What have you broke being stupid?

[sparker133]

Today I was trying to dump some brush on top of a brush pile. I had the bucket raised high and was not thinking about how close I was. The tractor seamed to stop for a minute then I heard a crunch. I back up and saw that a 4" round tree that was sticking out of the pile went right in to the headlight of my new DX45. I have to replace the whole headlight assembly. I called the dealer to order a new one thinking I could just get the lens, to my dismay I had to order the whole assembly. It cost me $170 my wife was not to happy when she found out. I think it time to build a brush guard. I was wondering if any one else had any "DUH" moments they wanted to share

 

[Tig]

My arm snowboarding. Need I say more?

 

[Jstpssng]

Got a day or two? If not, I'll just mention the tractor stupids.

#1)I broke my loader arms while putting too much tension on a tree before cutting it, to keep it from going into the road. (I don't know why, considering how many dozens of times I've laid other trees across the same town road...)

#2)I laid a little 6" poplar tree across the hood after the wind caught it and pushed it the wrong way. Luckily all it broke was the exhaust manifold. I know better than to run chainsaw more than 6 hours a day,

(#3?)but was tired of being goaded by my 27YO neighbor/coworker, who doesn't realise he won't be 27 forever.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I had the hood up on my tractor checking some wiring and when finished didnt close it but went on the the next task of welding on some chain hooks on the FEL. Decided it would be easier to weld if I raised the FEL up a bit. Forgot that the hood hit the FEL when opened. Luckily it just bent the little locking bracket which I had to remove and hammer back straight.

Also put a small tree into the grill while pushing up a pile of trash. Luckily it just cracked some of the grill plastic and didnt get into the radiator. Guess I should make a grill guard also.

 

[IslandTractor]

Grill guards can be a problem in that they give a false sense of security. Unless you really armor the tractor with a grill guard encased in extruded metal grill, those dangerous on end two to six inch tree parts can still come through your radiator or damage the hood. Armor also needs to be extended to the top of the hood and even the operator station which are both vulnerable when pushing into piles or brush too aggressively.

I have a grill guard and maybe it has helped some but these things are far from the sort of deep woods protective devices needed to really armor a tractor against tree mishaps. I'd love to have bottom armor/protective plates to protect hoses and electrical fittings as well as tie rods, filters and other vulnerable bits being damaged by sticks and stumps. Hard to justify the expense but it would be a nice feeling to know it was down there.

I've managed to bust rear lights backing into a tree, turned my bucket level indicator into a pretzel by snagging it on an overhead branch while backing out and any number of other, luckily small breakages on the tractor.

Dumbest thing I ever did being stupid though was to drive my 66 Mustang into the back of the car in front of me whilst admiring the lovely maiden driving the car next to me. Luckily it was stop and go traffic. She was pretty though.

 

[ToadHill]

I was carrying a bunch of wood in the bucket and raised the FEL too high, a piece fell out and dented the hood. Tractor was all of 3 weeks old when it happened. A couple of weeks later I backed up and bent the adjustable stabilizers for the 3pt arms when the arms were down and they dug into the ground. Who would have figured, the other tractors I had never let the lift arms down far enough to touch the ground.

 

[mwb]

Building a snowman with the loader. Picked up a big snowball and was putting it on top of another when the bottom one broke, the top one slipped under the raised loader and smashed the plastic grill, bent the hood. Tractor was less than a week old, probably 5 hours on it. Wife hadn't even taken the "new tractor picture yet".

 

[Egon]

I've broke or damaged to many things to list including the poor old abused Skin bay holding my rattling bones together.

 

[sparker133]

I got another one for you guys. Working on the edge of my road with my 08 CAT420E pushing back the snow banks. I got to close to the edge without realizing it and dropped down about 3feet on one side. The bad news is there was a tree on the side I dropped over the edge. The tree broke my left front window. It was not very cheap to replace or getting the loader off the tree.

 

[blueriver]

I did this today .... raised the 3 point to find the toplink bracket in the window ,......