Anyone ever roll over a tractor?

[sixdogs]

Anyone ever roll over a tractor and what is it like just before it happens? Is it a slow process of taking increased risk and then a slow roll over or is it "whoosh" and over with no warning? I've never done it and never will but I am smoth-working a piece of ground that is partly on a slope. I'm pretty experienced so I don't really take much in the way of chances and I do go nose down on hills and don't turn the wrong way. Tractor has lots of front end weight and am usually dragging a heavy packer that adds stability.

Still, I wonder each time I cross a grade what the pre-rollover sensation is. I know to avoid it but just in case I get boxed in some day is there a fail safe point? Since most rollovers are fatal maybe no one knows?

 

[Rock knocker]

I have never rolled anything over either, and I am in no way a professional operator, but in the last 30plus working years I have ran for-lifts, trucks, cranes, tractors and hoes. I've come close, and I am under the impression that when a wheeled machine is going over, it happens in slow motion. You get th the point where you expect recovery, and it slowly keeps going and going. I've always been able to slam the load to the ground and bounce back, but I've been worried

 

[mikehaugen]

When I was about 16 I was using my neighbors tractor, I am pretty sure it was a case ih and if I recall correctly I would say it was probably around a 30-40hp size. Anyway I wasn't even on a slope or anything but was driving down a path a little too quickly after operating this thing for a total of about 7 minutes I tipped on a turn. Didn't even get a sensation for how tippy these are until I was on my way over. Luckily no damage- it just tipped on it's side and I was with a friend of mine behind me in a skidsteer so he propped it back up. Never told the owner... yeah, I was one of those kids that I would complain about now.

 

[john_bud]

Nope. My butt-pucker-o-meter is set pretty conservatively.

 

[RDrancher]

Still, I wonder each time I cross a grade what the pre-rollover sensation is.

You'll feel it a little deeper than the seat of your pants and it moves right to your stomach. I call it "pucker factor". I've been over once on a tractor, but only on my side. Rockcrawling in my Land Cruiser...its happened many times, but since its set up for it, it doesn't bother me. But still, my father died in a tractor rollover in 1959, so it does hit close to home.

Yesterday afternoon I was brush hogging a rocky overgrown drainage ditch, with no way to mow other than sidehill, and it was "right there" steep. I rolled up on a hidden basketball-sized rock with my front uphill tire and almost lost it. I would rate it at a pucker factor 9 on a scale of 1-10. That's the first time I've been over a 5 in quite awhile.

 

[chim]

Not a tractor, but one of my first jobs was driving a "Uke" (Euclid dump truck) at a quarry. My job was emtying the bins of crushed stone. It was set up so we would empty either the #4's OR the #3's. The quarry had about a 30 foot elevation difference between the tops and the bottoms of the stone piles. As I drew material from the bins, I'd take it up the hill and out a short haul road to the appropriate pile. The piles were tapered down so I could drive up the ramp to get on their flattened tops from the haul road. I'd drive out on the pile, swing around and back up close to the edge and dump.

After a long time of dumping #4's, the super decided we'd let them go and dump #3's. Going out the haul road, the #4 pile was the first and #3 was just past it. Without thinking, I began to turn up the ramp of the #4 pile. Then I remembered I had a load of 3's. I braked and tried to turn to the right to continue to the #3 pile. The loaded Uke had really poor brakes and I couldn't turn the huge steering wheel fast enough. The left side of the Uke ended up on the ramp while the right side literally "took the low road". I remember it happening in slow motion. The driver's side rose up and for a while the Uke sort of balanced on the right side wheels. At some point it was obvious it ws going to go too far to the right to get the wheels back on the ground. Then it slammed to earth on the right side and stopped.

These things didn't have seat belts back in '68. They didn't have A/C or much of the way in creature comfort. It was a hot Summer day and I used the redneck A/C (tied the driver's door 180ｰ open with a torn fan belt). I was always thankful it flopped to the right instead of the left. As it turned out I excaped with bruises, and the Uke came through with a couple scratches. Elmer brought the big Hough out, scraped the load of stones away and shoved it back onto the wheels again. They towed it back to the shop, added oil, checked it out and brought it back to me with the admonishment I should be more careful.

As a side note, they gave me an old Diamond Reo dump truck to use for an hour or two while my Uke was in the shop. The Uke had a big scoop-shaped bed that flipped up in the rear. The Reo's tailgate was a new feature to me, and when I went to dump a load of wet fine stone, the front wheels started to lift when I raised the bed. Fortunately, that load was being dumped at the bottom of a pile, so the bed bumped the stone before the front got too high.

 

[cartod]

I don't even like to talk about rolling. I have never done it but I have been close a couple times. Usually when working with the FEL on uneven ground. It's not the way I want to go, it would be violent and very scary! If I don't think the tractor can do it then I don't try. Life is short enough.

Living in WV, one needs to get used to the uneven ground and steep inclines. I am currently timbering my 5 acre lot with a small tractor (JD 3320). It's the first time for me using forks with logs and I just need to keep the loads light if I'm gonna lift up high to dump in the burn pile.

 

[Mark Page]

The day they delivered my JD GT275 rider nothing would do but I had to play with it. This was the first mower/tractor I had ever owned with a HS and I decided to mow the grass strip on either side of the lane that leads to our house. All flat ground except for a small stream that has a bridge over it. The grass always grew up along it's banks because no one was will to get close to it.
As I approached the bank I let off the HST pedal, but the machine kept rolling. So of course I went for the brake which has always been on the right with my big tractors. The brake on this machine was high on the right and the HST pedal was low on the right. When I hit the "brake pedal" the machine lurched forward and went over the bank. All I can remember, because it happened so fast, was this feeling of disorientation. I then found myself on my back with my head in the stream and the machine to my left. I wasn't in any pain and everything seemed to work so I crawled back up the bank to assess the damage to the tractor. Couldn't see anything wrong, except a small dent on the front of the frame.
The worst part was my neighbor had seen the whole thing happen. He came down with his pick up and we pulled the tractor out. It started right up and I took it straight to the barn and let it sit for a week before messing with it again. That was 12 or so years ago and I no longer get near that bank. 2 or 3 times a summer I get off my butt and go down there with a string trimmer and clean things up.
I will never forget how fast it happened and how lucky I was that the machine didn't land on me.

 

[Misfire]

It's slow. All that mass takes awhile to shift. You can feel it and do something about if you have pucker trained yourself, like quickly turning downhill to stop the roll.

And if you have a ROPS and are belted in, there is no reason it has to be fatal even if you do roll, just embarrassing and potentially expensive. If you have a ROPS and aren't belted in, then it may be your heirs' expense.

My :2cents:

Misfire

 

[kebo]

This isn't quite the same..... many years ago I once rolled my Honda Foreman 450 atv down a bank, with another club member riding on the back of it. I was really going quite slow along the edge of the bank with about a 8ft long 45deg slope to the left that went to a gravel driveway, me staying to the right between it and a row of pine trees. Came upon a spot where the bank dipped down, it happened so quick, had no time to react. Before I knew it, it was going over, all I could do was jump off directly down hill of it. My rider sort of baled out the back end. Thank goodness it only rolled one time and stopped or it might have rolled on over me. Thinking back on it, if me & the rider had leaned hard to the right, it might have stayed upright but you don't always have the time to react.

Yeah, a 600lb atv isn't quite like a 2500lb tractor, but the pucker sensation is probably just about the same!!!! :shocked: