(ET) E15 welding adventure continues, I will be a welding god someday

[Chris Zach <cz alembic crystel com>]

Someday, but not today.

This morning I spent a few hours working on the E15. Plan was to figure 
out how to weld 1.5 inch angle iron to the side of the tractor so I 
could mount the transmission since the original mount was a rotted joke.

Well, the big problem is the Elec-trak's transmission mounts are *not* 
flat. No, they are at an angle with respect to the ground and the frame 
of course. So welding angle iron would have to be done in a way that 
would leave a 1 inch slope between the rear of the running boards and 
the back.

Nope. So I did about 1/2 an inch, which gave me enough metal to weld to. 
Then blazed away for an hour. My welds are not good, but at least I'm 
not blowing smoking holes in the frame. Improvement.

Noted: After awhile I noticed my stick was sticking to the metal. Big 
pain, I lost the ability to make a weld puddle. So after thinking about 
it (and having to turn off the contactor since I could not unstick the 
stupid stick) I realized my nicd batteries were probably low. Put it on 
charge, suddenly I could strike and hold a nice arc.

Getting there. At this point the angle iron is on the outside of the 
frame, and it seems to be holding. Now what I will do is cut a notch in 
another piece of iron around the transmission mount, then weld that to 
the inside iron and the outside iron. The result will be a box 
formation, welded to what's left of the frame, and welded to itself in a 
box. That should result in an indestructable mount.

Now the problem: The transmission mount doesn't slope right. Worse, I 
noticed a crack in the rear of the transmission mount ear. Tapped it and 
a corner of the mount broke off.

Great. What a complete and utter mess. I'm glad I didn't buy a box or a 
frame or a .... yet :-) Now I need to weld a new block to the 
transmission mount, then bolt that to this new angle iron.

On the bright side, I'm learning to weld. And this could solve my 
problem of how to angle the transmission; this inter-adapter could be 
sloped to fit the new frame. I think when I am done I am going to wind 
up with a franken-tractor.

But on the bright side at least it's sitting on all mounts and not 
sagging. I was able to jump up and down on the very back with no 
problems, and given that I am 250 pounds, it's probably pretty solid-ish.

All this has given me enough hope to plan to POR15 the *front* of the 
frame and paint that. Then I should have a tractor ready for the winter. 
If I can figure out this transmission mount thing I could get the motor 
on it before winter hits then continue fiddling with it in the spring.

Never dull.
C