My Electric Truck

Please don't get the ides I think I have the total solution or am so intellegent I read the long post on what killed the electric car and some indicated an interest i building their own. Possibly my experence will help some and be down right funney to others. Firdt I enjoy agricultural events but tire out after a couple of hours. Therefor my first effort was a massey ferguson lawn tractor from which the engine was missing. I cut the main frame dropped the platform to 5 inches above ground making a place for my size 16 feet. A new bench seat gave room for 2 adults. for power I took a 454 chev armature bushed one ent and cut down the other so generator bearing ends would fit. A starter housing from a 4 cy chev had much smaller fiedl windings and fit the bearing end plates b=housing the armature. This with a one and one half sheev on the so calles Electric Motor dieves the massey trans axel with a driver 5 inch sheev. Seems to work well for me as it hae 3 speeds and reverse. starting in 3rd is no problen as dc electric has as much tork at 2 rpm as at 2000 rpm. On to bigger and better or cheaper as some who know me will testify. I always wanted a cheap running electric pick=up. Findinf a ford ranger diesel (having heaver front supension) for $100.00 with diesel being dead with head problems I brough it home. Diesel parts apparenty are hard to find for this model as my negibor practily followed me in the drive and offered $150.00 for the dead diesel for parts. I reuctenly agreed only if he would take it out. I purchased an electrig fork lift from a junk yard,hoping the motor newely painted was good and had a usable controller. well one out of 2 isn's bad . I was able to find an allis chalmers fellow who worked with an allis engeneer who had been on the desigh team. He said junk the controller as it was junk when allis put it out being one of the first solid state efforts at controllers. The motor ws coupled directly (no clutch)to a chev 3 speed transmission. Always use a heaver transmission as the electric torque will shuck the transmission generely designer for the size vehicle you would choose. Yes I can so to speak lay a patch of rubber on take off in all 3 gears but it sure killes the batteries. The forklift moton has an intrtnal 21 spline shaft. A pary from a 5020Jd internal transmission had the proper shaft and long enoughth also install a 21 spline hub from baun iron. My racing nephew donated an older burk hub racers use that fits cheverolet transmissions. Mounting plates were made for the front and rear of the motor and secured to the ranger frame. drive shaft machined to fit ford differental and chevrolet output shaft. The home made controller was 3 solonids from the fork lift at 36 volt activated by micro switches on a sliding piece of key stock with raised cams ridges in an oak wood block . The slidin key stock was attached to the accelator pedal. Use golf cart bateries (8 of them) giving 48 volts was not enough. My niece's husband manages a cell phone tower syster and had 48 12 volt batteries on a pallet hw was going to have to pay to get rid of In testing them I found 14 having just over 10 volts. (If a battery dosent's have 10 volts its jusk!!!!) they were low amp batteries but parrelled in groups of 4 then in series I went to 60 volts total. This gave acceptable. power Range is about12 miles with rest 12 miles back. Knowing this post is long if anybody is interested I would further discuss other changes to be made and problems to over come [email protected]

Lets have a pic of this baby!!!!!!

pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will try to find some however it was in the farm show mag some time back in the regular issus and the featured issue

Thanks for taking the time to make the post. It is always interesting to learn of knowledgeable backyard tinkerers taking the bull by the horns to produce something anew.

Best wishes for continued success.

That is great! I was thinking about doing the same thing for my old school bus that was on the farm for years. Just need it to go 8 to 10 miles at a time to town. What kind of hp were you looking at for the electric motor?

Maybe GM should hire you, they seem to be in need of some ingenuity.