Embarrissing Tractor moments?

[Chuck K.]

Embarrassing I guess sums it up... While mowing the still slightly wet shallow ditch with my ZTR I felt the low side drive wheel start to spin..

Now for those of you that have ZTRs they dont like slippery ditches to begin with.. When the wheel began to spin I turned off the blades, raised the deck and try to use my forward momentum to just cross the ditch to prevent from getting stuck. My timing was a little off and the L/F anti-scalp wheel caught the guy wire to the telephone along with a sapling tree. This hung me up big time, rear end hung on one side of the ditch so I cant back up even if I had traction. I cannot go foreward due to the guy wire and sapling.. You (least I can not) man handle this mower it weighs in around 1,000 pounds.

So I go get the tractor as ppl drive by gawking. I waited untill most traffic is gone in order to lift the rear of the mower up and out of the ditch. Just as the wife and about what seemed like 2 dozen cars stopped to watch surely laughing...


Oh well at least I got it out with no damage...

 

[JerryK]

I have two, that I will admit to, anyway. Once, when we lived on a lake, I was mowing with a JD 318 garden tractor...and the wife called me in for lunch. I left the tractor down by the lake and went inside... When I returned, it had slowly sunk in the wet sand and I had to pull it out with a truck. The other, I was moving a huge pile of old near rotted stumps with my 2240 and got my tractor hung up in the air on several stumps. Had to unhook the rear blade and come along the tractor back to solid ground. No witnesses.....no fingerprints...and my memory is fading fast...

 

[Mousefield]

I had posted this on Kioti operating a few days ago.

Well had the tractor out a couple of weeks ago to level an area we wanted to build a new chicken coop. I had driven over this area a few times before with no problems. Was going back and forth trying to just scrape a few inches off the top as we are going to put in a cement foundation. Then it happened, tractor wouldn't go and realized the back was in mud. Put it into 4 WD but that didn't help. Took a deep breath and pondered what to do to get her out. Had the backhoe on so used the stabilizers to lift the back end and put some scrap 2 X 6 bits of board under the back wheels. Dug out the front ones a bit as they were down a few inches. Put boards in front of all the wheels and out she came. Put the tractor back in its home as I was calling it a day, didn't want to push my luck. Next day I dug a ditch to help drain water from the area into a seasonal creek close by. Lucky I had the backhoe on, made getting out simple. Measured the mud line on the backhoe and it was 19 inches. The most interesting thing is my wife was gardening not far by and didn't even know I had gotten the tractor stuck. Sometimes I can use loud and interesting language. Guess I just didn't get that excited about it.
So found a new use for the backhoe

 

[Soundguy]

Won't be the first time you get stuck.. don't sweat it.. BTDT with my 4wd tractor in a 'dry' pond bed.. that had 3' of muck under a 1" crust...

soundguy

 

[D7E]

This one was a few years ago..!

 

[TripleR]

It didn't happen to me, but my father in law was using his new JD425, you know the ones with the forward and reverse pedals side by side. He was mowing an island in our eight acre pond; just loved that carefully crafted island and his new JD.

I am not sure exactly what happened, but apparently he went right up to the edge, got distracted and took his foot off the HST. It started to roll forward towards the pond, so he pushed down on what he thought was reverse and it lurched forward into ten feet of water. As an old sailor he had no problem abandoning ship and swimming to shore, but the JD went to the bottom pretty quick.

He had one of my sons swim down and hook a chain to it and we lifted it out; new instrument panel, new engine, but that darned thing has never been the same.

To the day he died he swore he pushed on the "right" pedal.

We won't even talk about what happened when he tried to pull a Case out of a different pond with an GMC Sonoma.

 

[LBrown59]

I have two, that I will admit to, anyway. Once, when we lived on a lake, I was mowing with a JD 318 garden tractor...and the wife called me in for lunch. I left the tractor down by the lake and went inside... When I returned, it had slowly sunk in the wet sand and I had to pull it out with a truck.

I would have drove it to the house for lunch.

 

[RoyJackson]

Not so embarrassing (although the only witness, my wife, reminds me of it now and then) but rather dumb was the time I rigged the ballast box up to the 790 before I'd installed the loader.
As soon as I pulled the rockshaft lever, the front end of the tractor reared right up...scared the h3ll of of me! And, of course, I was right at the garage door.
Fortunately, no damage other then my pride...but I do remind folks on TBN to install that loader BEFORE the ballast box when ever the topic comes up.

 

[LBrown59]

I haven't had any cause i've never gotten hung up.

 

[LBrown59]

So I go get the tractor as ppl drive by gawking. I wait till most traffic is gone in order to lift the rear of the mower out of the ditch and pull it just as the wife and about what seemed like 2 dozen cars stopped to watch surely laughing...
View attachment 164187

Always be sure to have an audience.

 

[LBrown59]

It didn't happen to me, but my father in law was using his new JD425, you know the ones with the forward and reverse pedals side by side. He was mowing an island in our eight acre pond; just loved that carefully crafted island and his new JD.

