Re: (ET) E15 with broken back. *sigh*

[David Harvey <davharv yahoo com>]

I had that happen to two of my E-15, it's a weak spot in the frame where the wires go to the back box, then with some rust and a bit of abuse it bends, if worse comes to worse, frames are floating around, I still have two left here in Maine and might be able to bring it to Salisbury, MD at somepoint, if needed, I recall you're not too far from there.  Or you could go wild and make a new frame that has a CAT1 on the back and a blower motor and gear for PTO. then you could use other implaments.

--- On Wed, 9/8/10, Chris Zach <cz alembic crystel com> wrote:

From: Chris Zach <cz alembic crystel com>
Subject: Re: (ET) E15 with broken back. *sigh*
To: "Max Hall" <mhall maxmatic com>
Cc: elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
Date: Wednesday, September 8, 2010, 5:25 PM

On 9/8/2010 6:05 PM, Max Hall wrote:
> I broke the back of one of my E15s a few years back hauling a boiler out
> of a neighbors basement. I limped it home, (my bother and I stood on the
> deck to maintain drive belt tension!) loosened the drive belts,
> straightened it up, wirebrushed (and kissed it with the angle grinder in
> a few places) and welded some 1" angle steel along the lower edge of
> both sides... not a continuous bead, but just a nice connection every 3"
> or so. Then applied some lovely rusty metal primer, snugged the belts
> back up, and got back to work.
>
> The top of the tractor deck is likely strong enough... all you have to
> do is beef up the lower edges of that same stamped part... a few holes
> in the vertical surface, or even scallops out of the bottom edge, won't
> matter with fresh steel in place. Good for another 40 years.

Hm. That's a possibility; I do have the geeenuine elec-trak welder, and a working E20, and if I blow holes in 1 inch angle iron I *really* need help....

So maybe I'll rip off what's left of the box this weekend, flip the tractor over, and see what's left down there. Then if it looks possible go over to Home Despot and grab a pair of angle irons. Maybe I should just get 6 foot ones and go the whole length of the tractor...

Ultimately this E15 could become the "snowblower" or something like that freeing up the E20 to live it's life happily in the shed. And maybe put a little placard saying "note: Don't put an Elec-trak bucket loader on this tractor" or something.

Chris

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