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"you're gonna want one", brother i dont have a garden, i hate gardening and i dont have a lot of money. Of course i want one.

EV makers today: "We have simulated gear changes"
GE: "We had the real thing 55 years ago, complete with stalling"

It was my son that you bought the E15 from in Maine and my father that originally owned it. I spent many hours mowing our very big lawn with it.  In ourder to get up close to trees and bushes I would go around the tree as close as possible which was pretty close you just had to angle it just right.  He used to haul his boat up from the lake with it at the end of the season, and I think I remember seeing a generator like the one you showed, but I’m not sure. It sure was exciting seeing the tractor again. It takes me back a few years. Thank you for showing this video. Big yellow lives on🥰

I am an Engineer at Brinly, the company that made some of the accessories for this. We still make the plow, cultivator and disk harrow. you can still buy them new if you so desire! very cool!

GE basically treated the motor-drive electronics in this mower like a little diesel-electric locomotive. The timer that delays current to the motor works like the contactors in a GE locomotive, and the ‘speed control’ is really just stepping through resistor banks with no true variable control, which is very locomotive-like. and it makes sense GE’s main money maker back then was railroad power, so why wouldn’t they apply the same logic to an early electric mower? The simplicity kept the price low and the reliability high… just like a good locomotive.

My Dad was one of the primary engineers on this project, seriously. would have been 73-75. Thanks for bringing up this obscure bit of history.

The exposed mower blade testing rig on the work bench is quite possibly the most frightening thing I've seen on this channel.

Man that "gated manual" and "clutch" looks so fun to drive at 2mph. That mower deserves a "save the manuals" decal.

$700 in 1970 was a serious chunk of change. My Grandma still likes to bring up when Grandpa got a better paying job as a material test engineer at a screw company in 1965 and brought home $67 A WEEK!  Every time she tells the story she smiles, shakes her head, and says "I thought we would never have to worry about money again". They raised 3 kids very comfortably on that income.

37:08 I love how they had the engineers who built the tractors testing the power of the tractors instead of actors or whatever we would use today. The one in the Elec-trak looks like he hasn't been outside in months.

I can honestly say that's the best welding I've ever seen with a mower.

After dealing with the Coda and Escape's "modern" EV issues, I think it was a good move for your sanity to pick up a vehicle that didn't have any computers.

Roger.... I use to repair these beasty things for a local GE mower dealer. First up, the charger won't overcharge due to the fact it uses a reactance transformer. Too complex to deal here, but look it up. The speed increase is called 'field weaking' and is standard in large industrial DC motors for speed control. Basically, when you reduce the voltage to the field by inserting resistors, the field's magnetic flux is reduced, and that allows the rotor to spin faster.

The E20 was great. It even had cruise control on it. It also had much more electronics. Common faults were the relay contacts, they were exposed to the elements, and the SCRs on the cards failed quite a bit. There are transzorb devices sprinkled through out the wiring and they explode due to the spikes caused by all those relays switching on and off.

The E8 should not stall like that. Belt needs looked at. Also there is a thermal circuit breaker mounted to the motors. Those fail due to the high current motor draw.

The subtle audio syncing issue when talking about the time delay issue was genius or a happy accident.

15:58 Aging Wheels the only person to even stall an electric mower

That do be looking suspiciously like Asbestos

OH MY GOSH! AW did a video on my lawnmower! I have the E20, and I battery swapped it with a module out of a 2019 Ford Mustang Mach-E. That module fit so perfectly in the back half of the mower it's like it was meant for it.
Don't try it with that specific module on the E8m, there's a 0% chance it's going to fit in there.
I'm also working on modifying the electric PTO. Right now it's 36 volts with a plug that will work for nothing I have except for the hedge trimmer attachment. I've a 60 volt boost converter lined up, and I'm going to plug it into a hollowed out dewalt flex volt battery with a buck converter in it on a switch. Right now I can buck the 36 down to 20 and run my trimmer for probably around 3 days continuous, but it doesn't do the voltage switching that flex volt does

9:00 your deck lifter sounds unhealthy because it's being asked to do more than it's meant to. That strap isn't meant to attach directly to the mower deck, it's supposed wrap around that little lifter and then attach to a pin further back on the little crane arm which reduces the load as by a pulley.

5:50- OMG. My grandfather had one of these that he kept alive up thru the 90s. So many fond memories of him associated with this tractor AND THAT SOUND of the relays stepping up the power and drivetrain changing pitch. I stared at the with my mouth open in awe and literally started clapping as it came on screen. Literally tearing up right now. Haven't heard that sound in at least 25 years.

I work in HVAC, and seeing the difference between today’s systems and some from the 1970s really shows how much safety standards have changed. Back then, homeowners were expected to understand their furnace and do routine maintenance themselves. If a system had any safety feature at all, it was usually just a gas valve that shut off when the power went out.

There were no limit switches, no rollout switches, no induced draft motors, and no way for the furnace to detect a clogged flue. They could be pretty dangerous—if you didn’t know what you were doing, you really could have one blow up in your face.

Nowadays, you’d have to bypass at least five different safety features, in a specific order, for a furnace to even come close to doing that. It’s a huge change, and definitely one for the better in my opinion.