This topic idea originated from my experiences with ‘big toys’ If you haven’t already, you’d might like to read thread 37450.97 sometime.
During my rookie days with ‘big toys’ I was loaned a Ford b/hoe for some site work. A snow storm had just dumped 3-4″ of snow, so now I was brazen’ enough to learn/try to plow my driveway with it….no big deal, right? Well when I got to the tar apron at the street (state highway) the LR tire slid off the side and into a ditch/culvert. No major tilt angle, just plain stuck! I did get some prior practice with using the bucket and hoe to get unstuck, so I went at it. After what seemed like forever it started to bite.By this time I was bent’ on getting out of this hole and oblivious to my surroundings. It churned, spit and tore up everything around and finally launched/jolted a 180* spin ending back on the apron…but with the hoe out in the middle of the road!!! All I thought of was someone cruizin down the road nailing this steel arm sticking out of the woods. Lucky day(I had a few) no traffic and I’ll bet I packed up and hi tailed out of there as quick as any pro. I left a nasty cat claw scratch in the nice new(2-3 months old)repaved road…..right in front of my driveway entrance! Never got any visits from DOT, but it took a week before I got the nerve to fix the disaster I left around the apron………by hand of course!!
I have a couple more but enough yip yap from me…How about some of yours. I know there are more. Any cliff hangers??
Edited 12/14/2003 1:06:45 AM ET by bob
Replies
Not a BIG earthmover but exciting...Hooked up the trailer cart behind the JD Big Lawn tractor...loaded it with about 1/2 ton of rocks from the wifes new garden spot (used to be a barn foundation)..was gonna haul em down to where the new septic sys. was planned to be put, cuz the old one literally crapped out..crap all over the place..black gold , texas tea type thing..forgot that wet grass, STEEP hill , gravity, and momentun DO NOT mix. Slid right into the soup. buried the tractor and cart full o rocks..then the LID of the rotted out steel tank gave way.Plunge. Hooked up to the Toyota 4x...started yanking,,got the truck buried...I think it was a Case B-hoe thet the septic guy brought..after he snorked out the coffee thru his nose...we gingerly plucked out the encrusted vehicles..I am older now..and I hope wiser. PS..She got her garden.
Great story!! Did you you take the 'plunge' too? Feel bad for you, if you did. That 'soup' is some nasty!! Glad it wasn't me...I probably would have >wigged out< and buried the whole nine yards, JD and all!!!!!
Took the 'plunge' more than once..who ya think hooked up the tow chain? about 3 times! gotta laugh now..
Three:
First one, plowing a section field with a 730 propane "popping Johnny", at the first turn by the fence the clutch, that was the brake, decided to slip and I plowed right thru the fence.
Second one, sowing wheat with that same propane tractor, that was older than I was and got a leak once in a while, enough to scare me into thinking that some day it would blow up, I heard this loud pop and felt an air burst go by my ears. I threw it out of gear and beat the world record getting behind the drills, from where I peeked at the tractor, expecting to find it ablaze.
Guess what, a front tire had blown. Embarrassing!
Third: Fist time with a dozer, rebuilding a dry looking pond, was getting much done when the dry topsoil ended and the next blade full was black muck. So was what was oozing from under the tracks and we were not going anywhere but down. Had to go get some railroad ties to "walk" the dozer over them to dry ground.
At least I didn't have an audience, like some of you did.<G>
Ah..farm tractors are more fun than anything. Ford 8N Jubilee..here. Brake drums full of oil....2 bottom 14" plow is a real good land anchor when things get bad. 'Cept it was my neighbors yard when I was doing a turn around testing to see if the clutch was REALLY as bad as I thought. Yup, it was that bad. Hey them ol "poppers" are worth hanging onto. Used to watch a "Classic Tractor" show when I had Sat.T.V....Duane
Little Iron mishap: Do you know that the "stall speed" of a Toyota Corolla is well over 20 mph? Obviously true, but it was striking how it flew off the road to Circle, Alaska in January. Just like a brick. The only time I've experienced 0 G's. (I had negative G's in a 737 once - that was some weather).
