I got a new rear battery box and side panels from Keith. I got the rear
battery box first because his is a little taller to clear the threaded
battery posts and when I saw that I decided to buy the new side panels
too.
I had some work done on my frame by a local welder and it was so
expensive that really Keith's panels make economical sense too. At $40 an
hour I think it would have cost me more to get the rust repaired properly
then to buy the new ones.
As far as paint, I started priming most everything with rattle cans, but i
got tired of that and bought quarts of paint to brush on, much cheaper.
I'll be doing POR-15 on the inside and brush on rustoleum yellow on the
outside. It's very hard to build up any thickness of paint with rattle
cans without lots of cans and lots of coats.
When/if I ever finish my tractor it won't be a show tractor, but hopefully
I won't have the rust issues.
Jeff Tickner
Technical Support
800-545-9485, Ext 536
SoftLanding Systems
Michael S Briggs <msbriggs alberti unh edu>
Sent by: elec-trak-bounces cosmos phy tufts edu
06/06/2006 10:45 AM
To
elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
cc
Subject
(ET) refinishing my "new" E15
I'm going to be restoring and refinishing an E15 that I bought last week
from a list member (thanks again Bill). The first job will be stripping
the paint off and repainting everything - and also deciding what I want to
do about the battery boxes (as is apparently common with most of these,
there's a good bit of rusting around the battery areas, and a few holes in
the sides of the boxes (well, side of the rear battery box, and the side
panels on the front).
I'll be removing the fenders (picked up a spot
weld
removal tool yesterday) to get better access to everything, and allow me
to remove the rear battery box. I'll probably also take the wheels off to
get around there better.
We have a machine shop here at work with a sheet metal
bender and
cutter, so I'm pondering making myself some nice shiny new boxes (and side
panels) - assuming I can find steel sheet metal somewhere (I've always in
the past only made things to use at work, so used sheet metal stock here -
never bought my own sheet metal for making something, so I'm not sure
where to get it).
If that proves to be too complicated, I may fix the old
ones with
bondo (not as desirable though). I've stripped some of the paint so far
just by sanding and scraping it off, but that's a rather slow process.
Apparently sand blasting is popular on the list, but I don't want to
invest in an air compressor just for that - so I'm going to try a chemical
paint stripper this weekend. After I get the paint stripped, I'll sand
down the rusted spots some more (with the power drill and sanding disk),
then apply POR-15 to much of the tractor - especially the frame
underneath, the battery boxes, and the underside of the mower deck. Then
on goes primer (except for the frame, battery boxes, and underside of the
deck, to retain the slippery POR-15 surface), then paint. Right now I'm
leaning towards a non-original color - either a blue or purple. It will be
a week or so before I get to that stage, so I'm not bothering to decide
yet.
Once everything is nicely painted and reassembled
(fenders,
battery box, etc.), I'll move on to trying to get her working - putting in
the T-105s (slightly used) I picked up, making some new battery cables (I
want to go with 4 gauge, since I'll be using Gator Blades which will
apparently mean a higher current draw, so the thicker the wire the
better), putting the motors in the mower deck and attaching the Gator
Blades, etc. etc..
So, I'll probably have a good deal of questions over the
next two
weeks or so. I've searched the archives a good bit for info on painting,
so I think I'm prepared for that. If anyone has any tips on getting the
paint off (short of sand blasting), cleaning the gunk off the underside
and underneath the mower deck, etc., please feel free to share it with me.
:)
Thanks,
Mike
E15 in progress