Worst place you've taken a tractor (and gotten away with it)

[D7E]

Spreding manure on the steep banks of welsh wales in my youth these pics tel the tale of the days events, rollovers were daily occurences ..!

About 16 years ago i think

 

[Little Red Tractor]

When I was about 14 or so, I learned that running a Farmall H straight down a muddy, wet hillside in 3rd gear was not very bright. It got very interesting when one one tire was turning the right way and the other was spinning backwards. I never will figure out what caused that!

 

[Green Acres Homestead]

Went for a ride with my new to me ATV. After many mud holes I came to one that was very deep long and could not get around so tried to get through. Got stuck, walked 7 km (5 miles) out to my truck, drove home to my tractor with a logging winch. I almost put my bike for sale on a where is as is bases. Wife would not let me. Madd. Spent the next two hours driving through atv trails and filling in 5 foot deep mud holes to get to my atv. When I finally got to my atv there was a muskrat swimming around in the mud hole. I winched my bike till the front wheels were of the ground and drove home. More then once I watch my front wheels disappear in the mud and wonder if I was going to be walking home once again. Bike would not start. My kubota L4740 still got war wound from that trip. I will try to post some picks.

 

[sixdogs]

I bought a hi-crop tractor in Wisconsin a few years back and figured to make the trip in a real long day from Ohio. No problem since I'm a rural guy and can make long trips. The map did go through Chicago, however but I thought little of it since it's just a city. Or so I thought.

So there I am in rush hour on the outer belt of Chicago pulling a trailer with a very high hi-crop tractor and traffic whizzing by at maybe 75-80 MPH and swerving in and out and nearly locking up the brakes trying to cut me off. That's to say nothing of a completely stopped multi-mile line of traffic right into the traffic lanes for toll booths that many people just seeming to be running anyway. Towing a tractor and stopped cold in the driving lane of a major interstate with inattentive people passing at the speed of light is not comforting.

The whole experience gave me a whole new feeling for city drivers and the people that drive that route and reinforces the reasons I live rural.

 

[texasjohn]

I was disking around a new tank for native grass seed planting. I misjudged the turn radius slightly and the slope slightly and got slightly tipsy.
Luckily, I was keeping my FEL just inches off the ground and the lower edge of the FEL hit the ground, keeping me from flipping. I waited for my son to get off work and we disconnected the disk and rigged opposing straps to F350 to prevent rollover while I slowly turned further down hill and got back on all 4's. I was using 4wd.

I didn't get away with it...he reminds me of it still!

 

[PandDLong]

In my youth, my family had a small hobby farm. A daily early morning chore in the winter was feeding the cows. My father would load up the 4X4 with bales and take them out to a feeding area in the field.

One winter morning, after several days of temperatures fluctuating above and below freezing, he "lucked into" getting the 4X4 up onto the snow crust. He had a great time driving around this broad expanse of ice-topped snow, slipping, sliding and spinning up and down the hills of the field. Inevitably, there was a weak spot and the 4X4 crashed through the crust into deep powder - it couldn't get back up on the crust and the powder was too deep to get the traction to push through it. Of course it was a few thousand feet from the farmyard or any trail through the snow. I got corralled into helping retrieve the 4X4.

We pulled out the MF135, only 2WD but chain equipped, and used it like a mini ice-breaker by driving it backwards through the field. About half-way, it bogged down in a spot where the powder was too deep. It had created a trail through the crusted snow but didn't clear a path, so it was truly stuck and couldn't go backwards or forwards.

Next up was the Bobcat skid-steer with a bucket. We used it to remove the snow from the trail the MF135 had made. On a side-slope area, it didn't have the traction to stay in the path and kept sliding sideways. We then decided to have the Bobcat clear a new trail down the slope and around the base so it could stay off any slide slopes. That failed pretty quickly as it got wedged into the snow at a bad angle and wasn't going anywhere.

We were out of equipment - which was just as well as having 3 scattered around the field was enough - so we pulled out the shovels, planks and hay and went to work the old-fashioned way.

It took all day and it was getting pretty dark at the end, but we did get all 3 out.

I've never experienced a snow-crust strong enough to carry a vehicle in the subsequent 35 years - probably a good thing.

 

[DKCDKC]

I was about 14. Had operated my father's John Deere in the field for several years. Had supreme confidence in my driving ability. Took the tractor down the lane to get the mail - highest possible gear and speed. The lane is steep downgrade laid on a fill about 5 feet high - bordered by rock walls. The field fence is a little less than 8 feet out from the rock wall. I was on a JD row-crop, probably something like a 330 or 70. Went off the lane at a high rate of speed and miraculously dropped fairly straight - or so I thought - and landed on all four. Some minutes passed before I was calm enough to continue. Drove tractor out beside the lane until the rock wall ended, then on to the mailbox. It was a tight fit, just an inch or two either side. I congratulated myself on an "almost" accident, and told no one.

Next morning my Dad fired up the tractor to plow. Hooked up the plow, went to the field and dropped the blade. Immediately the front axle of the tractor collapsed. I had cracked it almost all the way through. My Dad and the JD dealer were mystified till I fessed up. Dad not happy and I had a ton of extra work to help pay for repairs. Never hot-rodded the tractor again.

 

[EE_Bota]

When I was about 14 or so, I learned that running a Farmall H straight down a muddy, wet hillside in 3rd gear was not very bright. It got very interesting when one one tire was turning the right way and the other was spinning backwards. I never will figure out what caused that!

When I was a kid, my neighbors MF diesel was impossible to start in the winter, and I used to have to go drag his tractor to a start on the local paved road with our 8n. My neighbor never would put his in a gear where the engine could easily be turned by the tires, so when I looked back, almost always one tire was going forward, and the other was going backwards.