Greetings Elec-Trakkers,
I have been lurking for at least a decade, but finally acquired a tractor this week, thanks to the knowledge gleaned from this forum and related resources. All I knew was that I was going to see a large frame tractor, and it turned out to be an I-5! Here's the nameplate data. 26CE20CA AS16 822
I interpret that to be an I-5 built on January 16, 1973 (6 months before I was born), and #822 out of 1074 total I-5 units made.
The tractor is in good shape. I haven't run it yet, as the pack of T-105s had been hibernating for over a year, but they were low mileage and are now bubbling away on charge. I may get enough life out of them to at least do some good testing. The tractor was painted John Deere Green with yellow trim, but it showed some orange paint in the scratches...., my first clue of an industrial unit.
It has been upgraded to a Curtis controller and came with the rear lift, a new but uninstalled lift motor, a rough but complete tiller, a good 3-angle curved dozer blade, and an absolutely pristine 3-blade front rotary mower. The last owner had a hobby blueberry farm and never used the mower out of fear of damaging it on the rough terrain.
I'll be using it on my one acre lawn and for moving around trailers and hobby cars. I'm not enough of a gardener to make use of that big tiller, but foresee a business opportunity in this neighborhood for my kids- currently 10 and 12 yrs old.
I have a large stock of milspec BB600 flooded NiCad cells that I used in my drag racing Karmann Ghia in 2010-12. IIRC, Chris Zach has been using these in an ET with good results. Nicads are the only chemistry that can hibernate indefinitely at zero volts, and require no complex battery management. It's actually a maintenance procedure to discharge to zero and do a recommissioning charge, bubbling off some H20.
I'll post reports as this tractor comes back to life. I'll be accessorizing for sure, and am particularly interested in a rear scraper or box blade, front end loader, and forklift.... Plans for local fabrication are of interest too. I happen to have 5000 lb linear actuator that could make the basis of quite a forklift....
Regards,
Jay Donnaway, CEM
President, Seattle EV Association