Re: (ET) Bill

[Graham Allan <allan physics umn edu>]

On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 09:38:45PM +0000, Dean A. Stuckmann wrote:
> 
> I'm curious, what have people needed to keep these machines going? How 
> many
> of us bought parts from Bill in the last 2 years? What was bought and 
> what
> was the value of the sales? For me, over the last 24 years I've gone 
> through
> a rusted deck, mower motor bearings, 2 mower motors, a timer, and a 
> traction
> motor. Again, with the exception of the motor bearings, I had these 
> parts in
> "stock".

One category (which may not be large, but I fall into it) is new
owners. I got my ET about a year ago (Keith Stieg found it for me in
Wisconsin). It hadn't been used for a few years, and a few parts were
missing; also a few "creative" repairs by the previous owner. There
were no serious problems, but I can't imagine how hard it would have
been to get it running again without Bill. I replaced the main circuit
board, disconnect switch, drive belts, mounting brackets for the deck
(those are probably always missing on "found" ETs), new caster yokes to
replace the bent ones on the deck... stuff like that. Also got a new
rear tire from Bill - his price was pretty close to what I'd pay
locally; buying from him seems like the least I can do after the hours
he spent advising me on the phone. So I'm not sure how much I spent
with him last year, maybe $300-400 or so, which isn't a whole lot. I
need a few more minor parts and would like to get a snow blade (and I
might have bought that from Bill already, if I knew whether he had them
and what the price was).

I'm not completely resourceless, and if Bill weren't there it probably
would have been possible to fix things up. But would I have got over
the hurdle of spending the time and effort? I'm not so sure... I think
my ET is wonderful, but I have lots of other projects to soak up my
time as well.

I don't know if Clay's idea will work, but it seems worth a try -
better than just sitting back and talking about it.

Graham