Dumbest Thing you have done with your tractor

[droy]

Not a tractor thing, but....
Many years ago I was on my four wheeler, when up ahead, I noticed a large black snake sunning itself on the packed limestone road. Disliking snakes intensely, I ran over it at full throttle,(about 45 mph) quickly turning to look back...... NO SNAKE!! Imagining it wrapped up in my four wheeler, I "abandoned ship", thinking I would jump off and hit the ground running; WRONG!!!! After flipping head over heels for about ten minutes, I finally came to a stop. Lying there in pain, thinking it couldn't be any worse, two of my beer drinking buddies drive up in tears, yes, they were behind me, and saw the whole thing.

 

[dbdartman]

Was thinking about dumbest things. Hmmm chronological? ALphabetical? Size of reaction? Yeah, that's it!

Ok, when you fertilize your wife's flower garden and you use your 30 gal sprayer, make sure the roundup is out of the hose, too. Rinsing the tank is only 1/2 of the job.


Tig,

I know, I know! I'm just glad they left one finger out of the body cast so I can type! Wife's gonna have a "piñata party" when the cast is due to come off. Wonder that that is? Maybe I should have studies Spanish? and why does she want to know where the aluminum bat is? Hmmmm ...
jb

From the "When life gives you lemons..." file:

Next time SWMBO wants to know why a project/job hasn't started yet, see if she thinks only doing half the job is better than doing none of the job.

BTW, I anxiously await my party invitation!

 

[ding2520]

1) I have two single car garage doors with a enough room for a basketball pole and adjustable backboard between them. The kind that can be lowered from 10 feet to 7.5 feet, just make sure that the kids haven't lowered the backboard so that they can "jam" the ball when your moving snow across the front of the garage and trying to clean up as close to the pole as possible with the loader. The ROPs on a 2520 will turn the rim and backboard together and put a twist into the pole the looks like ****.
2) Snow removal with the loader beats the heck out of the atv and blade route that I had in the past. I got a new boxblade last summer, now add in the box blade on the back and I can really put the hurt on the snow. Living in Minnesota, you can't just pile the snow along the side of the driveway or you would run out of room before the winter is over. You have to move the snow out into the lawn in places. This winter must be different than all the rest of them I have experienced, there seems to be "sod" mixed with the snow that we get now....go figure.

 

[hondarider]

Bought the tractor home from an auction. Never operated a tractor before in my life. Thought that tractors are like tanks. Lower the ripper down and started ripping (of course I had no clue what I was doing). Then I got over confident ....started ripping backward! Then ripping while turning. Then Moving the ripper up and down while ripping. Well, I broke the ripper cylinder and twisted the "bell crank" (whatever that is).....

The damage is $550 and still counting...

 

[patrick_g]

Needed to use my ride on trencher (like a backhoe but not mounted on a tractor) to dig a trench to divert water coming off a pasture away from my driveway and garage apron. I use the hydraulics to put pressure on the bucket-ground contact to control the height of the trailer hitch at the other end of the machine, teeter totter style. This time I shut down the gasoline engine AND THEN worked a hydraulic control lever to lower the front end of the trencher. I inadvertently set a stabilizer down on my left foot.

My left foot was pinned to the ground by the weight and in a fair amount of pain. I can't reach the pull start handle, I can't begin to pick up the thing enough to get my foot out, BUT... I was very lucky... I had someone else with me and a Gorilla Bar (large HD pry bar) right at hand. He pried the foot of the stabilizer up enough for me to extract my foot.

I was NOT wearing my steel toe boots! I got some nasty bruises and 3 days later my big toe only hurts if I touch the bruised part. I was lucky in that the points on the stabilizer foot didn't come down on any part of my foot or I would have some broken bones. Missed me by well under an inch. That was last Wednesday and the bruises are still visible today, Friday, but fading.

I guess I was done in by a sudden unanticipated gust of stupidity.

I just tossed out a pair of boots that were starting to come apart at the seams, literally. They are rubber on the bottom and leather on top and insulated. I could have glued the seams but there was other damage. These boots were simply great for cold wet conditions but not very waterproof with a big gash cut through the toe of the left boot by a chain saw. Missed my toes that time too. I have a lucky left foot.

