DIY electric truck & starting aeromods

[MPGsteward]

Thought I would start a thread on my truck to get some ideas for aeromods. Been driving this truck for over a year now & love it.

mods completed so far are of course the electric conversion, air dam, debadged, antenna delete, passenger mirror delete, a/c delete, spare tire delete, and lowered.

[MPGsteward]

Put on smooth wheel covers today. $5 pizza pans from walmart. used hard drive rare earth magnets to hold them on.
next i plan to block off the entire grille since there is no need for that air whatsoever.

[Daox]

Very nice. What kind of range do you have?

[MetroMPG]

Nice going so far. Do you track your energy consumption as well?

Any plans to aeromod the bed?

[MPGsteward]

i built this battery pack just to commute to work and back. So I chose to run 18 batteries for 108 volts total. The truck can go up to 60 miles in town, but that is using tremendous hypermiling skills & avoiding traffic/highway speeds. I dont usually go over 30 miles between charges so I cannot say the exact range & havent calculated.
Havent noticed any changes in my electric bill. ballpark figures show $0.25 or less to charge, but then again I am only driving 20 to 30 miles a day usually.
I have been reading posts on bed mods & would like to, but still doing research. Been collecting aluminum angle to possibly build a angled bed topper.

[MPGsteward]

Update on the smooth wheel covers. I got the idea from someone on the forum to attach them with hard drive magnets. Since I recycle hard drives & have a bunch I thought I would give it a try. It took like 10 minutes to install. they are super strong magnets, but it did not work out. All of them fit really well except one. I tried it out at 35 mph on a backroad and it came off. It might work with more magnets, but i think I am going to roll with some bolts for security.

[MPGsteward]

Deleted my windshield wipers today & store them inside the truck in case I ever get caught out in the rain. I try & avoid driving in the rain, but occasionally it happens. Never had any problems with rain, but try & avoid long term corrosion from things getting wet.
Easy to remove & if your not using them you might as well. Besides creating drag it does cost you money to leave them on. The sun & other elements eat away the rubber & cause you to have to replace them more frequently. If you store them inside until it rains you will proabably not have to replace for years & years. however if you live in Oregon or Washington ignore everything I wrote.

[Daox]

Do you have an evalbum page or can you list all the parts you used? Looks like you went with high quality stuff, with the zilla and a warp 9 with trojan batteries. What else is under the hood (or bed)?

[Flakbadger]

Originally Posted by MPGsteward

If you store them inside until it rains you will proabably not have to replace for years & years. however if you live in Oregon or Washington ignore everything I wrote.

As someone who lives in Oregon, I will definitely ignore that. Haha.

Just wanted to say I saw both of your threads this morning, and your mods look really good. This electric truck looks amazing--the engine bay especially. And I dig the battery mount location. Puts the weight in the rear of the vehicle where it should be. Too bad you have to worry about corrosion, I'm sure it would be amazing in the snow.

[MPGsteward]

I do have an ev album page. Not much else to list: Iota dc/dc converter, energizer 12v deep cycle battery for accessories, canadian ev adapter plate on original manual transmission, manzanita pf 20 charger, 18 trojan flooded wet cell 6volt deep cycle golf cart batteries ran in series, 0/0 copper welding wire connecting batteries, helper springs, coil over shock absorber in rear (sensatrac).
Going with top notch components will add reliability to your EV conversion. This truck has been super reliable.
I use to have the batteries in the bed. welded up some battery cages underneath and the truck now handles better. the center of gravity was improved.
Corrosion hasnt been too bad, and i have driven in the rain several times. I mainly just want the welds in the battery cages to last as long as possible before I have to repair. It will be a lot of work removing batteries to repair welds. You have to remove batteries if you need to weld because the metal gets so hot it will melt the battery cases.