Transmissions with an FE

[camboscams]

I,ve got a 390 FE in a F-250 Highboy with 4.10 Gears and a granny 4spd. So needless to say it gets about 10MPG up hill down hill and at an idle....So I recently called up Richmond Gear for a five or six speed, mostly for the overdrive gear, and they claimed that thay didn't have anything that would work. It has a divorced transfer case so if i can get a 2wd transmission all I would need to do, would be to get a drive shaft made (and an adapter plate?). So any information would be like gold to me.

[Dave Severson]

Well, you could adapt a Richmond trans in there, but fuel savings with a 6 speed would never get you even close to breaking even on what the conversion would cost ,. Might up your fuel mileage to 11 or 12, but that's about it..... An FE powered 4wd pickup is just not designed for fuel mileage..... Being a highboy, I would imagine it has the deep lug tires on it, too. Nothing in your setup is good for fuel mileage..... Got to remember, the FE's were designed for torque and built in the days that fuel mileage was not even a consideration.....

[camboscams]

I understand your concern but i'm planning on keeping this truck for a better part of my life and will put countless more miles on it so if you do know of an adapter that would informtion would be great!

Some quick math if i drove 6240 miles a year and that transmission is 2,000 dollers (aprox). It would pay for itself in 6.6 years if it gave me 12MPG. And i plan on keeping on that truck for many times that number of years.

So in the long run that transmission would be a money saving investment.