Hey guys, a good friend up the road just brought home a mid 70's Ford F350 Camper Special fresh from years of dry storage in a barn. One owner, extended cab, full size bed, factory dually add on, very straight and low miles. Guess he was retired, sold the camper after a few years of travelling and put the truck away. Bed and interior are full of spare/extra parts. It's weathered but not at all rusty which is rare around here.

Only downside is it's a 460 with an automatic. At $4/gal that's not a good thing. I had a 69 F-250 with a big block 360 and a stick that got 8 mpg. I'd imagine this one might get 5 mpg with a tailwind depending on the rear end.

He offered it to me for cheap because he has another Ford truck torn apart in the garage for frame off. He's like me and just couldn't say no when it was offered. I have a hard time walking away from nice original sheet metal but that 460 makes it almost unusable for me in the long term. Short term I'm looking at building a barn so I can haul with it to build the barn and take the kids and bikes back and forth to the bikeway but I have a 50 mile a day commute so it's not going to do me any good for that.

Has anyone swapped in a Powerstroke into one of these trucks? A Powerstroke and a manual trans would be great with this thing. I've owned a few Cummins Dodges but I've heard the Power Stroke is a good engine. I'd need a full donor but I assume it's possible.

I'm thinking swapping in anything smaller in the V8 family wouldn't be a huge improvement in mpg. That's a lot of truck to move around. My 93 shortbed with the 300 and a 5 speed only got 17 mpg.

So...what do you guys think? Pass or play?

 

The 460 won't be any worse and might be better than the 360.

Do the math on any engine swap. Lots and lots of miles required for payback even at $4/gal.

Search for "Ford cummins" and look at the Cummins engine swaps. PS are V8s, imo harder to swap in than an inline. Lots of support for the Cummins also.

 

I thought only cab/chassis was offered in dually. No dually in pick up I thought.

 

Use the 460. The money you spend on the swap will buy a lot of gas. I had an 84 F250 4X4 460 C6, worst milage I ever got was 6mpg towing 12,000 lb loads of hay. Otherwise was low teens.

 

while these are workers, they aren't practical for daily transportation anymore. buy tihs truck for a toy and get a cavalier or something.

 

Thanks for the input. I'm a VW diesel guy that has recently switched to VW gassers so I have other cars. I'm looking more at a relatively vintage truck that might be fun to update. But on the other hand, VW's occasionally break so it might be a daily on the rare occasion.

I'll talk to my buddy tomorrow and see how bad he wants it out of his driveway.

To answer the other question about factory dually, the toolbox is flared into the fender and works so I thought it was factory. The fenders appear to be later model but I;m not sure. I'm thinking of pulling off the dually option anyway to get it in the garage and keeping my wife from ripping the fenders off.

If I get it. I'll post photos before and after whatever I do with it.

Thanks again for the input!

 

I got a 76 F250 4x4 Ranger XLT Hi-Boy, 390-4bbl, c-6 with 4:10 gears in the HD-D44 + D60. and its my daily driver.
I had to make some sacrifices, quit drinking, smoking and cut back on things I do and where I go? but I'll be damned if I'm going to stop driving my Hi-Boy

 

Rsalter I totally agree. I like driving my 73 every day

 

Before I'd scrap the 460 I would give it a good tune up and try running it for a while. I've run everything from a 300 6cyl to a fully dressed 429 and now run a stock 460 , and the fuel difference was minimal at best. My 302 gave about 16mpg, 351m about 15, 429 was 13 and my 460 is 14-15 mpg ( all CANADIAN gallons). The 360/ 390 were never known for good gas milage. My Dad had a 360 in his 73 and got 8mpg with it, went to a 460 in his 77 and still gets 16mpg. Swapping to a PS would be costly and may not pay back the fuel savings.

 

I got to have some guilty pleasure's

 

I crawled the truck yesterday and found some rust here and there in the floors and in the inner rockers, pinholes in the bed, it's not as good as it seems up top. Front fenders and inner fenders are solid and the paint is mostly original. It's been sitting since 94 but it was driven home to where it sits right now. So it's definitely not worth a swap but it might be a good truck for occasionally hauling wood or stuff for the barn I plan on building.
To answer the dually question, it was an add on kit. However, it was well done, the toolbox is even flared into the fender and it uses Ford fenders. I'd probably remove the dually kit if I get it.
The original owner bought it to haul a camper down in Florida, had it a year and sold it to a brother here in Ohio that owned an RV place. He used it to move RV's around his shop and deliver them. He parked it in 94inside a dry barn and that's where it sat till this year. Odo says 34k, I assume that's 134k. The owner is retired and still tinkered with it on and off, it has a new set of headers installed but the exhaust is in the back. He pulled the front fenders to undercoat the inner fenders at some point.
I like the color combo, it's copper over white. I think everything's there trim wise and it's all straight sheet metal. I'm thinking I can get it for less than $1000, I may give it a go.
What's funny is it has a 'low fuel economy' light on the gauge cluster. I wonder if that's lit constantly or only 90% of the time?

 

if I remember correctly, the low fuel economy light was basically connected to vacuum...whenever you were accellerating hard (and the vacuum dropped) the light would come on.

I guess if the engine was in bad enough shape, the light would stay on!

 

888 - Sounds like a good project, eigher way. Into VW diesels / I've heard of installing a VW "oiler" in a Geo Tracker > higher HP and 2x torque for off-roaders.

 

You know 888, instead of going though the trouble of an engine swap you could do an aftermarket EFI conversion and get an add-on overdrive. I'm planning the same thing for my 78 1/2 ton. I've picked up a Holley ProJection system on EBay fairly cheap. I'm going to install it this summer on my mostly stock 351M. When it finally gives out, hopefully a few years from now, I'm swapping in a lightly built 460 with "dual quad" throttle bodies. True, I'm not planning on getting great mileage but I'm betting that with a light foot, and the overdrive when I find an affordable one, I can match the V10 Super Duty that has been my daily driver for the last 6 years.

 

Joker, I thought about that too. I figured the FI engine management system and all that might be more trouble than the increased mpg that would result. I figure I'll see what I can pull out of the 460 with tuning and airflow (it already has new headers, I'll try oversize duals and magnaflows on the back end) and see how it does. If it's atrocious, I'll think about doing something else. Maybe a different geared rearend and an overdrive. It just depends what I find as I get into it. It seems solid and worth the work but you never know.

It may sound weird but I'll probably install a manual choke if possible. I had a vacuum pull off fail on a truck years ago and the replacement part was $75 back when I made that a week. I went to NAPA and got a manual choke and gained about 3 mpg.

If I had only known this was coming, I passed on a rolled but running Cummins 16v Dodge truck with the 4 spd AOD tranny a few months ago that went for $500. I've owned a Dodge Cummins before, that engine would have been a nice swap.

I left a note in my buddy's mailbox last night asking him to come up with an exact price for the truck and all the spares. He travels so hopefully this weekend I'll catch up with him.

I'll post some photos if/once it's home. I have a long and winding driveway, I'm not sure I can turn that hog around once I get back to the house!