Pat

 

[jinman]

"What's that pile of wood down in the gully?", my wife asked as we drove along a ridge on our Kawasaki mule. "Oh, that's my memory pile," I responded. I then related to her that many years ago, I was using my 2wd Ford Jubilee with a boxblade on the rear to cut some trails around the gullies. I decided that I could drive down this ridge to the bottom of a gully, make a u-turn, and drive back up another ridge to get out. That was a very bad calculation. As I turned at the bottom of the gully and started up the next ridge, the front wheels lifted the front of the tractor and the boxblade caugh the ridge behind me. It lifted the 3PH to the top and still the rear wheels had not caught the bottom of the gully. I was trapped with only my boxblade on the rear and the front tires touching ground. One of my rear tires was completely in the air and the other quickly excavated the ground so that I was just suspended there between two high spots. The worst thing was that it was about the time everyone comes home from work, and I was only about 200' from the road. I had to endure the humiliation of everyone honking and waving as they drove by.

I was able to get out, but not until I hauled in lots of scrap wood timbers to put under the rear wheels. Luckily I had a lightweight floorjack and used that to jack up each wheel before putting lumber under there. I got it up enough that I could disconnect the boxblade and drop it off the rear. That was enough to let me carefully drive up the slope. Of course, I had to string a few chains together to drag the boxblade up out of the gulley, but that was easy compared to the previous "trick." I dragged the floorjack up by hand, but decided to leave that pile of shoring materials down in the gully to remind me to never ever do something stupid like that again.

 

[Village Idiot]

I wanted to fit the tractor and backhoe into the barn but I knew together they were too long to fit easily. I took the backhoe off and left it in 1 bay, and parked the tractor in another. I remembered being told it would be easier to put the hoe back on if it was supported from the bottom, so it wouldn't settle too much. Rather than cut an old 4x4 laying nearby, I just stuffed a couple "empty" paint cans under the base to act as supports.

1 week later I find the empty paint can has been crushed, and the one that was actually 3/4 full of red stain has exploded and leaked stain all over the place.

Fine, I'll just connect the hoe, move it out, and clean up the mess. EXCEPT THAT when I drove out of the bay with the hoe on, the dipper caught the garage door opener and nearly tore it off the ceiling. It wouldn't work anymore because the housing and the track were all bent out of alignment. (I told my wife it was acting "funny" and we may have to get a new one.) Later in the week I took the housing down, beat it with a hammer in the driveway until it was nearly straight again, and then turned up the "down force" knob so high I can crush beer cans under the door. Then told my wife how I saved us $100 for a new opener.

At least it works.

 

[pitt_md]

Just to make you feel better about your mistakes...

Dr. (surgeon) who's plane I used to work on. Brand new Beechcraft Baron (read more expensive than you want to know) landed it at a small airfield with the gear up... Had me install a radar altimiter with verble warning "TERRAIN". Landing at the airfield I worked at again with the gear up and the altimiter repeating "terrain" over and over. Next he had me rig up an old school bell mounted under his instrument pannel that no one could ignore.

 

[JTPass]

I bought my first tractor back in the early '80s. It was a used Kubota L245 with a FEL. I knew absolutely nothing about tractors and FELs. The first day I brought it home I was driving it around the yard and decided to see how high the loader could go...while moving. The tractor tilted as the terrain changed and over I went. Thank God for the big Oak tree that the loader hit or I would have gone all the way over. I guarantee you, I have never done that again.

 

[CowwFace]

I've posted this to the Kioti form once, but thought it would have a happy home on this thread as well.

When I brought my kioti DK40SE home for the first time I parked the pickup and trailer on a slight incline, towards the house.. but about 30 feet away from the house. While backing off of the trailer (borrowed from my good friend/neighbor) when I got to the back of the trailer the weight of the tractor/FEL/Rear blade was enough to pull the rear wheels of my F250 off the ground... so as you can guess.. the whole shabang.. Pickup, Trailer, Tractor start sliding down the incline towards the house.. I wish I could describe the noise that it made... Needless to say my "cat like reflexes" had failed me and it was "deer in the headlights" time for me.. FROZEN!! My 13yo son was standing nearby and had the presence of mind to jump in the pickup and step on the brakes.. saved my bacon!

Now of corse the boy is under threat of death if this event ever makes it's way to the Wife... When I finally got the tractor off of the trailer I made sure to park it over the scrape markes the ramp's made on the asphalt driveway... about 8feet long I'd say... Hide the evidence.

Carry on,
Phill