Hey guys, been crazy around here lately. Hope everyone is doing well. I've got some questions with my '84 F150 I6 4.9L 4x4 4-speed with a manual choke. It's a typical Minnesota winter this time of year and my first winter with this truck. I was told she'd be hard to start in the cold but holy man!! It's 6 below 0F but it feels like 21 below 0F with the windchill. I've tried starting fluid, a boost pack, even a 200W magnetic heater on the oilpan (which I'm not so sure she's getting enough power to get the full 200W). And it takes a good 5 minutes of cranking to get her to turn over (not full on constant 5 minutes, little 5-10 second bursts while I pump the gas). So any suggestions for that would be much appreciated. My second and lastly question is regarding speed. If I go up a hill (which there a lot of her in Duluth) I'm usually in 3rd going about 25-30mph. If I have enough speed at the bottom of the hill and I'm in 4th by a few hundred feet I have downshift to 3rd and just crawl cause I just loose speed. On the freeway she tops out at about 55 if I'm going downhill with a tailwind otherwise its around 45mph. I'm planning to do an engine rebuild and replace the dist, put on a 4 barrel carb, new intake, headers, and rewire the whole truck and do a duraspark II conversion. But in the meantime, any suggestions? Thanks everyone.

 

if its like my 83 it has a 3.08 rear gear which sucks ***,i built a wicked 5.0l and until i swapped in a 3.55 gear it was a slug now it flies

 

Thanks- I figured it was a gearing issue as well. With this snowstorm we got though- that gearing has been a blessing. She might not fly but man did I get through some nasty stuff that new trucks were getting stuck in. So it's kinda tough, be nice to be able to swap gear ratios quickly and easily depending on what I need the truck for but nothing is as easy as the engineer says it will be lol. I've got a buddy with an old UPS I6 4.9L that he's willing to sell me. I was thinking about rebuilding that and putting a 4 barrel carb with Duraspark II or Mallory optical. Big dreams and a lot of money. Thanks guys