(ET) E15 moves after 10 years?

[Chris Zach <cz alembic crystel com>]

So my E15 burned down the BB600 pack of 30 cells about a decade ago and 
pretty much sat in my yard. Cause of death was the timer not stopping 
the charge (broke) and over a weekend the charger dried out the cells 
then went into thermal runaway and fused the batteries.

Last year I pulled out the old pack, put 30 spares into it, but it 
wasn't running. And so I dragged it to a corner of the yard with the E20 
and left it. This fall I decided to see if anything would work so I went 
out this weekend and did a LOT of troubleshooting.

The problems:

The F3 fuse was not making contact. Cleaned up the fuse holder with a 
brass brush, put fuse in, had power across the fuse.

Brake switch is shot. Bypassed it with a wire nut for now. Brakes are 
totally frozen anyway.

With that I got power with key on to pins 1 with PTO off and 2 with PTO 
on. Bonus, the PTO contactor clicked in, so I know seat switch 
(bypassed) and key switch are working. Good.

Checked pin 6, nothing. Put tractor in speed 1, still nothing. Start 
switch connector fell off, removed throttle, cleaned everything, used a 
bit of tuner cleaner for lube, put it together, motor spins! But badly.

Tightened up armature bolts and CB1 lugs, tightened up the tension on 
the two belts (yes this E15 has a 2 belt sheave and transmission. It's 
smaller than an E20 motor so it's not a motor swap) fired it up and the 
tractor moved forward. Even better putting it in reverse causes it to 
move backwards.

Can't steer, so got out the grease gun and lubed the steering joints. 
Steers with great difficulty but it's getting better slowly.

Still only running in speed 1 till I advance the throttle far forward 
then field weakening comes on. I'm guessing 1a and 2a coils are not 
working, may be a problem with the IC board. Need to check that out.

One rear tire flat, filled it, will see if it holds. One front tire 
good, one the sidewall dry rotted so need to replace that.

Overall it's kind of a mess, but at least things seem to be sort of 
working. Going to have to figure out why 1a/2a are down (is 4 to 10 
closing? 11 to 13?) but I'll work on that next weekend.

Need to think about what to do. I guess I could get  a diode assembly, 
fix the wreck of a charger that came out of my E20 and put it in this 
one. I would so much prefer a big 60 amp constant voltage charger though 
to give 3 strings of NiCDs a proper charging...

Poor old thing. I got it like 20 years ago from a guy who had it rotting 
in the woods behind his house. Part of the frame had disintegrated at 
the rear transmission lug so I welded angle iron and basically build a 
new frame. It will never mount a rear accessory but the tow bar is 
intact....

Still, it continues to run and I don't have the heart to scrap it. :-)