How bad are these things on fuel then?

Now that the house purchase is wrapped up it's time to go back looking for a winter truck/track car towtruck/Ikea hauler.

The house cost us a little more than I had hoped for so my trucking budget has to be cut accordingly and thus it looks like dreams of diesel trucks went out the window.

Just found this thing: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/3142774013.html

I'm sure it'll do all of the above nicely if I manage to find a camper shell for it, but the idea of a big block's fuel consumption scares me. So, how bad are these things on fuel and other consumables (keeping in mind that I have a 60 mile round trip to work and I'd have to take the truck in bad weather)?

10 on a good day downhill. The Turbo400 kills the MPG, since it doesnt have OD.

Well, we have lots of downhill here.

After a lot of uphill, that is. I think I might want to look at a slightly newer truck then.

She's a beaut!

But yeah, 10 mpg would be as good as you could hope for. I've got an '85 C30 DRW with a 350 and the TH400 and a 410 rear. She'll get 11 mpg if it's all highway. Stop and go stuff around town will be in the 9 mpg range. I've heard the big blocks aren't much different in terms of fuel consumption.

Other than gas, it's cheap to keep. Runs when I need it, and doesn't ask for much in return.

Great for hauling (what are you buying at Ikea, lead ingots?) but I'd say that's the exact opposite of a vehicle you'd want to use for commuting 60 miles a day.

In reply to stuart in mn:

We're moving from a 700 sq ft house into a 2500 sq ft house and the wife has plans to buy some furniture .

Keep in mind that this wouldn't be the normal commuter - that duty is shared by the Miata and the bike - but a bad weather commuter. Either way, 8-10mpg isn't going to cut it.

My dad has an '86 C30 crew cab dually-based car hauler with a bigass box on a lengthened custom chassis. That thing gets 10-12 mpg loaded or unloaded, 55mph or 80mph. But I couldn't tell you if that means it would be better without the extra weight or if it just gets 10mpg and doesn't care about anything else.

They are awesome trucks. I'm smitten, and I've seriously been looking for a clean 2 door for a while. Given that my '88 C1500 gets 13-15 with the 305, I can't help thinking that the minor penalty in mpg isn't worth it for the exponential increase in badassness.

Actually, he needs a rust-free body donor for his hauler...

More of a truck that most people will ever need...........

That is a nice looking truck, good price too, if it looks as good in person. 10-11 mpg is probably the best, overdrive may not help much and not easy to add with a 4x4. My 79 GMC Dually standard cab gets 14-15 empty at best with a 350, SM465 m/t and 3.73 gears, it gets about 8-9 mpg with the enclosed trailer behind it. Big block will tow better than the 350, but use a bit more fuel.

In reply to JtspellS:

Most, but not all. I would have killed that today.

To the OP:

I used to have a 78. It got 10mpg, not 10-15, just 10. Empty it got 10, hook 10000 pounds behind it and it still got 10. I swear you could leave it idling for a week and it would still get 10mpg. Drive it like a grandmother or drive it like you stole it, it got 10mpg. Reliable as gravity though.

I could buy that, drive it to MS, title and tag it, then turn around and sell it for double, likely.

Great Truck.

I bought a nearly identical '85 brand new. Good news---Bad news.

The good; as Toyman says you can drag 6,000 pounds up a mountain without impacting the MPG.

The bad; you will not see double digit MPG.

Hopefully it was optioned with dual tanks so that you can make 2 round trips to work without a fuel stop!

Jeff

I have a '96 standard cab C2500hd with the big block and the overdrive (4l80e) transmission, and it gets 13mpg empty on long trips. So yeah, without the overdrive, you're going to be hurting even more. 60 miles a day in one of these things would be killer. For that matter, any full size truck is going to be murder at 60 miles a day.

Well, I did have a GMC 1/2 ton with a 350 for a while and got around 15-16mpg out of it if I didn't tow anything. That's not great but during winter that would be OK-ish. Less than 10mpg would be an issue, though.

In reply to JtspellS:

I had one of those a while back and they are pretty good load capacity wise, but in this case they're just not big enough, nor will they tow a U-Haul trailer with a car on it. Well, not "legally" at least.

1. Lift the top off your toilet tank

2. Flush

That's what it's like in the fuel tank of this thing.

However, it will move your entire house down the road in one trip, survive any amount of abuse you throw at it, and put a silly grin on your face whenever you drive it.

That appears to be a very clean example at a good price. 1987 and newer will have fuel injection. Not much better mileage, but better driveability.

For $4K you can pick up a 1st gen Dodge with the Cummins diesel and get 20+ mpg all day long. And it'll go 500,000 before needing anything other than a front end rebuild (10 times )

As for the truckposted, my aunt had an identical one to that that she used to pull a pair of Clydesdale horses. They weigh like 3000lbs a piece plus the nice trailer. She got 6 towing. 8-9 unloaded. They switched to the 6.2L diesel and hte TH400 and that improved to 12 towing, 15 unloaded. The last version they bought was a TH700R4 6.2L diesel that was 15 towing, 20 unloaded. The two diesel's and the gasser were al 4.10 gears. IIRC they switche to the 7.3L Powerstroke after those and stuck with the Ferds until they got out of the horses.

DrBoost wrote: For $4K you can pick up a 1st gen Dodge with the Cummins diesel and get 20+ mpg all day long. And it'll go 500,000 before needing anything other than a front end rebuild (10 times )

I'd be all over that if I could find a 4x4 1st gen Dodge for that sort of money :. I've seen a couple of flatlander trucks (as a friend of mine calls the 2wd ones) for that sort of money, but no 4x4s that didn't smell like scams.

Fortunately I still have some time so I don't need to rush this purchase.