What have you messed up, with your tractor? Including ROPS into garage...

[sixdogs]

Reading this thread makes me feel better about some of the dumb stuff I have done. I once was going to replace a rear seal in a high crop tractor that had a gear case arrangement for each of the rear wheels. The gear oil in each wheel drive hub also flowed into the rear axle housing and the combination held a lot of gear oil. I can't remember but 15 gallons comes to mind.

Anyway, I started to drain the oil into a huge pan I had and for some reason had to go into the house. Maybe lunch. I started the oil draining and since I'm a savvy guy felt comfortable leaving it to drain by itself. Wow, dumb.

And drain it did. For whatever reason, maybe an air pocket, the oil came out and partially missed the pan. When I got back I had maybe 10 or 12 gallons of rank smelling gear oil on my nice concrete floor and a sheepish look on my face. I can still smell it.

 

[BKBoiss]

Just be glad it wasn't burnt gear oil. Gear oil smells bad. Burnt gear oil is AWFUL and it doesn't go away.

 

[CADplans]

Anyway, I started to drain the oil into a huge pan I had and for some reason had to go into the house. Maybe lunch. I started the oil draining and since I'm a savvy guy felt comfortable leaving it to drain by itself. Wow, dumb.
.

About 30 years ago,,, my BIL purchased his first 18-wheeler, a IH Freightliner.

Prior to that he had trucks like the F-750 Ford.

Well,,,he was used to engines with 6 quarts of oil,,, so he felt safe with a 5 gallon bucket under the dain plug.
That bucket held about half the oil that poured out all over the brand new shop floor.

I think he spilled close to another half gallon moving the slippery/full bucket.

WOW,, we had a real mess to clean up over the next few days, trying to restore the concrete!!

 

[gwstang]

Possible missed opportunity here. Husband should explain why he needs a bigger tractor....WITH A CAB, to safeguard her. Maybe even a second tractor.

Fixed that for you...lol

 

[PatrickS2222]

There are a few bruises on the corners of my buildings. I have sliced and diced more lengths of garden hose than I care to tally. Kong dog toys exit a finish mower at an exciting velocity. I've electrified the whole tractor mowing too close to the electric fence. I was diligently leveling out some lumpy spots near the edge of the yard but I had forgotten about the black currant seedlings we had just transplanted right behind me - I back-dragged the loader right over them.

No damage to anything other than my pride - I was on an older Craftsman ride-on which had a 3-speed transmission. The shifter was in the middle of the platform in front of the seat. I hopped off to clear some debris from my path and hooked my pant leg on the shifter thus power shifting it into 3rd gear. It was plenty fast enough to make catching up a significant challenge. Of course, the neighbors were entertaining guests at the time and they were outside to witness the event. I got a round of applause.

Jusy been reading through this thread, only up to Post No 83, but I'm just now able to stop laughing - so much so I've still got tears of laughter streaming down my face :laughing: :laughing: imagining those scenes!

To add my :2cents: I've only had two significant accidents - both as a young teenager. First one was refuelling our much-loved MF35 from an overhead 500gallon tank on a tripod frame (they are now outlawed - no prizes for guessing why). After filling up and hanging up the hose, looking rearward I reversed away. I felt something strange and turned my head just in time to see the tank falling toward the tractor. Fortunately I was out of reach, but the tank tore the exhaust off, glanced off the bonnet and front wheel onto its side on the ground, diesel running out of the vent at the top of it. I jumped off and covered the vent with my hand until we could unscrew it and plug the hole. The tank had a huge dent in its side, but I reckon I was lucky I didn't get squashed. We found the hose had inadvertently looped around a length of heavy railway track across the front of the tractor. Next day Dad got a nearby road repair crew to stand it up again with their loader.

The other silly mistake - leaving our MF135 idling while I jumped off to grab some tools from near an irrigation pump engine. Not applying the park brake, it rolled away, and went upside down into about an 8ft deep waterhole in the creek. We rolled it right way up and fished it out with the 35, then got it repaired. I was too young to repair it myself - I remember in 1975 it costing my parents $600 in repairs.

As someone else already stated - when you pay your own repair costs, damage is dramatically reduced. Only mistake I've made recently :ashamed: is reversing and putting a rear tyre into the door of our 300E - whilst watching the bucket doesn't damage anything! :confused2: Again, as already stated, watching one end instead of the other!

(Edit): I reckon though, the best so far is Post No 132 :drink:

 

[N80]

I've told this story here before but had forgotten about it myself.

I was mowing in deep grass with a 6' rotary cutter. Went to mow down by my lake. Right as I mowed in front of my (heavy duty) 14' john boat I noticed I was mowing over its bow rope which was lying in the deep grass. Before I could react in any way the mower caught the bow rope and that boat came sailing at the tractor like a missile. I swear I don't think I've ever seen anything move that fast. The boat smashed into the rear wheel of the tractor and immediately the rope was cut. It did not hurt the tractor other than knocking the paint off the rim. It put a large dent in the bow of the john boat and all but yanked the rope cleat off.

 

[beowulf]

I may also have told this story here before but not sure so. . .

If anyone wants to know how to get a nice 15 to 20 degree bend in an auger, well, I can help. I was digging a series of post holes and all was going well and I was into a nice routine. Back up to the spots I had marked, lower, engage, lift, disengage and move on to the next spot. I had done perhaps 8 to 10 holes like that when I somehow became too confident that I had my routine mastered. Anyway, in the next hole, I backed up, lowered, engaged and. . . .started to drive off - forgot the "lift the auger" step.

And if you want to be sure you can get a nice bend in your auger with the least amount of effort, do this is the summer when the ground is hard - it is much easier to bend them in hard ground.

The machine shop guy enjoyed the story and was able to straighten it out.

 

[shaeff]

I've got a '64 MF35 Utility. I've worked tractors a bit growing up (32yrs old now), but this is the first larger machine I've used extensively. I only got this thing about 1yr 3mo ago. Still learning, and I'm sure I will be for a long time.

We had a modular house built on our property after we cleared it. My father, brother, and myself spent countless weekends working my father's Kubota and our chainsaws to ready the property for the house to be delivered. I don't drive the machine close to the house. My first day running my flail mower after fixing bends, broken knives, shredded belt, welding the hood, etc... I was on cloud 9! We have an old telephone pole that's in the front yard standing near an old apple tree and some bushes. I was very carefully watching the mower's offset to make sure I didn't clip the apple tree- only to completely take down the telephone pole!

(our power lines and phone/internet are run underground) Luckily the pole doesn't have anything on it. I was able to pull the remainder of the pole out and shove the large piece back in the hole. Seems to be holding upright for now. It's only 15ft high.

I've done the same thing with small (1.5") trees in the field the first time I mowed with the flail. Take them right down with the bucket. Classic "watch one end while the other does damage."

So far I haven't hit anything of value. Yet.

 

[desh]

Brand new L4701. Brand new grapple. Brand new hydraulic lift trailer. Enjoyed the heck out of using the grapple to clean up several large brush piles in 1/10 time it would have taken me otherwise. I was careful to go slow so I didn't bump the trailer. Realized too late that the bouncing motion of releasing the hydraulics on the loader resulted in the tractor bumping the metal fenders on the trailer. Tractor won. I now have some real nice dents in the new trailer fenders.

 

[sixdogs]

One day you will look back on those dents and wonder why all the excitement. No one wants dents but they just happen and the harder you try not to get them the easier they seem to happen. :confused3: