Re: (ET) Clay & Cannibalizing machines, etc

["John B Reinhard" <reinharj frontiernet net>]

Clay, and group,

My 3 complete machines (E-15 & E-20's) are all original, but all not
working.
I took apart the E-12 to fix the others, because the E-12 had a single 
drive
motor to transmission pully, where the E-15 and E-20's had dual drive 
belts.
The belt on the E-12 slipped while trying to drive the tractor up a steep
hill.
The E-15 had bad tires, contactors, relays, sheet metal, etc.
Parts from Bill would have cost hundreds of $$.
I paid about $75 for the E-12, years ago.
SO, to me, the cannibalization was an obvious financial decision.

So, my other machines all still have original GE parts.
And, one machine is 'gone' (actually, pieces still lying around).

The 'prettiest' (& newest) E-20 has a transmission that sticks severly in
one gear.
The other one has a steering gear with so much play that the gears slip 
when
snowblower is mounted.
(So I plan to cannibalize 3 machines to make 1 good E-20 ! - & make 1 good
mower deck out of 3)

It is kinda funny to me that you want to keep an 'All GE' tractor running,
but you criticize cannibalizing.
I recently learned through this forum that many of Bill's parts are newly
made & therefore not original GE.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <clay northsuburbs com>
To: <elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu>
Sent: Saturday, June 12, 2004 1:33 PM
Subject: (ET) consulting Bill


Actually what started me on this was two fold...a lot a people talking
about the bleak future of our Elec-Traks and my phone call to Bill where he
basically accused most of his customers (us) of being cheap and using him
for his knowledge, but then buying it for a dime less somewhere local.

I on the other hand, would pay twice his price to get what I need from him,
as opposed to starting to cannabolize other machines to keep mine running
(that will definitely be the end of Elec-Traks).

I thought that there were more of me in the ranks (wanting to maintain a
classic, while still efficiently cutting my lawn).  I now think that we
(originals) are in the minority, or at least not speaking up very much.