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TOW RIG.

53K views 125 replies 21 participants last post by  turbo2256b 
#1 · (Edited)
TOW RIG BUILD UP.

I am building a 460 for towing here is the truck as purchased
 

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#5 ·
Its an 86 purchased by me in 98 or 99 with 72K on it. It was most likely not used in the winter and towed the original owners toys. It had a 5th wheel set up at one time. The rear bumper can be adjusted for I believe for a 10 or 12 ft camper insert. I think the front bumper post was to support a cab over camper. There are about 5 plugins at the rear for different electrical connections. There are also locations welded to the frame or bolted on for leveling jacks.
 
#6 ·
Bringing things up to speed. The truck came with a 750 Edelbrock carb a performer intake. Dont know if it has a different cam in it. The trans is a 4 speed manual rear is a locker with 4.10 gearing.
My first run towing was a 120 mile round trip towing a 23.5' boat mostly hiway. Fuel economy worked out to 6 MPG.

I dont know why but after getting back home and unhooking the boat I was concerned about the fuel economy. For some reason I looked up the tail pipe and saw a perforated plate about an inch and a half up the tail pipe. It looked like it had about 50% open area at best. I grabbed up my drill and a 3" hole saw and removed it only to find another one about another inch up the pipe. Drilled that out to. Same trip the next weekend fuel economy was 8 MPG.
In search of more economy I began looking for a 5 speed.
 
#7 ·
After some searching a 5 speed ZF was purchased at a heavy truck / equipment transmission rebuilder. To them this was a light duty unit. They also talked to me about New Departure 5 speed. It might realy have been a more robust choice. The price for the ZF, cluth, flywheel was 1300.00 with a 1 year warranty which was a better price than any rebuilder or junk yard.

Installation was easy. The only change I remember was moving the trany crossmember back to a set of holes already in the frame.
 

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#8 · (Edited)
While under the truck I noticed the exhaust had 2.5" pipes into one muffler and a single 3" pipe exiting to the bumper. There were things I didnt like about this factory system. One was the driver side head pipe was so close to the oil pan it had to raise the oil temp about 20*. I tried sticking some 2000* insulation to the pan the pipe burned it right off the pan. The other concern was were the pipes went into the muff the pipe size was swedged down to less than a 2" ID and the same in the rear. I figure they possibly used this same muffler on all V8 and the 300 six. The pipes themselves worked out right. the area of two 2.5 dia and one 3" dia are really close to the same area. Why the reduction out of and into the muffler a cost save?
 

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#9 ·
While researching info on mufflers I began work on a few other things.
Fuel economy was up to about 10 MPG at this point but the engine wanted premium fuel only. Decided to look into the timing. The previous owner had the timing set to 44* total. No wonder it needed premium. Out came the distributor and into the garage for my box of old distributors. I was out of advance plates in the 9 to 13* range. So I welded up the slot in one limiting the advance to around 9* in the distributor. Filled up a tank with regular and after a week or so of tweeking was able to run regular. Fuel economy hung in at 10 MPG but now was spending 10 cents or so less a gallon.
 
#10 ·
Years ago Edelbrock used to make a intake they called a "Street Master" I think someone correct me if i am wrong, it had tiny runners that worked great for low end grunt and would help fuel economy, Can any one else add to this ?
Or is that intake something I dreamt up ????
 
#11 ·
Google it youll find info on it.
Holly also made a similar intake and the original Torker was like it to. Have run the Torker original version on a jet boat. Worked fairly well. Did some work on the plenum and it improved it a lot. Sold the boat before I got around to porting the runners.
 
#12 ·
The water pump began leaking out the weep hole so it was replaced with a Edelbrock pump. While at it decided to replace the retarded timing set. To my supprise it had a Cloys double roller. No markings on the sprocket end of the cam gave any indication it had been changed.Upon removal found it to be the retarded one and one roller had a crack in it. Replaced it with a non retarded Cloys double roller. All the time woundering why the original owner did all these changes and probably didnt run much different than stock.
At this point the truck was hitting 11 MPG.
Decided it was time to pull one of my Holley's off the shelf. The engine had a plastic 4 hole spacer under the Edelbrock 750 which I retaind a slapped on a 750 dubble pumper.
 
#13 ·
Waiting for some pait to dry so thought I would continue.
The timing chain change to the earlier non retarded set improved power. The power band was still narrow probably 2000 to 3000 RPM with little differance. Valve float about 5500 RPM. It was a lot like driving a tractor. I could pull out from a stop in 3 or 4 th gear.
Tweeking with the carb idle curcuits and main jetting resulted in a 12 to 13 MPG Hiway empty or pulling a trailer.
About this time I purchased another boat. The trip to pick it up was 500 some miles each way. The boat weighed 9000 lbs dry and its trailer maybe about 2000 lbs. My truck weighs 6200 lbs. The trip there was between 11+ MPG to 13+ MPG amazingly towing the boat back was almost the same. I have friends with diesels that get about 8 MPG or so towing the same length / style boats that weigh 1500 to 2000 lbs less.
 
