(ET) E15 status, tough shifting

[CZ <cz alembic crystel com>]

So today I dug the E15 out and did some work on it. This is the one that 
was hopelessly abused in the past, where I bought it along with a good 
deck shell. The one that was buried in leaves for a decade so the entire 
back corner of the frame was rotted and the transmission was not 
connected to anything.

After clearing off the majority of the rust and buying a new rear 
battery box and welding angle iron onto what was left of the frame and 
rebuilding the controls and all that I had a fairly good donkey tractor 
with 30 BB600 cells in the front. However last fall the front tire blew 
up, so it has been down for the winter.

New tire for $50 mounted and it's back. However the speed 3 doesn't work 
(bad contactor, bypassed for now, need to buy one) and oddly enough the 
tractor does not shift into the high gears. The low ones work but it 
feels like something is stopping the high gears. Maybe it doesn't have 
any oil in the transaxle, I'll check that but any other ideas?

Poor little thing. It is at this point an experiment into how bad an 
Elec trak can get and still be fully running.