Ben's E-15 Electric Tractor

[bennelson]

Hey Guys,

Just got a new EV. This one is an Elec-Trak E-15, one of the bigger electric riding lawn mower / tractors, which could support all sorts of fun accessories.

This one came with a snowplow and the three-blade front-mount mower deck.

I already had an E-10 mower, but it was pretty beat up, had the smaller mid-mount deck, and no other accessories.



Overall, it's in pretty good condition for a 40 year old piece of outdoor equipment. One of the blades wasn't turning as freely as it should. I'm working on that one. The battery charger doesn't seem to work either, but the lift and drive motors are fine.

Of course it didn't come with any batteries, but it just put in 3 12V that I had kicking around. It's missing the key, so I've just been bypassing that for the moment with a jumper.

The blades wouldn't power on at first. I figured out that the PTO contactor was just sticking part way. I jiggled and lubricated it and it seems to work fine now.

Here's a video of me taking apart the blade motor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj8HOK0NGL4

[elhigh]

Schweeeet.

When all you hear is the clattering roar of the air-cooled dinosaur burners, you don't hear how much whirring whistling racket the rest of the machine makes...until the dinosaur burner is gone. Then those blades sound pretty noisy.

Nice find. Envy.

[Daox]

Very cool Ben. I look forward to updates.

[bennelson]

It's winter now. Been cold lately, and we've had a couple of snow storms.

It wasn't bad mounting the plow up again, but it's sort of a huge pain to mount the rear weight bar. I'll have to modify it in the spring to make it easier to mount/unmount as a one-man job.

Overall, the plow works fairly well. The latch that lets me angle the blade left/straight/right isn't perfect. I may have to do some work on that in the spring as well.

I also ordered some tire chains. Those came in the mail a week or so ago, and I finally got to installing them. I have never used tire chains before. They weren't that hard to put on, once I figured them out. WOW, those things really grip.

I plowed all the way over on the edge of my driveway so that both right wheels were on the grass and I was pushing WAY too much snow and I STILL didn't have any trouble with traction!

Pretty cool to plow my drive without two-stroke gas or carburetors!



(Note: weight bar photo is from the summer when I removed it.)

[Daox]

Cool stuff Ben. I still don't have the snowblower attachment on mine yet...