I've had many of those Fords. Even a yellow 1976 1/2 ton... although it was 4WD and had a big block. And I carried a 10-foot camper and towed a boat with it, with nothing but some helper springs, bigger tires and Rancho shocks.
Those are great trucks, reliable, well built, easy to work on, and nowadays they're cheap.
The one thing you mentioned that I'm telling you right now it won't do is get good mileage.
That's why I always ended up running big blocks... it's gonna get rotten mileage anyway, so you might as well have torque.
I'd probably still be driving one of those if they existed as a 4x4 crew cab dually.
I was going to build one, but I've gotten tired of doing everything the hard way.
