Thanks for all of your replies, after a few have suggested I move this discussion to technical and since most of my questions will be more specific I have continued this thread there. 

                          Thanks, mark

In addition to what has been suggested so far, tall, skinny radial tires will improve your mileage as well as comfort, safety and handling.  Also, check the "toe" and set to as close to 0 as you can get.  You can do this for free with some careful measuring.  Misalignment will kill fuel economy as bad as any mechanical issue.

I honestly don't know what the truck gets for milage, It hasn't moved in the 2 months that I have had it. At this time I am just looking to maximize every dollar I put into it.  Mark

1. I agree with everyone who said new ignition components from the correct plugs back to distributor. You may find the dist almost impossible to get out as they often corrode in place.  New wires are almost surely needed and you should get the ignition harness rubbers from a Macs or a T- Bird parts vendor.  These will keep the wires off the manifolds and out of harms way.
2. Pull the rocker arm shaft assemblies and clean completely. punch the plugs out of the shafts and be sure there is no gunk in them.   Be sure that the shafts are not warn.  Also check the surfaces of the rockers that contact the valve stem. These surfaces often become warn and this makes the valves very difficult to adjust. Resurface the rocker surfaces with a fine grit angle grinder if needed.  
3. Clear the oil drain back holes at the back of the heads.  Reinstall the rockers and be sure that oil is getting to all the rockers. These are solid lifter engines and you must set the valve lash to about .018"
4. The cheapest dual exhaust setup is the right side pass car ex manifold installed on the left head. There is enough room to sweep a  U Bend down and then back to the rear. It is much much better than that stupid crossover!
5. If the engine has a 4 bolt 2 bbl carb I say fix it for the time being.
6. Valve stem seals are often hardened and broken in old engines.  This is a fairly easy thing to correct and pretty cheap.

The small valve heads and the likely worn timing chain with a very mild cam means you will not be burdened with an overabundunce of power but if everything else is up to snuff it will run nice and be better than you would think possible.

And you might want to put your next post in the technical section, we want to see how it goes.

Doug T

The Highlands, Louisville, Ky.

What gas mileage are you lookin for and what do you get now? I have a 56 F100, stock 292 with a 2bbl Holly 2100 #53 main jets, 57 distributor with Pertronix that was set up on a Sun machine, cross over exhaust, 3 speed with O/D and a 3:73 rearend. Took a 200 mile road trip last week and got 14.84 MPG. My 2010 Ford explorer 6cyl. averages about 16.3 MPG.

Sam

I thank you all for your thoughts.

  I had planned on a dual exhaust, I need to learn more about distributer curve, I also need to learn more about a pointsless ignition. The trans and rear end are possible replacements in the near future but I wanted to see how the truck drives as is, then I will know where I want to get it to with replacements.

  Again, I thank you..   Mark

Mark:

I don't know where you live, but if in a cool/cold climate, the addition of duals would include maintaining the exhaust control valve somewhere.  That's the valve sandwiched between the right manifold and the crossover pipe.  In cold weather carb icing and long warmups happen without it.

All the suggestions are good, but you'll have to decide for yourself how much money you want to spend to save a few bucks a year on gas.  If you have the same affliction as most on this site, that is; tinker-itis, then have at it.

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

(1) Put the ignition system up to top form - wires, cap, whatever - and recurve for more bottom end. Sweat equity stuff. For bucks - add a Summit (or other brand) CD ignition box that runs off the points. For less bucks - get a Ford "TFI" e-core coil and bracket at your favorite yunk yard to run with the CD box. I've never failed to get a one or two MPG change out of electrical work on an older vehicle.

(2) Find another RH side exhaust manifold of some sort - to put on the driver side. With the use of a block-off plate on the existing RH manifold and a heads up guy at the nearest (low buck) muffler shop, add the LH side dual exhaust. Loop down from the front. Cheap turbo mufflers on both sides will up the sound level if you need encouragement....

(3) Back to the yunk yard with a tape measure - looking for a newer pickup rear end with a better (higher) ratio than the 3.70's. Even a 3.20 is a 15% improvement and a 3.00 is over 20%.

(4) Drive it every day until you've got more spending money............

 
 Steve Metzger       Tucson, Arizona

I can't come up with much that fits my definition of a "very tight" budget. I'd recurve the distributor, give it some more initial advance and generally make sure everything I have is in tip top shape as that's really where you need to start before upgrading anything, anyway.

So, Mark, how tight is your very tight? Are compression increases, dual exhaust, transmission swaps, different intakes, etc out of the question?


Lawrenceville, GA

Here’s my top five list.

Raise the compression ratio

Electronic ignition with recurved mechanical and vacumm advance attributes

Wide band oxygen sensor and work on the fuel curve.

Overdrive transmission

Put an uncooked egg under the accelerator pedal.

 

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)