A close call

[cowboy357]

This one goes under My own Stupidity . I was scrapeing the top edge of My little pond yesterday with the box blade & My cell phone Vibrated ( I keep it in my shirt pocket .

I was expecting someone to come out & thought the call Might have been them , so Instead of waiting till I was on level ground I answered it ( Which I never do ) when doing so the tractor veered to the left a little bit to much & the right side started to come up off the ground. .

I think the only thing that kept it from going over was the dirt in the boxblade luckilly . I was by Myself as usual & jumped off Quickly & ran up to the house to get My other tractor hoping it hadn,t turned over by the time I got back . Luckily it hadn,t .

I Quickly hooked a chain to it & Pulled it back a bit to wear I felt it was safe , Tightened the Chain some more Pulled tight & got on the one that was leaning & pulled Forward & to the right till I was in a safe area . it took a few times Jumping from one tractor to the other but I got lucky . & No I dont have a rops or seatbelts on either one .

The Pics dont do it justice on the angle , but gives You an idea . Just thought I,d share as to how little it takes if You aren,t paying 100% attention . Bob

 

[Treemonkey1000]

Hands free phone time? And Pinesol will clean any stains in the seat.. Glad that you are ok. Now if you didn't have another vehicle to anchor to I wonder if the other Brainiacs on this site could provide some helpful advice?

 

[Scooby074]

Lucky you kept her rubber side down. Im sure that no ROPS probably added to the pucker factor. Its amazing how fast it can happen.

 

[20 20]

Glad to here you didn't get hurt or reck the machine, sounds like you did the right moves. I have to ask though, wouldn't the FEL have given enough pressure to get you out of that deal? I've been in a few situations like that and usually All I had to do was lower the FEL enough to get myself turned around.

What size is your pond? Is it new or a clean/dredge out? I'm in the middle of trying to fix 1 of ours. With the rain we keep getting{over 20days straight} it's making the going really tough.

 

[cowboy357]

Lucky you kept her rubber side down. Im sure that no ROPS probably added to the pucker factor. Its amazing how fast it can happen.

Hands free phone time? And Pinesol will clean any stains in the seat.. Glad that you are ok. Now if you didn't have another vehicle to anchor to I wonder if the other Brainiacs on this site could provide some helpful advice?

Thanks Guys . I dont know what I would have done without another tractor . I have a few other Pickups but wouldn,t have wanted to trust something I couldn,t dig in to hold it tight While pulling it forward .

10-4 on the seat stains & pucker factor.

The bad thing is my first instinct was to jump off the low side of the tractor because of the loader controls on the right , which Definatlly was not a good idea if it went over , But at times like That You dont think quite as well as one should, at least in My case .

You Might notice in the pics ,the one that almost went over has brand new tires on the front . The day before while I was diggin goin on a downhill slant , while backing up the ramp with a full bucket of wet dirt I blew both front tires out , They were getting pretty weather checked . 2 close calls in 2 days & both could have been avoided . I think I,ll let them sit today, . Bob

 

[cowboy357]

Glad to here you didn't get hurt or reck the machine, sounds like you did the right moves. I have to ask though, wouldn't the FEL have given enough pressure to get you out of that deal? I've been in a few situations like that and usually All I had to do was lower the FEL enough to get myself turned around.

What size is your pond? Is it new or a clean/dredge out? I'm in the middle of trying to fix 1 of ours. With the rain we keep getting{over 20days straight} it's making the going really tough.

Thanks 20/20 , I usually would have used the fel but in this case I just wasn,t wanting to risk raising the BB nor lowering the fell Because the left front tire was much lower & the right rear tire was at first 6 inches off the ground . But it Might have a good idea to try . Just didn,t seem like it at the time as the bucket was with the angle & might have helped push it over .

Its a new pond I started on about 6 months ago , Hard to say the size really , Its L shaped & the tractors are sitting at the far end of it allmost . I started out Needing dirt for other projects & this was a real low spot the rest of the property drains to . it wouldn,t grow anything but weeds & Skeeters . so I figured its as good as any place to start . Then I kept gettin carryed away .

It got fairly full before I was ebven close to being done , & I also pumped water in it to get an idea of how it would hold . But no rain it Dryed up fairlly quicklly . I,m no pond builder ,

Its Pretty small but getting bigger & deeper all the time . I,ll post a few pics of When I started & a few months ago before I started getting carried away once it started drying up . Bob

 

[MikeD74T]

OK Treemonkey, I'll take the challenge. Remaining as calm as possible I'd slowly reverse without turning the steering wheel until the left rear rode up onto the dirt from the boxblade & the left front came further downhill than the left rear. Then I'd turn downhill & move forward until the tractor was stable on 4 wheels.

Cowboy, Something you could consider when grading a sidehill like that is to use your stabilizer arms to position the boxblade to the uphill side of the tractor rather than centered. You can also fill the uphill half of the FEL bucket & keep it real low. I do applaud your ingenuity at stabilizing with the second tractor.

A construction company I worked for years ago had an articulated loader with tires filled 1/4 full of lead shot. It couldn't be run at road speeds but was great on a slope. Operators hated it because they were always sliding to one side of their seat & butt sore by days end. MikeD74T

 

[wvpolekat]

If expecting a call and you MUST take it, there is a pretty simple way of doing it safely. Just answer it without looking and hollar for them to hold for a moment, no need to hold it up to your head or listen for a reply. Then get to a safe place to stop and take the call.

I have done this in the car many times, even with my boss. Something like "Merging, one second", and they are always there when I am able to take the call 30-45 seconds later.

People are generally reasonable and want you to be safe and not "force" you to put yourself in danger to talk to them RIGHT NOW.

 

[Treemonkey1000]

Thanks Mike for taking the challenge. I don't have enough seat time to instinctually do the right thing quickly for that kind of a situation myself. Most of my work so far is on flat ground.

 

[cowboy357]

All Great Replys Guys & Hopefully it will help others as well , Allthough Most probablly wouldn,t get in this situation . I try not to , but sometimes it just happens .

Great info Mike thanks. The remaining calm part is where I kind of Messed up , I honestly cant tell You what I did when it attempted to go over , or how far the right rear got off the ground .

But Whatever I did It came back down quick & was only 6 or so inches of the ground & the other 3 were touching. So I chose to use the other tractor to stabalize it before trying to move in any direction . The Pics really dont show the correct angle Or how much the left front tire was lower then the rest of the tractor. Still Great advice on the stabalizer arms . Thanks

wvpolekat , Your Correct also. But where I got into trouble was when I turned around backwards at the same time to the left & Must have steered the tractor in the downhill direction , to see if Someone was in the drive several 100 yards behind Me . I,m not even sure I answered the phone or got it up to my ear .

This kind of thing Happens so Easy But not usually for Me as I,m very carefull Because I have no one close & normally do everything when no ones around .

But I can tell You when the wife seen the pics She wasn,t very happy as I have a HUGE honey do list. . Bob