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Restoration vs. replacement on old Mowrey cabs - which side are you on? | Elevator Mechanics - Vivisector

Restoration vs. replacement on old Mowrey cabs - which side are you on?

I was on a job in downtown Baltimore last month and the building manager wanted to save a 1987 Mowrey controller with a fried logic board. Took me 8 hours to trace the damage and I still had to order three relays from a supplier in Chicago. My foreman said we should have just swapped in a new Otis iControl and been done in half the time, but the manager insisted on keeping the original look. Has anyone else dealt with this tug-of-war between preserving old iron and just modernizing?

3 comments

3 Comments

brooke_jones4mo ago

I feel you on that tug of war. I spent two days last fall trying to revive a 1990 Mowrey that had a burned out motor contactor and the owner was dead set against changing the look. We ended up splicing in a modern contactor block inside the old box so the faceplate stayed the same. It worked but my back hurt for a week from all the crouching. Sometimes keeping the old iron makes sense but it sure ain't fast.

hannahcraig4mo ago

Did you try using a mechanics stool with wheels? I grabbed one after a similar back killer project and it made a huge difference for getting low without wrecking yourself.

danielr994mo ago

That bit about "keeping the old iron" really got me thinking. I had this old Delta table saw from the 70s, thing weighed a ton and the fence would barely lock anymore. Everyone told me to junk it but I spent three weekends rebuilding the whole fence mechanism with parts from a modern saw I found at a scrapyard. It worked but man, the amount of times I dropped screws trying to get under that thing was ridiculous. I ended up just sitting on a flipped over bucket half the time, leaning sideways to reach the bolts. My back did not forgive me for like two weeks after that. Sometimes you just get attached to the old stuff even when it makes zero sense.