A week or so ago, I mentioned that I was still fiddling with my recently
restored 72B in hopes of improving its poor gas mileage. It was running at
12 mpg but various tweakings brought it up to maybe 17-18 mpg. I figured it
should be more like 21-22 for almost all city driving. I finally figured
out the problem - solved yes, but not fixed yet.
About the only thing I had left to check was the centrifigal and vacuum
advance functions on the distributer. That checked out and I adjusted the
timing again as it was off a few degrees. Car was still running and
starting very well. Since I had to take my son to work and that involved a
small portion of interstate driving, I thought perhaps I should check
odometer accuracy against the mile markers. And sure enough I went one mile
marker with the odometer registering .8 miles, three miles registered at
2.4. Speed seemed fine as traffic was moving at a reading of 65mph which
was the speed limit (but then this is Montana so it could be reading 20%
low and people were really driving more like 75-78 mph just as well). So in
short, if my mileage readings are low by 20%, then my miles per gallon
calculations are also off and I really am getting a more reasonable low 20s
for mpg (US gallons).
So now I have to figure out how to get a more accurate speedometer. The
present one runs steady except between maybe 40-50 mph it tends to bounce
plus or minus 10 mph. Naturally I have several spare speedos although I'm
not sure how steady or accurate they are since they haven't been used for a
few years or longer. The one in the car is a s/n 5230/065 1280 that I think
came with the car. I also have a 5231/04 1280 and a s/n 5230/13 1000 in my
garage on the shelf. The 72B does have o/d and runs 175/70R-14 tires. Which
speedo would be best? And the best place to have one serviced? My hand is
not looking forward to pulling out the present speedometer so if I replace
it, I'd probably want to put in one thats tested and ready to work.
David Councill
67 BGT
72 B
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