WHOOMP! Such a soft landing in the snow, it wasn't clear when we hit. Only that we'd stopped. 4 hours to winch it out with one of those 6-foot cable come-a-longs.
If you think you need a aircraft-cable come-a-long, you don't. You need the rope version that keeps taking up 1/2" rope as long as you keep ratcheting the handle. Cause if your plane's below the high tide line, and the tide is coming in, you don't want to re-set your rigging every few feet of gain!
David Thomas Overlooking Cook Inlet in Kenai, Alaska
plane's below the high tide line, and the tide is coming in, you don't want to re-set your rigging every few feet of gain!
And here I thought that you only gained that sort of insight with a broached LCM-8 grounded in the rising tide ahead of a nice piece of weather coming ashore . . . Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
"And here I thought that you only gained that sort of insight with a broached LCM-8 grounded in the rising tide ahead of a nice piece of weather coming ashore . . . "
I was hiking the beach last year and a mile from my house, and there's a SUV (stupid urbanite vice). Toyota Forerunner, maybe a '98 or '99. Looked nice or rather it looked like it was nice a few days ago. At about +12 foot elevation (tide range = -5 to +26). It had been through the wash cycle a few times. Only takes one salt-water rinse to total it. And the wave action had removed a few trim items like doors and hood.
There are places you should not take a vehicle unless you have the muscle to move it. That could be 2 or 3 guys for an ATV. Or a good come-along for a car. A D-9 on nearby dry ground and a long cable is exceptionally capable (that works for a 45-ton, 50-foot bowhead whale - I've seen it done).David Thomas Overlooking Cook Inlet in Kenai, Alaska
unless you have the muscle to move it. That could be 2 or 3 guys for an ATV. Or a good come-along for a car. A D-9 on nearby dry ground
Now where would the fun in that be . . . ? <G>
Actually, for grounded Mike boats, the best cure is a couple of well handled LCU(L)s on good ground tackle operated by some sharp CPOs (especially if we can transfer cox'n Broach to relative bearing grease & left-handed rubber swab handle inventorying . . . )Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
On a job site that was adjacent to our site, they were doing a ton of earthmoving. They had a few huge piles, and they just kept moving them from one side of the property to another. Weird. One day, they started to move the biggest pile, which was on the edge of a hill. The pile was easily 25 or 30 feet high. So they took what I call a 'steam shovel', and drove up the pile, to the top and started pulling earth from the far side of the pile and depositing it up the hill, in, of course, another pile. As he made progress, he wound up cutting the pile away, nearly under himself. To me, it looked a little precarious.
At lunch, i was out at the truck, and they guy had shut down the machine, so i shouted over "How long before you roll down the hill??" with a smile on my face, of course!
He replied, "Naaa, it's fine, no problem!"
I responded "OK, doesn't look good from this angle... I'm not going to watch from any downhill position!". He said, "Peice of cake...I know what I'm doing". Uh huh.....
Sure enough, (you knew this was coming) the huge Kubata took a long tumble about an hour later. It wound up sideways down the hill, with the shovel arm bent, on it's side/upside down, diesel pouring out of it's tank. He was bruised, but I imagine his ego took the biggest hits. Three days later, they had another big Kubota to pull it upright, and about 5 hours later, it limped up the hill and onto the trailer......
True story.Jake Gulick
[email protected]
CarriageHouse Design
Black Rock, CT
My father was in the heavy construction equipment business and I worked at the same place summers/holidays for many years: saw all kinds of weird things along the way. The scariest were the BIG lifts when a cable would snap and a couple of hundred feet of boom would wrap over the body (just like those cartoons where you see the outline of something hit with an iron bar) and along the ground behind it. Kinda funny were runing over a car/pick-up with a quarry truck. When out to retrieve a twin-engined Allison dozer stock in the muck during the Seaway expansion down near Port Colburn in mid-February: ended up building a dyke around the entire machine, pumping out the water, then a crew of 10-12 guys dug it free by hand and we lifted it out of the hole with a barge-mounted crane (had to raise the water-level in the canal by a foot to get the barge close enough)..
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
Lesson in paying attention while Operating a Backhoe. Needed to cut the foundations in for the addition. It's going in on the high side of the house. Only spot to dig from is uphill, leaning into the excavation. It's the first half-dry day in a couple of weeks (only misting, and behind schedule).
