CLEAN, QUIET CONVERSIONS.

Byline: Bill Bishop The Register-Guard

Pop the hood on Scott Ankeny's 1986 Toyota pickup truck and you will find a quiet revolution.

The truck's electric motor spins in silence.

And while General Motors and Ford scramble to develop all-electric vehicles for a growing market of environmentally sensitive drivers, hobbyists such as Ankeny already are building the technology of future cars.

As many as 5,000 do-it-yourselfers around the country have "recycled" their vehicles, doing away with a fuel-burning engine and going totally electric, says Bob Batson, who founded Electric Vehicles of America 20 years ago.

Interest is growing as gas prices climb and more people go looking for ways to reduce their impact on the environment, he says.

Ankeny believes people can make a difference with their personal lifestyle choices, even though the planet's environmental problems may seem insurmountable.

"The monster is the way it is. Nothing I can do about it. But there's no law against me converting my truck. I couldn't believe it was so simple," says Ankeny, 42, who is a vehicle mechanic at Wagon Works in Eugene. "It's all common materials. Nothing is special. Anybody could build one of these."

It helps if you know how to weld, a skill that Ankeny taught to Sue McLeod so she could help him install an electric motor from Batson's company in her 1994 Toyota pickup truck and work on some future conversions with Ankeny.

"I'm a typical American; I like to have my independence, and I don't want to be inconvenienced," McLeod says.

After she decided to decrease her contribution to global pollution, McLeod tried the usual things - riding the bus or her bike. But that meant a long round trip from west Eugene to Springfield every day for her job at Weyerhaeuser.

"With the batteries' 50-mile range, I can really do all the things I like to do around Eugene. And it is super quiet," McLeod says.

Ankeny has driven his truck the daily 26-mile round trip to work from his home off River Road since July 2, a total of 4,000 miles, without a single malfunction. He also drove it in the Eugene Celebration Parade in September.

With so few moving parts, there's not much to break. He just plugs the truck into his home's electric circuit every night and adds water to the 24 six-volt lead batteries every two months.

The cost of charging an electric vehicle varies, depending on the cost of power. Ankeny's home has solar panels that produce surplus energy for the grid. Generally, an overnight charge costs $2 to $4, according to industry Web sites.

Unless they are charged from solar cells, electric vehicles aren't entirely clean because power plants pollute. However, advocates point out that pollution is easier to control at a power plant than at the ends of thousands of tailpipes.

To build his truck, Ankeny first had a scrap yard remove the engine, cooling and exhaust systems and gas tank. The yard kept the parts and charged Ankeny nothing for the work.

Next, Ankeny fabricated metal baskets to hold 17 of the batteries between the rails of the chassis beneath the truck bed. A local suspension shop added one extra leaf to each rear spring to support the added weight. Ankeny put the bed on a hinge for easy access to batteries.

The other seven batteries are installed under the hood. All are connected in series to produce 144 volts of direct current to power the electric motor, which cranks out a peak of 100 horsepower.

The current is regulated by a controller that is linked to the gas pedal. A voltage converter charges a standard 12-volt battery that powers the truck's headlights, stereo and heater fan.

An electric heating element replaces the conventional heater core and provides instant warmth when turned on.

Another electrical system generates boost for the power brakes. Ankeny finds that power steering isn't needed if the truck has wide, low-profile tires.

The motor is bolted to the standard manual transmission, which generates the only mechanical noise the truck makes in motion.

One gauge on the dashboard shows the level of charge remaining in the batteries. Another shows the amount of current being used. The driver watches the current gauge like a tachometer, selecting the gear that draws the least current at the speed being driven.

Weighing 4,320 pounds, the truck drives like a conventional pickup truck carrying a load in the bed, Ankeny says. Top speed is 70 mph.

How far an electric vehicle can travel on a charge depends on speed, driving style and load.

After the experience of building a few, Ankeny thinks he'll be able to suggest a motor/battery package to fit the driver's needs.

But he's not really interested in starting a business building electric vehicles.

"I want to build lots of them, and teach other people," he says. "That way, more people will start getting involved, people will start getting together to build these things. It's not really a business I'm looking to start. It's a process."

Information and advice for electric vehicle conversion is widely available on the Internet, he says.

Drivers can expect to spend $10,000 to $15,000 to convert a pickup truck, depending on the cost of the rig, the motor size and battery quantity, and the amount of sweat equity they can put into the project, Ankeny says.

Batson's company sells electric conversion kits that cost $3,100 to $6,500 for a variety of vehicle types. The cost does not include batteries, which add about $2,000 to the total.

"We sell to a lot of high schools," Batson says.

"I like to say if you know positive from negative, you can do this. We walk people through it."