i need a little help w/a truck.

[Harter66]

My vintage Motors manuals are AWOL.

The truck in question is a 54' Ford F100 . Now I know how to mix up the fatheads, I wouldn't know a 59AB from 3/8x7/16 Merc. Y blocks from FEs yeah those I know. But alas none of those live under this particular hood. I think the 200/6 was w/1 piece head and intake and the 220 had a bolt on intake. I pretty sure its not a 240/300 there's 1 of those in the 92' and its huge by comparison.

If anybody happened to drive a stock 1 back when they were new I'd love to hear about it.

[TXGunNut]

If it's the original 6 it was probably a 223. Started selling Ford parts 35 yrs ago, have seen precious few 223's. I'm thinking an FE would look right @ home under that big hood.

[geargnasher]

A friend of mine drug home a 1948 F600 flat bed. Someone had swapped around the hood badge lettering to "F-R-O-D". After seeing the Chevy 327 under the hood I understood why. MUCH better.

Gear

[Harter66]

My 59' Ranchero came w/352 'Bird. The 56' has a Y block. I do have a complete 4v full header 73' 460 w/a truck C6 and all the coolers w/just 36K on it. Naw I think I wanna keep this 1 stock.
Thanks guys.

[lylejb]

If it's original, it's a 223.

Here's a vin decoder for your truck: http://www.f100central.com/1954-Ford-Truck.html

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

I'm thinking an FE would look right @ home under that big hood.

FE= friggin elephant,
there is a reason Ford dropped the FE line in '76 when unleaded fuel hit the market

[Harter66]

Jim
The Ranchero actually ran over 20mpg well into the 80s ......... sadly my all digital 99 green rated "flex"fuel gets 14 winter 23 summer so I don't expect that FE to get any mileage at all. Then again who cares when they're just Sunday go to meeting cars.

[wallenba]

I have a classic car and found a great manual here on CD. The pages are actual copies of the old manuals. http://www.detroitironis.com/ It's worth a look.

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

Jim
The Ranchero actually ran over 20mpg well into the 80s ......... sadly my all digital 99 green rated "flex"fuel gets 14 winter 23 summer so I don't expect that FE to get any mileage at all. Then again who cares when they're just Sunday go to meeting cars.
Thats cause it started life on leaded fuel. IF you rebuild it, you will have troubles unless you spend LOTS of money

[TXGunNut]

Thats cause it started life on leaded fuel. IF you rebuild it, you will have troubles unless you spend LOTS of money

Just upgrade the heads with the new harder valve seats and guides (all you can get these days) and lower the compression to 8.5/1. Probably need to rework the heads and replace the pistons anyway. I think I set the timing @ about 8 btdc but that's been awhile. I don't recall my 65 F100 ever getting 20 mpg from it's 352 but that's a whole different story.
I can't recall any part numbers on the 240/300 that carried over from an earlier engine, think the 223 had more in common to the FE motors than the later sixes.

[starmac]

223, and I understand some parts are getting hard to find. Check out ford truck enthusiast website and forums. It is a wealth of info on old fords.
I never got 20 mpg out of an FE motor (that I know of), but did have two different 1/2 ton pickups that would consistently get 18, and they are not hard at all to build to run on todays fuel, at least no worse than anything else.

[Harter66]

That Ranchero may have been an exception rather than a rule. I tend to agree that 3.73 gears 6.50 14s /195-75-14s no overdrive and a speedo and odometer off by 20% 55 being 66 . It clocked 19.9 odo against the pump.