PALMER -- Mel Langdon's 1985 Toyota Tercel got a new lease on life Sunday when, after 21 hours of work, University of Alaska Fairbanks undergraduate Michael Golub turned the key on a new electric motor.

The beige Tercel, with the hood missing to allow easier access to the engine compartment, zipped around the UAF Experimental Farm property on Trunk Road under a bright sun. The only sounds were the crunching of tires on gravel and a faint whirring.

Langdon's car, purchased new in Denver 24 years ago, had been sidelined for a year after a long life that included a 1994 drive up the Alaska Highway. The battery was dead, Langdon said, and it had a host of other problems, including engine trouble.

"I can't drive it in Anchorage. I would have had to replace it (the motor) with a new gas engine," she said.

Langdon, a civil engineer for the Municipality of Anchorage, said she met Golub at a renewable energy fair last year and was intrigued by his presentation about converting gas-powered cars to electric. She offered her car as a guinea pig.

"I like the idea of trying an electric car, kind of showing that these things could be done. I had a car that would have been on a junk heap anyway," she said.

Golub is a mechanical engineering student in Fairbanks who taught himself the process on his 1986 Toyota pickup. He has recently been teaching others how to strip down gas-powered cars and install rechargeable battery banks and an electric motor.

"I always make the joke that I take perfectly running cars and kill them," he said in an interview before the class.

The Tercel was Golub's ninth attempt at converting a gas-powered vehicle to run on electricity.

It wasn't that different than the Subarus or even the 2004 Arctic Cat F7 snowmachine he and four other UAF students converted for the Clean Snowmobile Challenge, a yearly contest run by the Society of Automotive Engineering at Michigan Tech University.

The process is roughly the same each time: Strip out the gasoline engine, fuel tank, radiator, power steering, starter and other components and replace them with an electric motor, battery bank, breaker box, connecting wires and meters to monitor the new setup.

Kits for converting vehicles to electric abound online for around $10,000. Golub, a penny-pinching college student, said the conversion can be done at half that price if you know what components you need and are a skilled eBay shopper. The materials for Langdon's car, which she paid for, rang in at about $5,000, he said.

Golub said the cost depends on what someone plans to do with the vehicle. The Tercel might run for as long as an hour before needing a 4.5-hour recharge, he said.

Add more batteries and the distance increases, although batteries increase both cost and weight. Langdon's car is powered by 19 yellow lithium iron phosphate batteries wired together.

The range depends on battery life but also on how many times the vehicle must stop or how many hills it must climb. Converted cars might be ideal for rural Alaska communities, where distance and stoplights aren't a big concern.

Golub and UAF Bristol Bay professor Todd Radenbaugh are writing a research proposal that examines whether converting cars from community landfills into electric vehicles and building charging stations would be useful for rural Alaska residents.

Langdon said she plans to use the car to run around Anchorage and occasionally to haul things. The car won't last for a drive to Seward, or up the steep drive to Flattop for a hike.

Engine compartments are designed around gasoline engines, not electric motors and multiple batteries, so with every car there are a few hiccups.

On the Tercel, the group had trouble aligning the transmission with the motor and a coupler between the two had to be machined to fit correctly.

"Luckily they're not paying us by the hour," joked Mike Elmer, a mechanical engineer who works for CH2M Hill.

He and seven others paid $137 to take the weekend course.

Elmer said he's interested in converting an electric car on his own. He said he feels more confident about taking the project on after working on the Tercel.

"It's a good learning experience. There's a lot more to it than I expected," he said.

Contact Michael Golub at fourak@gmail.com for more information about upcoming electric car conversion classes.

Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at adn.com/contact/rwhite or call her at 352-6709.

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