Brandi, I see this "Tracks Pointing Up" picture just happened two weeks ago, where's the thread? What's the story?
I was over at a friend's new property taking out trees for a driveway and a house.
While loading on the trailer to go home, the main hose from the pump to the valve bank blew and I lost hyd. pressure. I was just about on the trailer where I chain it down, when I saw ground inside my right track. Next thing I knew, I was stepping out the slideup windshield opening on the side of the ditch. When an excavator loses hyd pressure, the parking brakes do not engage. I tried to swing the boom around to stop my fall, but with low pressure there also, it just acted as an anchor.
I went home, got the Mahindra and kept thinking something would need to pull from the tow eye, while I lifted the boom with the FEL on the Mahindra. A dumptruck stopped by and said he could pull it after he got fuel. By then I had clearing trees for the Mahindra to position to lift the boom. I lifted the boom two feet by myself, looked at my friend and said,,,,,,,,"I'm gonna try it now". The Mahindra lifted (flipped?) the CAT back upright all by herself!
While lifting, I busted (sheared the bolt) the mount for the right boom light guard and tweaked the thumb and stick lines. The sight glass tube on the fuel tank came off, dumping 30 gallons of diesel while on it's side and the tank was tweaked on it's mounts. The hyd. tank didn't budge!
I was afraid it had caved in the radiator louvers into the radiator, but those were fine also. The light guard on the fuel tank is loose. I must have fell on the right sliding window, as the forward one was half out of the track. I tried to pop it back into the track with a 3 inch round cedar post, but it wasn't plexiglass like I thought. Yep, I shattered the glass into thousands of little shards.
The next weekend I replaced both pump hoses and took out 6 more trees before the stick cylinder hose blew. It showered the cab and my feet with fluid. Seems I missed the tweaked hard line, when checking for damage, which pulled the hose too tight with the stick fully retracted. I changed that line Friday, between rain storms and with my seatbelt on, loaded her up and brought her home.
Yesterday I paid $65 for a 30x36 inch of 1/4 lexan to make the new sliding window. It is amazing and shamefull how, it the heat of the day (around 95 and humid) and adrenaline flowing how you can compound your errors and make things worse.
hugs, Brandi