Having a reasonably productive day. Notice the back wheels have stopped idly spinning (they've been lazing about, slowly, since I set the jacks down). That probably should have been a clue. Reach the arm out to take a bite, and the hydraulics appear to have taken over, as the bucket is reaching before I can move the lever . . . Thudpluomp. Jacks have gone down as deep as they can, then take the last 20-24" slide down into the hole, and jam the bucket in good. Front bucket has made a beautiful divot in the grass.
Take a few deep breaths and collect thoughts. Ok, no problem, half way down, all that needs doing is to pull in the jacks, the front loader, and use the bucket to wedge up out of the hole. Great plan. Problem--down angles limit how much boom I can use. Also, that two foot of hole then leads up a far-too slippery hill.
So . . . now the backhoe is in the middle of the excavation for the addition. The mist has gone back to rain. Just peachy.
Turned lemon to lemonade, dug the rest of the foundation trenches while I was there. A few days later, we get enough cribbing & timbers to ramp the backhoe up out of the hole with nothing more than a manilla-rigged block & tackle (b&t was a 5 part, 6th was fed through a snatch block to lead fair) & the hitch on the p/u.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Ruby: Some AK magazines are on the slow boat to you. Liked the article, hadn't seen it but knew a bunch of people in it. Saw the author's slide show 3 days ago.
Big Iron mishap: Using a crane to deliver 2,500-pound carbon vessel. Like the one under your sink but, you know, a lot bigger. Regulator from the state is on-site because installing toxic waster treatment systems was new at the time.
I didn't know about using "chokers" to fix the distance between your slings. Vessel tipped a bit, and keep going. Bounced just fine (PEX), but rolled against a 1/4" steel plate vessel's corner. Cut a big ole gash in it. A slurry of fine carbon and water pouring down the pavement. Looked like a crude oil spill (I've been to those too), but was actuallly environmental benign. Just a $5,000 mistake. I mean "learning opportunity".David Thomas Overlooking Cook Inlet in Kenai, Alaska
I did something like that once - Only with a wagon load of kids on a hayride.
Had a tractor that was too small, wet grass, and a steep hill. Started down the slope and the wagon jack-knifed. The front of the wagon slid around and hit the right rear tire of the tractor.
The impact stopped that tire, which made the other one take off twice as fast. I mashed the clutch to the floor, locked up both brakes, and slid the rest of the way down the hill that way.
Fortunately there was no ditch or other obstacles in front of us. We just slid down the hill and got straightened out at the bottom.There are times not to flirt. When you're sick. When you're with children. When you're on the witness stand. [Joyce Jillson]
el diablo( the boss) is notorious for not fasteneing cargo. Table saws falling out of pick-up beds, lumber, ladders held on by a tiny little bungee, etc.
He pushed the envelope one day when he got the backhoe attachment from a jobsite, put it on the bobcat trailer ( precariously sitting on the edge), "it ain't goin nowhere", and off he went.
It fell off on 95 during rush hour, he must have punched the gas pedal in the stop-and-go traffic. He had to leave it there(in the fast lane), go back to the site, load the machine, and go retrieve it.
He still doesn't secure anything.
I was helping a friend of mine who is a dairy farmer. He was falling behind a little due to the crappy, cold, wet winter last year. I offered to clean out the manure pit and some other piles of poo that needed to be loaded in the spreader then taken to the field and spread.
After getting the manure spreader mostly full with mostly liquid poo, the bucket fell off the skid loader into the spreader! Man that fun swimmin'
Karl
Restoring the past for the future.
Poo ?
POO !!????!?
What are you, three years old ?
PC whipped ??
Why can't we just use the real word around here ? Why can't people be real people anymore ? Why can't a man stand up and say what is really on his mind anymore ?
Are we really so afraid to use the real word ? What is going to happen if I use the real word ? Someone gonna sue me ? Chop my head off in the town square ? Give my momma some lye soap and hold me down ?
C'mon, I dare ya. I'm gonna use the real word, and I dare any of you to do something about it.
Poopie.
There. I said it.
Poopie.
Poopie, poopie, poopie.
