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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Elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
https://cosmos.phy.tufts.edu/mailman/listinfo/elec-trak