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Re: (ET) Fall, blowers, and load bearing rust....
Hi Folks,
I'm new to the list but not to ET. I was introduced to ET in 1986 at an
auto electric shop in Portland OR where we used an ET to move disabled
cars around the lot.
Fast forward to central Maine, fall of 2025, when I mentioned my interest
in ET to a younger friend. He said he had one, had been kicking around for
a while and he would never get to it....."it's yours if you can find it".
I pulled it out of the pucker brush, along with a snow thrower and a mower
and they sat at my place till last June.
I pulled the motors from the mower and tractor, an E-12, went thru them
replacing bearings and brushes. The tractor motor had me somewhat confused
since I had never run across something with such small field coil leads.
The motor controls were a complete loss so I replaced those with a more
modern unit, a knock off of the curtis 1204 and a sw 202 reversing
contactor. That was familiar equipment. Couldn't get the ET motor to
function with the curtis controller so replaced the motor with a Advanced
4009 motor. I built up 3, 36v 40 Amp lithium ion batteries from LG Chem
cells I had on hand and connected those in parallel under the seat. One of
the mower motors had a magnet come loose fairly quickly. JB weld repaired
that! The sheet metal around the bottoms of the battery cases is pretty
well rusted out. With help Clean Power Supply, replaced the blades and
mounting hardware.
I used it to mow about an acre of overgrown grass and clean up the sheep
pastures. Worked great! With an onboard charge controller, I can keep the
batteries charged directly from my PV panels. I'll take on the frozen up
snow thrower motor as time permits.
I've appreciated the maintenance and repair tips I have seen on the list.
Thanks for being out there.
John M
"Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around
encouraging young things to grow." Thornton Wilder (via Jim Hightower)
Oct 31, 2026, 5:38 PM by elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu:
> Well, it's fall and the mighty E-20 has been reconfigured into a massive
> leaf vacuum. This year I got the deck replaced with my last new shell,
> and it's been working great.
>
> So I hooked up the new(er) vacuum blower and got myself to work. First I
> drilled some holes and mounted a golf cart contactor on the blower so I
> could turn it on and off using the signal wire from the mower deck
> contactor. I used to have this on the old blower, but the kid threw that
> out by accident, so I modified this one and now it's working great!
>
> Running the tractor, blower, and deck is a lot of power, but it does
> pick up the leaves well and turns them into seriously shredded stuff. I
> got a new 10 foot section of flexible tubing as the old stuff was rock
> hard and flat in places. Pretty cheap on Amazon, clear so I can see
> clogs, and quite flexible.
>
> I'm using the rusted elec-trak trailer to hold the leaf bag, that works
> but I backed it into a tree and freed the tailgate from the rear of the
> trailer. It had been rusted to the floor panel and when it broke free I
> was thinking "oh dear, that is LOAD BEARING rust..." but it turns out
> there are two large frame box girders under there so all will be well.
>
> I drilled two holes in the Deere seat mounting side so I could use zit
> ties and hose clamps to hold the hose on the rear fender, over the
> wheel. This keeps the hose from dragging on the ground and also away
> from the rear wheels and chains.
>
> Wile mowing I found that the lift strap had broken. Not a big issue, I
> have a spare, however the wire clamp had frozen to the shaft and I
> realized it's been about 25 years since I last replaced it. So I took
> the whole lift apart and found that the shaft had literally rotted under
> the strap and it's pretty much shot. The most annoying thing is that the
> cotter pins that hold the side guides had also rotted, and it is
> impossible to drill/tap them out.
>
> I finally gave up and swapped a spare lift onto the tractor to get going
> again. But yeah these things are starting to be consumable after 50+
> years.
>
> Everything's done, tractor is charging away, tomorrow I may mount the
> dozer blade on the other tractor and start working on moving the dirt
> and junk out of the driveway gutters. Nice to have the tractors, they do
> their jobs well.....
>
> How is everyone else doing?
>
> Chris
>
>
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