I am not sure exactly what happened, but apparently he went right up to the edge, got distracted and took his foot off the HST. It started to roll forward towards the pond, so he pushed down on what he thought was reverse and it lurched forward into ten feet of water. As an old sailor he had no problem abandoning ship and swimming to shore, but the JD went to the bottom pretty quick.

He had one of my sons swim down and hook a chain to it and we lifted it out; new instrument panel, new engine, but that darned thing has never been the same.

To the day he died he swore he pushed on the "right" pedal.

We won't even talk about what happened when he tried to pull a Case out of a different pond with an GMC Sonoma.

That's why I like the treadal instead of the pedals.
You can't get your food on the wrong thing with a treadel.

 

[roger 4400]

I had an old Oliver 550 2 wd and I was pulling a 16 ninches log with the draw bar, was climbing a small hill in my forest when I had to make a sharp turn because I did not want to hurt a young tree, I BACKED UP ON the log . My axel was floating on the log, no more traction . I had to use chains to pull me with the bucket roll back and while one wheel touched the ground use the brake on the free wheel to have traction. Yes I saved the young tree

 

[Dartagnan]

Used the brand new tractor and fel to fill the electric line ditch, which was full of water. I didn't want my 4 year old granddaughter to have an accident...


Needless to say, fill dirt and water don't equal terra-firma.

 

[HeyNow]

That is why I own a truck, a tractor and a ZTR. I use the tractor to pull the ZTR out of the stream bed and the truck to pull out the tractor that got stuck pulling out the ZTR. True story.....

 

[buck12]

It didn't happen to me, but my father in law was using his new JD425, you know the ones with the forward and reverse pedals side by side. He was mowing an island in our eight acre pond; just loved that carefully crafted island and his new JD.

I am not sure exactly what happened, but apparently he went right up to the edge, got distracted and took his foot off the HST. It started to roll forward towards the pond, so he pushed down on what he thought was reverse and it lurched forward into ten feet of water. As an old sailor he had no problem abandoning ship and swimming to shore, but the JD went to the bottom pretty quick.

He had one of my sons swim down and hook a chain to it and we lifted it out; new instrument panel, new engine, but that darned thing has never been the same.

To the day he died he swore he pushed on the "right" pedal.

We won't even talk about what happened when he tried to pull a Case out of a different pond with an GMC Sonoma.

I can relate to your FIL. Both my neighbor and I have put deeres into our pond. In my case new head gaskets and she was good to go. What complicates things are that on my GT235 the brake and hydro pedals are on the same side. I was cutting down the pond bank and it wouldn't back up. I was using my toe to hold the brake and heal to operate the backup pedal. On one attempt I caught the edge of the forward pedal and in she went. The worst part was that I could have got it out before the wife got home except I had the battery off my tractor to clean the battery box and by the time I got the battery back on and was about to hook a chain to the mower my wife pulls in the drive.

 

[Chilly807]

After reading these I'm glad I don't have a pond.. yet

Chilly

 

[psj12]

While trouble shooting a no fuel to pump issue on my old Englih 3/45 Nuffield I pushed the starter button while standing on the ground next to the right rear wheel. It appears that there was enough fuel in the pump to start the tractor and I had neglected to make sure it was out of gear (nuetral switch inop). The engine rolled the tractor forward about a foot and a half trapping my foot under the rear wheel before cutting off due to lack of fuel. After a while my wife heard me yelling and came out. I had her go get the FIL from their house two miles away. He arrived and dragged the tractor off my foot with a PU.

 

[TripleR]

I can relate to your FIL. Both my neighbor and I have put deeres into our pond. In my case new head gaskets and she was good to go. What complicates things are that on my GT235 the brake and hydro pedals are on the same side. I was cutting down the pond bank and it wouldn't back up. I was using my toe to hold the brake and heal to operate the backup pedal. On one attempt I caught the edge of the forward pedal and in she went. The worst part was that I could have got it out before the wife got home except I had the battery off my tractor to clean the battery box and by the time I got the battery back on and was about to hook a chain to the mower my wife pulls in the drive.

That's funny. My father in law lived in town and used the farms to stay busy after retirement and my mother in law didn't know about half of his "adventures in farming". Kind of hard to hide it when you are dripping wet or have the bumper on your truck literally dragging on the ground from pulling on a submerged tractor, but otherwise...

 

[Tig]

One day I was driving my tractor past the boat ramp and decided to stop and rinse her off. Up till then I used the HST pedals as brakes. Unfortunately a new hydraulic hose may have interfered with the shift lever and she popped out of gear. I flailed away on the HST pedals until my pants were wet. Then I found the brake. Once people stopped laughing they came over and helped me out. Then they left and continued to laugh out of earshot.

I rebuilt my first diesel engine that summer.
Since then I use the brake to stop and I clean my tractor with a broom.

 

[Soundguy]

hydrolock I assume?