I'm freaked my B2920 will tip over sideways

[CliffordK]

Here is an interesting YouTube video where they intentionally rolled a remote control tractor.

Tractor rolling over on a hillside - YouTube

They initiated the roll by dropping the wheels (front wheels?) into a hole that gave the tractor what appears to be a 45 degree tilt or so.

When you are driving on a hillside, keep as much weight as low as possible. I.E. Keep the bucket as close to the ground as is practical. Never drive on the hillside with the bucket raised to its highest position.

Personally I wouldn't remove the front end loader unless there was a real good reason to take it off. It provides great parking brakes (good for a hill), and I've used it to get unstuck at least once when brush hogging down a bank.

 

[megaboz]

You will get the feel for it eventually. Every time you cut it though, consider the terrain changed. No matter what happens you will never cut the same path twice and weather, varmits, or whatever else will affect it. As others have stated the uneasy feeling is sitting so high up compared to what you to sit. Another thing when approaching those angles, approach them slowly and allow the tractor to settle for in on the angle. Kind of like race cars, the tractor is going to settle twice, the suspension (ok, so there is no suspension but the frame will rock to one side) and then if the tires have any sort of flex, you will want them to flex before heading out around too fast. I can't tell you which will happen first but on the BX 24 I had before, the tires would flex halfway through the hill and would scare the heck out of me.

The other things I have done is to park it on the hill and see how easy it was going to be to rock it to knock it over. Gave a little piece of mind, but again, the terrain is ever changing, so this does not guarantee 100% of anything. More importantly though, if possible go straight up and down the hill and try not to turn it in the middle of the hill, this always gave me my biggest pucker factor moments. And the really steep hills, back up them.

As for leaving the attachments on, BH, absolutely take it off unless you are going to use it. I have nearly rolled my tractor nearly every time with the crazy thing on (when I had my BX). FEL, just about as dangerous in my opinion. People call it the emergency brake, well, in my experience, when I don't have it on and have forgot to engage the 4wd I slid down the hill out of control. So now imagine taking even more weight off the rear of the tractor! You will be trusting those little front tires to hold most of the tractor weight back and from sliding out of control. Also, by trying to keep it low to help with COG, I caught it on the ground so many times (yea, I probably/obviously kept it too low). Not to mention the trees I clipped and darn near rolled my tractor.

And my biggest piece of advice, trust your instincts, maybe you can't do something today, but try the next time, once you get used to your tractor and learn the limits of it, you will have a safer experience, and as another poster stated, never get over confident and keep your seat belt on. Oh, and one more thing, I wouldn't put any of the down riggers out unless you get yourself into a bad situation. It doesn't take much to catch something and roll the tractor

 

[tractchores]

Last week I had a close call I was on flat ground in brush and downed trees. One minute I'm level next I'm tipping over. Here is what happened. I have a BH 76 on my B3200 HST with R4's. As I passed a tree a branch snagged the down lever on the backhoe. It pushed the lever down and to the side, just enough to tip sideways as it lifted the rear tires off the ground. The branch had enough spring to keep pressure on the lever even after I stopped. I was at an angle, rocking near going over. I reached back and pulled the lever to get the bucket off the ground and level out. Reversed direction and removed the branch that tried to kill me.
It was close. I have tipped a bigger tractor while cleaning ditches.
I will be more careful where I drive in the future. I think my wife called our Insurance agent shortly after I mentioned the incident.

Yikes! That's a great reason to keep the pins in while traveling. I never thought of that happening, but am glad you posted as I plan to take my BH into some rough terrain in the woods to dig holes for a new tree-line this weekend. I can definitely imagine that happening! I always have the issue with my wood chipper in the woods, it catches on trees and yanks the tractor to the side.

 

[timswi]

Yikes! That's a great reason to keep the pins in while traveling. I never thought of that happening, but am glad you posted as I plan to take my BH into some rough terrain in the woods to dig holes for a new tree-line this weekend. I can definitely imagine that happening! I always have the issue with my wood chipper in the woods, it catches on trees and yanks the tractor to the side.

