(ET) E10 motor problems

[Chip Gribben <futurev radix net>]

Just an update on the E10 I'm working on for Albert Nunez,

This is the tractor that has the bad motor, the charger had been  
bypassed with an Ez-Go golf cart charger, the batteries are flat and  
the rear tire keeps going flat. Several people on the list helped out  
with some ideas so I'd like to thank everyone for their help.

I did pull the motor, took it apart and sent it out to Jim Husted,  
hoping he could rebuild it. Jim said the field winding was fried and  
it would cost about $250 to $300 to rewind the armature. So I opted  
to get a rebuilt motor from Harold.

While the new motor was on its way I pulled out the charger.  At some  
point during this tractor's life someone had done away with the  
timer, installed a switch in it's place and rigged up an EZ-go golf  
cart electronic charger. The original diodes were disconnected and  
replaced by a different type of diode from what it looks like.

Albert had mentioned the charger wasn't working so I decided to take  
the whole thing out while the motor was out. Apparently there was a  
small fire at the connector that goes to the primary transformer. Two  
of the wire were charred and the connector was melted.

But the old charger itself looked good. I checked the service manual  
wiring diagrams, traced and labeled all the wires and roughly rewired  
it back together again, skipping the timer portion and bypassing the  
burnt wiring harness with some scrap wiring. I plugged it in and the  
old charger was humming along great. I got a reading of 41 volts dc  
out which was good news. So I roughly rigged up the new batteries to  
the charger and plugged it in it was charging great getting a reading  
of about 43 volts.

So what I plan to do is clean up the charger, reconstruct the wiring  
harness with new connectors and wiring and get a new timer from  
Harold and get it going to its original condition.

I still need to install the rebuilt motor. But since the charger and  
motor are out of the tractor I'm going to clean everything up before  
putting it back together.

I think there is still some hope left. Albert has been sending money  
as I need it to get it going again. So hopefully by next weekend I  
can try it out. There is still the issue with the slow leak in the  
rear tire.

My E-8 needs work as well. The brake rod broke so I'm going to make a  
new one. And I bought a fresh set of batteries for it when I bought  
the new ones for the E-10 so I'm going to to try to get that going  
again this weekend.

Thanks for the help

Chip Gribben