Well here's my two cents...
I haven't kept track of names here but I'm going to respond to a couple comments and then tell two stories of what happened to me.
First, someone said Harbor Freight buys the cheapest products available. I disagree, apparently the person saying this has never shopped at a Homier show. Their Chinese products make Harbor Freight products look like they're made by John Deere or New Holland. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
Someone commented that they would never buy a jack or any product from Harbor Freight which would be unsafe if it failed. At one time, I didn't agree with this but, I was a fool. Now I strongly agree!
About four months ago, I bought a "Farm Jack" from Harbor Freight. It was rated at 600lbs. Since I never intended to lift anything near that heavy with it, I thought it would be ok. Wrong!
I needed to tip my front end loader forward. I could almost do it myself. I could lift the one of the arms off the ground slightly but needed another strong person to lift the other one a the same time. I thought ok, I'll use the HF farm jack. So I started jacking it up and it lifted it effortlessly. As I started to jack it down, it hung up. It wouldn't jack down correctly. Suddenly, the jack just let go and the FEL tipped backwards towards me and crashed to the ground. It missed my foot by inches. Had that steel FEL arm dropped three feet and landed on my foot it would have crushed it.
Here's what I found. In the HF Jack, there are two pins. One of the light weight none hardened pins bent and allowed the jack to fall. I took the jack back to the Harbor Freight store and explained that I believed the jack had improperly heat treated components. The store clerk clearly didn't have a clue what I was talking about but refunded my money.
Two lessons learned.
1) Don't trust your life and health to Chinese quality control.
2) Buy a good pair of steel toed shoes when working with your tractor.
Also, when lifting anything using the FEL. Be careful. I recently attempted to lift a crate with a nylon strap. I had the strap attached to both sides of the FEL (mistake #1). One end of the strap was a little tighter than the other, I though the strap would slip and equalize the lifting force (mistake #2).
As I lifted, the 7000lb tractor suddenly (in half a second) flipped up onto two wheels and nearly flipped over. I was sitting still at the time without the seatbelt fastened. I could have easily been pitched out of the drivers seat and under the ROPS had it gone all the way over.
I learned that when the FEL is lifted, the center of gravity of the tractor is much higher than you would think, any side load can flip the tractor VERY EASILY.
Good Luck,
I enjoyed this thread a lot.
Jerry /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
