Duraspark because that's what they had. Swapped those out (did I do it right? Definitely not, still had no idea what I was doing at this point) and then it started absolutely pouring, which soured my mood. Checked the voltage on the battery and it was still low, so I knew I needed to get that sorted before I kept going. At this point the day was a wash so I figured I'd just stop and get things worked out. Found a NAPA nearby and popped over there.
Went inside and chatted with the people for a bit. Asked them to test the alternator for me and it wasn't putting anything out. Bench tested it, thing was bad. Let me point out that I bought and installed it the morning before. Thankfully it was warrantied. They had another one and I swapped it out. The weird thing was, it didn't make a bit of difference. Still getting no output from the dadgum thing. So I'm standing there with the guy, name was Zach, and I think we're probably working on it for two hours trying to figure things out before the store closes and he has to leave. At some point in there I went to try and set the points (incorrectly because I still had no idea what I was doing) and come to find out later, it messed the timing up enough that the motor wouldn't even start. That had me at a loss. So Zach leaves, I'm sitting there testing everything I can with my multimeter, so dadgum confused. I think it was around 7:30pm, sun low on the horizon, and here pulls a car into the parking lot.
Now, earlier there was another lady that I chatted with for a bit. She mentioned that her husband was a mechanic and had Zach give him (Wes) a call and get some suggestions. She had to leave though, and I thought that was the last I'd hear from everyone. Back to 7:30 where I'm laying on the pavement wondering if the sun is going to go down without me figuring out anything. Car pulls in and it's this lady and her husband Wes. She said she drove back by earlier after she got off work, saw me still out there, called her husband, drove 30 miles home, he grabbed a bunch of tools, and together they drove 30 miles back just to help me because she felt bad that I was stranded alone. Now this guy was a huge blessing. Mechanic for like 50 years, owned an offroad shop for a while, did the whole Pikes Peak deal, built desert cars out of VWs, raced trophy trucks before that's what they were called, now works at another NAPA location. He and I start going through the engine, checking everything we can, and before you know it there's another car pulling back into the lot. It's this kid Zach and his girlfriend and a whole bunch of food from burger king that they shared with me.
I seriously can't relay how grateful I am for them. Eventually we got the motor running again, timed well enough to drive, and the alternator problem figured out (dadgum PO had half the wires hooked up wrong. Stator wire on the ground and field wire on the stator terminal). Wes took the time to teach me how to time by ear (I know it's not exact, I'll do that eventually, but it's good enough to get me by and I loved learning the theory behind it), he taught me how to set points correctly and why when I put the new ones on it changed the timing even more, clarified some things I still wasn't sure on about how the carb worked.. And probably some other things I'm not thinking of right now. Needless to say I swear these 4 individuals were angels in disguise. They took hours out of their Friday nights where they could've been with their friends or families doing literally anything else and instead came to my rescue.
I learned a heck of a lot, we got the truck running again, and I have another story to add and thing to be grateful for on this trip. If you ever find yourself in Wentzville, Missouri and need parts, NAPA is where you need to go. Those people are absolutely amazing.
One thing is for sure, you won't ever forget this trip.
That is for sure.
Back 79 / 80 2 buddies and I took my van & trailer with a car from east cost to the west cost, drop the car and headed on back.
We had issues also like lost and nut holding the ball on the truck, lost a wheel rim and all off the trailer taking out the studs then a crash on the GWB 50 miles from home.
And that was just the high lights as there were more. I remember it all like it happened yesterday.
I think everyone should do a trip like this once in their life.
Dave ----
Having grown up in Missouri, I can attest to the wonderful people there, I could on for days about people helping people, just cuz it's the right thing to do
Glad you got things sorted out and met some nice folks in the process! And yes, this trip will be one in the memory forever, if it went smooth you wouldn't enjoy it as much, this I know!
