Fuel mileage from stock truck

[daveboy]

I am still putting the finishing touches on my mostly all-original, '52 half-ton. When I bought her a few months ago she had no power at all. I replaced cap, rotor, plugs, wires, points and condenser. That made a huge difference. She actually runs great, has all the power I would expect from one of these old workhorses, no smoke, sounds good, and it looks like she will take one quart of oil about every thousand miles. She is running the original 216 which I assume has been rebuilt, but really don't know.

I have only put about 300 miles on her and just checked the fuel mileage. Agh!!!! I didn't buy this girl for her economy, but something must be wrong. I am getting about 8-9 mpg. Now, granted, that is mostly all around town, stop and go, etc... But, I expected better than that. Does that sound normal to you? I am going to put a timing light on her and also check the manifold vacuum, but since she starts and runs so strong, I suspect everything will be okay there.

Does anyone know what kind of mileage these old beasts got?

Thanks,
daveboy