Now, don't we all feel better ? Don't we all feel just a bit more free ?
Hey... where you going with that soap ?
Live, Love, Forgive and Forget
quittintime
Which real word is that? Dung? Excrement? Feces? Manure?
I'm telling Gabe on you.
i rolled an extendable boom gradall forklift once. we were setting panels for a concrete pour, wing walls next to an abutment for a small bridge over a creek. we set from the top down so they got longer as we went. backed down the grade to set all but the last panel, the last one was so long we had to go forwards.
i was foreman on this job, and driving the lift. called all the guys together to talk about the last one, said to be sure and watch close, might be exceeding our limits here. everybody kept back as i creep down the hill. slowly the lift started tilting to the left side, two wheels up in the air
i feathered the tilt control, trying to get it down. no use wheels getting higher, its gonna go. jumped out and hit the ground running, trying desperately to get in the clear. i make it out of the way and the lift is still crawling down the hill and damn an if it don't sit itself back down on four wheels again.
so i run back over there and get in the seat again and try to tilt it over some more very carefully, this time it comes up a little faster, and there is no stopping it now. once more the jump and run for life as the forklift ghost rides down the hill rolling side over side.
when the dust settles everyone is ok, and super comes out of trailer in a panic. tells whole crew to take rest of day off, and come back in morning. I said "what, you mean you want me to come back after this?" whole crew is ROFLOL. We decide to go to the bar, my partner tells me over a beer he has never seen a man move so fast in his life. next morning when we get back to work there is a brand new boom truck crane there for us to set our panels with, the thing we should have had all along.
I was working for John Deere at the time, so I decided to excavate my foundation, they had a midsize John Deere(Z50) that I could tow behind the company truck.. A promise to return it clean on Monday was All that was needed to use it..
Caterpillar had taught me how to run a back hoe so it was no problem, the controls on the Deere were smoother and more natural (to me) than the cat controls so I was happy as a clam..
I had three quarters of the foundation dug in a very tight quarters (thank God for Zero tail swing) when darkness attacked me.. I figured two hours at most the next day (sunday) and I was done.. I woke the next morning to pouring rain,, rain that increased as the day went on.
The foundation was an 8 foot hole between me and the road. the back side was blocked by large trees, south was a neigbor's house and north was my house..
Trapped!
Monday came and went without the rain letting up.. My boss was past screaming and threatening me. He sent several guys out to retrieve it,, all of them admitted that I was hopelessly trapped.. In desperation I filled the hole back in, and tried to crawl out using the arm to both support me and pull me foward.. No luck, the further I went into the muck the worse it was.. Tuesday dawned bright and sunny and I resorted to trying to pull the hoe out with both the Skid steer and the hoe..
Meanwhile the customer who wanted to buy the hoe was getting nasty to my boss..
In frustration he came out himself.. shook his head and left... (I figured I was fired at that point)
Wednesday I had given up, the boss had made all his threats and I knew that he would carry them out.. I knew that the only way was to let the soup dry and then walk it out... (when I say soup I mean soup, if you tried to walk across the spot you would quickly sink up to your waist) Under orders from the boss one of the other salesmen came and taking a running start with the skid steer and a loose chain got to his full speed just as the chain snapped tight.. the momentum would in conjunction with full power on the excavator It would move perhaps two inches foward..
Again and again we went at it, swapping jobs from time to time. about five hours later we got the excavator to more solid ground. the blade on the front had a very decided bend in it where the tow chain was hooked the excavator. It was packed with heavy clay and both machines (previously brand new) looked very much the worse for wear.
I wasn't even allowed to bring the equipment back myself, but ordered to see the boss on thursday morning for what I knew was my termination..
(the irony was the customer who demanded the equipment immediately tried it out for a week and then returned it, saying it was just too he couldn't afford it)
33 Yrs ago took ROS/FOPS off and old D2 to replace the clutch. Snow with tree leaning toward house before cage replaced, pulled with too short of cable, figured I'd done it enough I could pull it where I wanted. Woke up in hospital 2 days later - if I'm weird sometimes, that's why.
Never been on a machine since without Rops/Fops, bounced a 8" alder top off a JD FOPs once since.