Something I always ponder...a daily driven gas mileage hot rod

When we have an OT forum with no real rules, threads like this can definitely go off the rails!

 

@Roothawg

 

With no rules on an OT forum.......there is no rails to go off of .

 

So I just wanted to give you credit and say you are a bad influence, a couple of weeks ago when you posted this comment it got my squirrels in my head running on their wheels as I thought to myself a mini truck would make a great parts hauler and gas mileage car. So since I can't quite afford a 1935 to 1941 Ford with a Ranger drivetrain currently as my ultimate gas mileage car (the Ranger and a late 30s Ford pickup weigh about the same and are the same wheel base and width) anyways I could instead buy a truck I would have never driven when I was 18 because it wasn't a V8 lol. So fast forward to a few days ago and I was on OfferUp and I saw this diamond in the rough, the price was $1800 bucks when I first saw it then he slashed it to $400-, mind you I was looking pretty hard checking all the local classifieds twice a day for a cheap ranger or s10 with a banger so I was aware of the truck . Something told me I had to message on it, so ai did. After contacting him he told me he slashed the price because he could not get the truck started after he ran it into the back of his friends pickup. Because of the pictures that were posted I could not figure out what would have happened. He knew very little about mechanic type stuff. So as I was messaging him back and forth he went down to $300 if I came with a trailer and got it that day and he explained he lightly rear-ended a car but it was only the bumper that was damaged and he didn't have any pictures of what it actually looked like after the accident so needless to say at $300- I drove from the Inland empire to the far end of San Fernando Valley (about 100 miles across So Cal) and I bought this piece of junk, I mean treasure, when I got there I realized it actually isn't that bad it just looks terrible because of the teenager lowering job and the sad smashie front bumper along with those ugly stock Ranger Wheels painted black are what is killing the car in the looks department (along with the spanked So. Cal paint).
In person he explained to me that the reason why he went down to $300- is because it was parked on the city street at his friend's house and every Tuesday it had to be moved and because he no longer had a car because that Ranger was his car he had to walk across town to push it into his friend's driveway on street sweeper day and then push it back out when they left... I guess he did this for a few weeks and got irritated so he decided to part with it.

So here was my assessment, It definitely is going to need some pretty easy work to make it a driver but most of the stuff I already bought off of eBay, RockAuto and Amazon. it's got a 3"/5" drop (wrong springs in the front and and axle flip in the rear), a double din aftermarket radio, 2001 interior, tinted windows with some little goofy power window motor thing that clips onto the window regulator (that barely rolls the window up and down) and a bunch of other stuff that makes me feel like I'm 20 years old again lol. Now that the truck is a runner, I am I'm going to fix the engine mounts and I'm going to fix all of the electrical stuff that was hokey-e-ly (that's a word now) wired since I'm not a big fan of electrical tape and unfused circuits... I bought the proper 3" lowering springs, the lowering shocks, the camber adjustment kit and that should make the front end look normal I hope, I got the engine running pretty quickly as when he hit the back of his friends car the engine lunged forward and rolled a bit because the engine mounts were bad (I bought those too for $35-), I rolled the engine vertical slid it back and put on a new oil filter because the old one had a giant hole, long story short apparently a 1995 Ford Ranger will not start with no oil pressure, I learn something new everyday. After I got the engine running and it got up to operating temperature I noticed the radiator is leaking although not bad I would assume it is because of the engine twisting up in the fan shroud so I bought a radiator I bought headlights that don't look so terrible (factory with clear corners), I upgraded the stock correct tail lights to the super clean looking 2010 solid red lights and I basically am just going to clean the truck up over the next week or two and turn it into my good gas mileage daily driver. I also plan on painting it although I don't know if I'm going to do that immediately and maybe a few months for that, because I want to fill all the trim holes and do all the body work and although I don't mind doing that type of work it's definitely time-consuming.
The picture of it on the trailer behind my dodge truck is about 5 minutes after I bought it with the front end damage. The other two pictures are stolen out of the ad which made me call on it... The pictures in the ad made me think I was looking at a truck that my friends would have built in 1998 (I hung out with a lot of mini truckers).
It's not bad and I'm looking forward to having a car to drive that doesn't get 10 miles a gallon like my blue Dodge you see in the picture.

So far with all the money I spent including the gas to get it, the registration/title transfer and all the parts I am still only in it around $1200 bucks... I think I'm going to go ahead and fill all the holes from the missing badges and then repaint it the same color (so I don't have to jam it) and I think I'm going to put it on some 17 or 18 inch Mustang cobra wheels I think I'm going to make it as close to 1999 as I possibly can.
Anyways that's my story and it's your fault your a bad influence because now I'm a mini truck owner.

