'62 Dodge D-100 'aero-back' concept

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by freebeard

What might have been. Ah, well. Would the whole thing lift off the truck frame in one piece?

gumby79 -- There's also basalt fiber now. It's less brittle and expensive than carbon fiber.

As long as the attachment hardware isn't concealed by the pods,the answer is yes.

[aerohead]

I have it at home,but I never got it scanned for PhotoBucket.
I recall that the roofline was a 'fail',as far as it's down-slope contour.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Are you somewhat likely to restart this project?

I think I'm gonna dig the D-100 out one day and just put it on Craig's List 'n get rid of it.If I had Jay Leno's income I'd reconsider,but the Texas climate just eats vehicles that sit for any length of time.You need a climate-controlled storage situation to preserve anything around here.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by kach22i

That sounds like a good method for making multiple copies, but if interested in a "One-Off" could one use fan-fold insulation over the plywood forms and then cover it all in fiberglass cloth and epoxy resin?

The plywood (serial model) bucks would have to be trimmed down all around for the thickness of the composite assembly.

Looks like a lot of work went into this project.

Thank you for sharing.

Yes,you could do it,but the bulkheads you see are already at the net dimension,so all of them would have to be shaved down by the thickness of the foam or she'd be 'pregnant'.
For what I have,dowels would be placed into the bulkheads,then expanded metal lath wired on to form an armature,to which the tooling plaster would be applied with splines and struck to the net contour.
bondo would use professional thermo-set modelling clay.
Orange shellac would seal it for primer and topcoat,then color-sanding and filling until an OEM surface was achieved.Maybe 1,000 man-hours.You'd really want to do it!
Rutan just uses blue foam and epoxy-composite skin.They must pay great attention to the exterior surface.

[crashnzuk]

Cool truck. I have a 71 d100 with a 318, close ratio truck 4 speed (np445), and 2.76 gears. With the stock bed, it did 16 and change on the interstate going 70+ from Sac to Idaho. I have since installed a flatbed after someone creamed the side of the stock on when parked on the street. I have been wanting to build an rudimentary aerocap for it for quite a while. The bed is exactly cab width and would be easy to skirt. Seeing this truck really rekindles my thoughts about this. I absolutely love the 71, it's my favorite truck of all that I've had. It isn't terribly powerful, but it's got good top speed and is a hoot to bomb around in.
Travis..

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by crashnzuk

Cool truck. I have a 71 d100 with a 318, close ratio truck 4 speed (np445), and 2.76 gears. With the stock bed, it did 16 and change on the interstate going 70+ from Sac to Idaho. I have since installed a flatbed after someone creamed the side of the stock on when parked on the street. I have been wanting to build an rudimentary aerocap for it for quite a while. The bed is exactly cab width and would be easy to skirt. Seeing this truck really rekindles my thoughts about this. I absolutely love the 71, it's my favorite truck of all that I've had. It isn't terribly powerful, but it's got good top speed and is a hoot to bomb around in.
Travis..

I tested the '62 without the bed and lost 2-mpg and actually overheated the engine.
The 4-speed,3:50 axle, aero kit,and aeroshell got me to 21.5 mpg at 65-mph(originally,with 4:56 rear axle the truck got 11-mpg at 55-mph).
South of White Sands National Monument I pushed it up to an indicated 95-mph with the weak six-banger.
I think you'd like what a shell could do for the '71.