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How much gas

L

larry@stinescorner

Well-known Member
How much gas would it take to run one of these old gas trucks,,,biggest flathead v8,,,for an 8 hr day?
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Dont know about that one but mine burns 30 gallon in less than 8 hours more like 6 at the most . At 5.00 a gallon not cheap and it needs a tank .
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Even the biggest flathead V-8 had just a 2 barrel carburetor and developed about 130 horsepower, so the didn't drink a lot of gas. But they didn't get a lot done in 8 hours either compared to modern trucks.
 
Hey Larry, too many unknowns for me to answer your question. I had a 1954 Ford One Ton but (as I best recall no warranty) it had the first OVERHEAD Y BLOCK 8 CYLINDER. Seems like they started at 239 cubes then later 272 then 292 or 312 etc but 53 still had the flat head.

Nice lookin old Ford truck so is it 53 (flathead as I recall) or 54 (Overhead as I recall) or what ???

Take care Larry, it was fun visiting your relatives at Flywheelers
 
They didn't get very good mileage.

Under powered and geared really low, they did not like being pushed to the limit! Just a wild guess, loaded running 50 or so, maybe 8 MPG.

Is that the truck a tree fell on a few years ago? Fixed or old picture?
 
My 429 Ford F800 ran 8-10 miles per gallon fully loaded or empty, so roughly 5 gallon per hour. Times 8 hours/ 40 gallons. The rest is easy math, according to what your local gas price is.It would cost me nearly $300.00 to run my truck 8 hours at 50 mph, 400 miles . You could say $1.30 per mile. The thing that caused a variation in fuel consumption in my truck was air temperature. Too cold, drank more gas , too hot, seemed like more fuel too. Happy place was between 50-70 Fahrenheit.
 
The F-7 and F-8 had a 336 cubic inch engine,or was a option,not sure of the horsepower rating but it had guts in its day! A friend has a F-8, tag axle, restored.
 
Dad had a 1962 Ford F-600 with the 292 OHV V-8 and a 4 speed 2 speed..It had a wooden 14 ft bed and no hoist so wasnt real heavy....I took it out to Kansas a bunch of times in the mid 1970's to haul home antique tractors and believe it or not it got 12 mpg empty at 55-60 mph...I'd stop just east of ElDorado,KS to gas up...It was 144 miles and it took 12 gallons..A friend that lived 8 miles away often followed me with a 1962 Chevy 60 2 ton..It had a 283 and a 4 speed 2 speed..He too put in 12 gallons so also got 12 mpg...Coming home with a 5000-6000 lb antique tractor we both got 7-8 mpg..I thought that was fantastic for old 2 ton trucks..I had a new 1976 and a new 1979 Chevy pickup that struggled to get that kind of mileage.

I've driven 1970's model Chevy 2 tons with 350's and IH's with 345's-392's that did good to average 4-6 mpg but they weighed 9000 lbs plus..I've never driven a flat head Ford V-8 so couldn't tell you what one would average..In the 1950's-60's Dad had several Ford F-6 two tons with the flathead 6 but I cant remember what fuel mileage they got.
 
From the 60's through 80's my over the road tractors averaged 4 to 6 MPG. I think now they're 6 and over.

That was diesels.

This post was edited by J.Wondergem on 03/10/2022 at 07:07 am.
 
It was miles. I had a 60 mile round trip that I had to make about 20 times per year, over a 10 year span, and these were the mileage results I could achieve. Always thought I should get better results with a empty flatbed, than I could get loaded, but it just didnt happen. 5 speed with 2 speed rear axle.
 
(quoted from post at 07:54:21 03/10/22)
I've driven 1970's model Chevy 2 tons with 350's and IH's with 345's-392's that did good to average 4-6 mpg but they weighed 9000 lbs plus...
Click to expand...

My 71 IH Loadstar 1600 used to average 8 mpg combined loaded and empty when hauling grain. That little 304 was working hard too. The big Ford in the picture likely had the Lincoln 336 flathead V8. I've heard they were a powerful truck in their day but can't comment on them from personal experience.
 
(quoted from post at 08:22:42 03/10/22) I always like the loadstars we had 3 like to find another one
preferably a gull wing
Click to expand...
Hard to believe mine turned fifty years old last year. Still looks new by the paint but its well over 120,000 miles now. I think its got a few left in it.
 
It will probably go another 50 . My gmc is 50 this year I guess
4 or 5 mpg was no big deal with 50 cents a gallon fuel : mine
would do better but most of my Are all up hill loaded then
empty I can kind of coast along
 
Larry, I had a 39 Ford 2 ton with a flathead V8 and 95 HP.
Never worried about the gas much in the late 60's.
Worried more about the brake fluid it always needed.
Richard
 
Drove a 66 gas single axle gas dump for our township hauling gravel in the mid 80s it had no problem with using almost 50 gallons in less than a 8 hour day
 
Back in my youth when i first sat behind the wheel of a big truck It was a B 60 Mack with the big thremodyne 6 cylinder gas engine that pulled a fifty ton Rodgers lowboy and it hauled up to 50 ton . I hauled two big loads with it , first was the new D 9G fully dressed that was a little over 45 ton and a brand new I H T D 30 that was heavier then the 9 And she had a drinking problem . it would avg 3.5 MPG and carried 150 gallon in two 75 gallon tanks . Back then not much of the interstate system was built because we were just getting cranked up . My first long move was from the main shop down to the Marshaling yard around 290 some miles and that took over 13 hours back then and by the time i got there we were around a 1/4 of a tank. on fuel. But big truck gas at just about everywhere was between 16and 19 cents a gallon and if the company had and account or ya paid cash usually ya got 3 cents off. My uncle's first Semi was a 900 Dodge with a 413 gas burner and it was in the same ball park of the 3.5 mpg and it had twin 100's to fill .
 
(quoted from post at 06:42:26 03/10/22) How much gas would it take to run one of these old gas trucks,,,biggest flathead v8,,,for an 8 hr day?
Click to expand...

If that Ford is an F7 or F8 it could also have one of the ohv "Cargo King" engines. They were available here in Canada by 52. Advertised for their torque and economy in this ad.
mvphoto89102.jpg
 
If you see that the fuel line is 1/2 diameter or larger that is not a good sign.
 
The first semi I drove was a Harvester S series single axle with a 500 cubic inch engine. It pulled a 38 foot flat bed hauling lumber. It took 90 gallons of regular gas a round trip from the west suburbs of Milwaukee to the north suburbs of Chicago. We never thought about the fuel economy until the Arab oil embargo. That truck was soon retired
 
Actually, a diesel engine equipped straight truck of that size would probably get 12-15mpg. I have seen semi's get close to 9mpg under the 'right' conditions. Mark.
 
We figured up the fuel mileage on all of the 2 ton single axle trucks we have 1 time when we were hauling corn out of the field to our local big elevator. All of the trucks were running between 3 to 5 mpg hauling 320 bushel loads. We could fill em up full, then maybe make 2 32 mile round trips before another pit stop assuming you didn't have to idle much in line pulling up. The Ole 65 GMC with the big block V6 was the truck I mainly drove. You could literally see the gas Guage falling towards empty when you got on the 2 long pull hills between here and there. It had the power tho.
 
My father had 2 of them in 1940, and 3 guys working for him. 2 men to a truck hauling pulpwood, as you loaded it by hand, I'm not sure about unloading. The trucks pulled single axle trailers with a primitive 5th wheel system, hauling about 5 cords, weighing about 20,000 pounds, + the truck, grossing about 30,000.
 
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