 

The keys are.............

Sufficient cubic inches to provide good to excellent performance

Low enough compression to burn regular fuel

Manual overdrive transmission with correct highway gearing

Aftermarket electronic fuel injection so you can have good fuel economy ( or stock fuel injection if the motor of choice already has it)

Smaller lighter vehicle to install it in (or an old pick up thats light)

Some aerodynamics if possible, although a 30s pickup is light and reasonably narrow....but the fenders are draggy.

 

My girls '60 Lark with the 259 and a Stromberg WW on it gets really good mpgs.......not new 4 cyl good but really good (and good torque to boot). A 259 in something light would do real well. I thought about it for the newer Hillman, but the Stude is WIDE.

 

I’d sacrifice little mpg for fat fenders
Dan

 

Looks like a great choice. Remember also that a properly set up V8 with a manual OD can still get very good mileage and performance and use regular gas. My son's 93 Camaro with an LT1 and 6 speed used to pull down about 25 mpg when he used the cruise control. It was painted "write me a ticket red", so he used to use the cruise control on the xway so he wouldn't speed. Of course he wasn't using regular gas and gas was quite a bit cheaper, but he said it got good gas mileage when he didn't abuse it. Just for future thought............

 

Honestly, the used market is dumb these days. The 88-98 truck route has been exploding lately on values, want to see a funny, look up Ebay for a few of those.

Honestly, find something that your comfortable with, and make it what you want and drive the hell out of it.

You can build something old, and play the long game. Or buy something new and play the short game. Honestly, either idea you are entertaining is cheaper than truck payments.

 

I had similar experience. 94 LT1 6 speed - my best was 29mpg. I had several LT1 Caprice’s- even though an auto I regularly got 24mpg. My high school ‘68 Impala with 327/TH400 and highway gears got a best of 24mpg as well.

 

We have a similar colour in New Zealand called "Cop Magnet Red"

 

Small, pre-emissions V8 ( when compression went down for emissions, so did gas milage).
Manuel, overdrive transmission and about 3.50 rear gears.
Lightest full body you can find in decent shape (Falcon, Dart, Chevy II American or mini truck.

Should get mid to upper 20s for milage and not take years to put together while also not costing a fortune.

Gary

 

The last 33 pickup we built and flipped had a 70's Toyota Celica engine and 5 speed in it when we bought it. No clue how well it ran as when we tried firing it something burned up in it right away and we just yanked it out for a small block Chevy.

 

personally I'm disposed to answer this question with "little hot rod"

I drive my T roadster to work most days its not raining, and it nets me about 20 mpg on average.
(SBC/T5/3.42rear gear)

but if you wanted boot-scooting fun times for an economy mind, I'd point towards vw power

my buddy built this t bucket from a speedway body, a T frame with added X member, torsion front, and coilovers in rear, with a vw motor and trans.

It weighed 1000 pounds, had 100hp (1776/dual Weber's) and netted closer to 30 mpg.





.

 

I so need to build me one of these or a panel similar to yours....Maybe some day.....

 

That little Toy hemi-headed mill was really a nice engine, esp for a small flea-weight rod. I'd like one again..
Still "patiently waiting" on the V-Rod "feature"... .
Marcus...

 

If you want a lightweight Hemi V8 [poor mans Donovan] Toyota made an all alloy Hemi V8 for the Toyota Crown/Century
The Toyota "3V" was 3 litre [182"] and they also made a 4V and 5V


Here is a lightweight hotrod with the Almighty Toyota Hemi [photo carefully plagiarised off the interwebs]

 

That's the 3TC I was talking about in post # 136. Very good aftermarket support for those and have 5 speed o/d transmissions that fit.

 

Coming to find out the 2.5L "Iron Duke" has a different bellhousing pattern then the older 153 (SBC bolt pattern). I have a Jeep CJ5 bellhousing (SBC engine to Ford trans) to mate the 153 to the Ford T5 I have. So I'm on the hunt for a 140/153 engine.

 

For some time I´ve been thinking about putting an early 2000s BMW M57D30 3 liter Turbo Diesel in an old daily driver truck project. They are rated at 193 hp and 400NM of torque and are cheap and plentifull around here. But I just couldn´t bring myself to molesting either of those trucks, so my wife´s ´52 suburban got a 327 Chevy / Th400 drivetrain and the ´51 3600 got a 261 I6. I still have a good running 530d touring as a parts car for our rust free 530d touring, but after more than 250k miles that thing just won´t give up.