Road Trip Saturday

[PbFut]

787 miles
59.35 gallons of 87 fuel
No additional fluids needed
No drips
No break downs
2 Good hoods @50 bucks each
1 Passenger side Aux Fuel Tank for free
It was a good day. Thank you Tim, a member here, for the tank. I did not get permission to fully identify him so I will respect his privacy. The hoods I found on facebook, and were on the route to the fuel tank. It was a 15 hour day, and every minute enjoyable.
I spent the past year going through everything on the truck forward of the firewall. Everything removed to the rails. A senior moment a couple weeks ago left me with an ugly hood. Perfect time for a parts/shake down road trip. I left north San Diego County about 4:45am and was home about 8pm. With the main tank, and OEM aux tank I just restored, I only had to fuel twice along the way and one final refill to calc the mileage. Just over 13MPG. The low compression 350 engine in my 72 GMC C25 has a new top end. 350 trans, and as close as I can figure, a rear end with around 3.70 gears. The sweat spot speed seemed to be right at 2750 RPM which was about 70 MPH. Things actually ran cooler at close to eighty but I felt a decrease in ride stability over 70. I use the factory coolant temp gauge. Never past half way. The electric fans did not come on till I stopped just before the Grape Vine grade to check oil and the mounts on the recently installed tank. That seemed to heat soak the sender switch and it never shut off after. I’ll need to find a switch with a higher range as I don’t need the fans running on the highway. I have no auxiliary oil coolers but run 3 fluid temp gauges to monitor oils. Rear end ran at about 150 and raised to 180 up the infamous Grape Vine grade north of Los Angeles. Engine oil in the pan held very steady at 210 and reached 240 up the grade. Tranny oil ran about 210 or just above and 250 on the grade taken in the line before entering the radiator. The ambient temp was in the 70 to high 80 mid day, so I will need to consider some cooling alternatives if I am to run this hard in the triple digit summer heat or pull a trailer.
The parts I picked up on the way were good. The two hoods are, or at least appear straight with mostly surface rust. They are OEM 69-72 hoods. One a GMC, one Chevy. Each have very minor dimple type dings that with my very limited body work experience/knowledge should not be too much to handle. The aux tank Tim gave me, appears to be in decent shape. I will not know for sure until I get inside it. I’ll need to rework a sender hole, redo the filler neck and put in a return port. The bones are good and it will make for a great setup with over 600 mile range for the truck.
All in all, a great Saturday.