#14 ·
did you replace the exhaust yet? my truck has the same set up and it looks like from the muffler back would show some good improvements. my has a 650dp, performer intake, small jegs cam, pi heads, c-6, 3.55 gears.here is a pic of mine haven't goten around to checking mpg yet was hoping to get a 750 vac and exhaust first. my favorite body style.

wayne
 

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#15 · (Edited)
I began hauling pallets of brick and / or premixed cement for a friend who's truck broke down to make some extra cash. It was about time for tires and the fuel economy started to drop. I did ditch the running boards which picked up around 1 MPG. Screwing with a lot of stuff didnt get the economy back or if it did only lasted a few days and dropped again.
Bought what I thought were a great set of Brigstone tires. They worked fine around town hauling the above. Later running a trip 90 miles each way with my flat bed trailer they almost killed me.
The truck handled fine on the way there but returning was a different story. I had a 4000 lbs car on the trailer and 4 engines packed in the bed. Nothing I hadnt done before the new tires. This time though any speed 55 or over the truck would become almost impossible to control. I found myself fighting to stay on the road so many times trying to maintain the 55 MPH speed limit I gave up and kept the speed 45 to 55. Still it was the most frightning trip I evet had. Brigstone wouldnt take the tire back. 200.00 each and they sucked.
 

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#16 ·
no matter what they should take the tires back i work at an auto shop an we see alot of tires that get ply seperations or the metal on the inside of the tire lets go an our tire distributor always replaces them free of charge so i would take them back to where you got them or if you got them of the internet call them also easy way to tell if there bad is spin the tire look at the tread see if its still round an then look at the sidewalls an spin it an make sure there straight just in case you didnt know
 
#18 ·
I purchased them from Tire Rack. They wouldnt take them back because they were on the truck for a few days over a month. They only had around 900 miles on them. They lost my business. Called Brigstone they wouldnt take them back either. Finally sold them about 2 years later for 100.00 each. Brigstone / Firestone lost my business too.
I went to Rickson and purchased some 19.5 rims and some F load range 225 70 General drive tires for the rear and steer tires for the front. Not an issue since. Hoping these tires last the rest of my life.
 

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#20 ·
Now for the exhaust. Thoughts were at first were 2.5" duals with a crossover or "X" pipe. There wasnt realy a lot of room for this with dual tanks. The is plenty of ground clearance but exhaust would be hanging a bit low. Looked at a lot of different turbo style mufflers but was realy wanting something rather quiet. Reasons one my ears have seen to much abuse over the years, not realy interested in a more powerful stereo. Big reason ever back up and not feel or hear your crunching something?
Talking to a few muffler shops they wanted to place both mufflers on the passenger side of the truck. Thought that was a bit lame. At this point thought it might work out best all around to find a dual inlet 2.5 muffler with a 3" single outlet. Most of the factory pipes could be retained. I love the look of duals out the back but this is a tow vehicle a big single should be fine. Serching once again found plenty of single inlet dual outlet mufflers.
Finaly looking through walkers stuff looked in the RV section. There was a ricently added muffler. It was dual inlet 2.5 single out 3". Called Walker and spoke with an engineer. He told me it was a direct for a factory Ford motor motor home chassis with a 460. He also stated that the factory muffler was about 8" of back pressure this muffler was only 1". So I ordered one.
 
#22 · (Edited)
Well here is the muffler used all the existing factory pipes almost a bolt on. Thought it might be a water heater for an RV at first. Fuel economy didnt improve but power picked up. Its relitively quiet. Think the engine is having issues maybe some toasted valves from the original owner running 44* total advance. Guessing at this point an intake better than a Performer is needed. Also guessing the D3 heads still have the big lumps in the exhaust. All the real smoky diesels want to race me thinking mine is a diesel.
I will try to dig up the number. Been real busy trying to get my Merc ready for the car show at Ford World Headquartres and orientation day at Waterford race course the next day 30th and 31st
 

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#24 ·
Next I began thinking about the heads. Purchased a 78 F150 with blown head gaskets and a sweet bed that was needed for my 78 F150. The bed on it split in half bringing the ZF trans home for the dually.
The heads were D3s the same as on my dually. Removed them and tore them down. I was shocked that the lumps for the EGR drillings were so huge. Couldnt eve stick my finger through the exhaust port. Without a head to cut up wasnt realy shure how the crossdrilling would look if they were removed. The drilling the length of the head's wall thickness also protruded into the roof of the port.
A friend I used to port heads with had a set of DOVE heads that had been kicking around the shop for about 10 years. They were off a jet boat. I purshased them and went to work.
 
#25 ·
Some shots of the heads. Originaly wanted to keep the stock 2.08 intakes but pitting common to the old 385 series heads left me with two options. Larger 2.19 valves or seats went with the larger valves. Exhaust was upped to 1.75s. Would realy have perfered 2.08 and 1.75 exhaust but I just happend to have 2.19s left over from a 351C build up.
 

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#26 ·
The heads aree ready to assemble. Wish I could have flowed them but the bench has a burned up motor. Wont do a big block. About two years ago (purchased a set of Hooker Super Comp headers. Started to put them on but half the bolts snapped. Wasnt ready to do head swap at the time. The headers were made incorrectly. I sent them back to Hooker and 4 months later got the first set of corrected ones. I think their customer responce was perty good.
 
#29 ·
Have a few more valves to lap in. Painted the heads. Have been waiting 2 months for the correct retainers for the valve springs. I took some measurements with some retainers from a 302 but dont know if there + or - in position compaired to the correct ones.
 
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