I caught a flannel shirt on my backhoe sticks when climbing off while it was running..Lucky I wasn't crushed, it was close..Lesson learned.

 

[RaydaKub]

Personally I wouldn't remove the front end loader unless there was a real good reason to take it off. It provides great parking brakes (good for a hill), and I've used it to get unstuck at least once when brush hogging down a bank.

As the title implies, he's worried his B2920 will tip over sideways. That's a pretty darn good reason. While an emergency brake or parking brake are good uses for the FEL (and I've used both myself), there is never going to be an advantage to having the FEL on that will provide more stability on a sidehill. Until you park the FEL on the ground and start to lift the front wheels (at which point it likely starts to slide sideways), it is transferring weight off the solid back wheels to the rocky front wheels. You can (and should!) ballast the tractor to counter act the affects of the FEL, but you cannot do anything to that FEL that will improve the stability of the tractor from what the base tractor would be without the FEL. It is a detriment to the stability 100% of the time.

 

[Coyote machine]

I caught a flannel shirt on my backhoe sticks when climbing off while it was running..Lucky I wasn't crushed, it was close..Lesson learned.

Backhoe should be secured by it's locks when traveling; that way what happened to you could not have happened, or worse, as you said you were lucky.

 

[swick1]

Backhoe should be secured by it's locks when traveling; that way what happened to you could not have happened, or worse, as you said you were lucky.

I've done it on my 1026r twice. Just have to get off on the right side and you won't get hurt. I also sit the bucket down first

 

[SPYDERLK]

Your tilt meter is showing 25% which is a 4 to 1 slope and quite safe if well graded and uniform as your picture shows.

Yeah 25% is nothing. I think thats in degrees and showing about 23. I have mowed to 30 degrees on a BX with MMM only. Most little tractors w/o FEL will do 28 degrees safely with care.
larry

 

[Boris1]

I think you will be surprised how steep of a slope you're ok on, though I wouldn't advocate trying it out. Over time you'll gain confidence and get a better sense of the slopes. Anytime you can go up / down vs across is really much safer. I have an extreme slope down to my waterfront, and in general my land is pretty hilly. I found out the hard way how much the tractor can take within a few hours of ownership. I accidentally had it in 2wd on a steep slope, lost traction going down, slid out of control, lowered the bucket to prevent going into the ice covered lake, spun in a 180 on a very steep slope and stopped without tipping. It was not a gentle spin, it was quite violent and I believe a rear wheel came slightly off the ground

Some observations I've had are that the BH changes stability DRASTICALLY, I am very careful with the BH on, but without it can go in some pretty steep areas without serious concern. After a year of use I drive on steeper areas and have a better feel. Areas I thought were dangerous at first I now have no concern with. I think that you'll find it will handle a lot more than you think, but drive around, get practice and be careful. The advise about ruts and holes is good advice. You can get tire spacers, I haven't found that I needed them though. You can measure the slopes if you're concerned to get a sense of what the machine will take as well. Attachments change your center of gravity a lot, so get a feel for them before operating on slopes. If I get a chance tomorrow I'll post some of the steepness of the slopes I operate on to give a sense...

I had the exact same thing happen on a hill with my old L4330, you don't really have time to be scared.

 

[Hermio]

The math for this is not difficult. The maximum static angle is equal to 90 degrees -arctan(2* cg/width), where cg is the height above ground of the center of gravity, and width is the distance between contact lines of the tires. For example, if the contact width is 72" and the cg is 48" high (fairly high for most tractors of such a width), the static tipover angle is 36.86 degrees. Trust me, I will never traverse a slope at such an angle! Of course, dynamic conditions are different. For example, if the tractor slides sideways on a slope and hits a rock, rut or tree stump, the inertia may cause a tipover at far less than the static angle. I do not feel comfortable beyond 20 degrees. Also, a BH is asymmetrical, so it can affect the results considerably.