Dumbest Thing you have done with your tractor

[Redneck in training]

We bought two truckloads of topsoil to spread it around the house after it was built. It was before we acquired a tractor so to safe money I rented a skid loader and decided to do it by myself. After initial hopping on rear or front wheels I was able to move around in more or less coordinated manner. Being somewhat cocky I was steadily speeding up. And then it happened. I was reversing after I dumped the bucket pretty close to the house. My foot was still on the rise pedal while I was looking back. Then I heard crashing sound. I hit the soffit with the bucket, lifting a rafter, kinking the roof etc.
The original rental cost was $250 for 8 hours, I paid surcharge for 4 more, $80 for refueling, then they claimed there was mud on the bottom of the machine and charged me for power wash. At the end it was very expensive rental. I could have hired a guy for about half of the sum and had it done quick and right.

 

[Thomas]

Couple years ago neighbor ask if I could remove high snow drift if front of there two door garage..sure why not,gives me some seat time soooo bucket and bucket for hours w/couple of good coffee breaks in between as darkness arrive almost done I started noticing small black plastic snow pile I made,than it hit me why the spruce tree moved couple times,some how I got tangle up in christmas light and rip lights from the tree also off side neighbor house..what a mess

 

[jimmyj]

You guys reminded me of another shining moment of sheer stupidity. I went and bought a nicely restored AC 616 (old compact garden tractor, about 1300lbs). It was my proud moment so as quick as I could I drove my truck with the tractor on a trailer to my pals place to show him.

We were admiring the new beast so I decided to unload and let the boys have a test drive. The trailer was a small landscaper so I lowered the back ramp to drive off (in reverse). Well now, I was sure I was in gear and started to back up. Hmmm, going kinda fast, hmmm, NOT in gear, in NEUTRAL!

Faster and faster I zoomed down the tailgate ramp and now I'm motoring down the driveway (which is a hill) in reverse. Of course there are NO brakes! Buddy's new car is about 15 feet away (by new I mean under a week old). I turned her hard and was able to do almost a whole u turn to stop the momentum. Luckily, no tippy no flippy and no damage to anything but my pride. The boys say the look on my face was worth a million bucks!

 

[Runner]

In a BIG hurry to get something done with the tractor. Mistake number 1.

Wearing shorts. Mistake number 2 (but will probably keep doing it anyway...)

Try to jump off the tractor to do something without being "situationally aware". Mistake number 3.

Caught the hem of my shorts on the range lever, hit my knee and fell off the machine face first. Ripped a perfectly good pair of shorts too...

It's a LOOONG way to the ground from the operator platform of the big 2520, don't ya know.....

 

[Iplayfarmer]

This is not really tractor related, and I'm sure it's not exactly along the lines of the original intention of this thread, but it's really stupid...

Last night I was reassembling a snowblower after having a new shaft built for it. I had cleaned the carb while I had it apart. When I got it back together I couldn't get it started. I took the carb back apart and re-sprayed out the openings. Put it back on and still no go. Third time of taking the carb apart looking for what I missed, I noticed that the fuel shutoff valve was closed.

Stupid, I know; but it gets better.

I get the whole thing back together and still no go. I'm fit to be tied. I've re-built the carburetor 4 times now. I know I have the fuel petcock open. The fifth time taking it apart, I realize that I never re-attached the throttle linkage. In my furious haste of the fifth disassembly I managed to damage a gasket, so I'm now waiting for the red RTV to cure. Hopefully she starts up tomorrow and runs like there's no tomorrow. If it doesn't I'll look for something else stupid I've done rather than re-re-rebuild the carb.

 

[dawoodwa]

I was harrowing in corn stalks getting ready to plant wheat one fall, pulling a 18 foot disk behind the 4640. It was on a Saturday and I was looking for the football game on the radio and not paying attention to what I was doing, and I had an audience, some friends hunting doves in an adjacent field. I made one complete round before I realized I had a problem, as I topped a small hill and was coming up to the corner I see a harrow that looked remarkably like mine sitting there with out a tractor. I had a hitch pin jump out and the hoses snatched out of the quick connects, made 3 turns concentrating on the radio and never realized I was missing anything. My friends did a great job of not telling anyone about it also.

 

[Zephrant]

I was out at my Dad's house and he asks me to help him launch the boat. So he backs up the truck I drop the trailer on it, lock it down and we hop in and head out. The boat launch is next door so we drive out the 1/4 mile drive, carefully making the hair-pin turn wide, and then the hard turn to the launch. Drive on down and wait a minute for a guy to get out off of the ramp. Dad takes a big wide turn to line up, then turns around to back down the ramp and asks "Didn't we hook up the boat before we left?"

Sure enough, not a thing behind the truck and people are looking at us kind of funny... We drive back home, watching the sides of the road for hints of a boat and trailer going over the banks. Found the boat back by the house, not 10' from where we left it but with a big skid mark in front of it. Turns out I didn't get it latched down and it bounced off when we went up the hill. From there it rolled backward to sit nearly in it's parking spot.

 

[Cacinok]

i just read this whole thread today - slow afternoon at the office - i was rofl. it begs the question, if a guy does something stupid in the woods and neither his wife nor buddies see it, did it really happen?

luckily my stupidity on the tractor and around the place has been limited and little damage has occurred.

when i got my first tractor, an old long that had been thoroughly beaten by who knows how many previous owners i was a little slow to learn that it needed a wide berth to make a turn w/ the FEL and brush hog on it and i either chipped pieces off of or rammed straight into trees leaving big gashes in the tree. it happened often enough that my wife began asking why so many of the trees had big chunks taken out of them. i told her it was those pesky inland beavers. she gave me one of those "nice try" looks and kindly changed the subject.

my neighbor's stupidity almost drove me insane. he was installing a fence btwn our properties. 4' field wire and 1 strand of barbed wire. he got the field wire up, but for some unknown reason left the barbed wire laying next to the fence on my side of the fence. the next spring rolls around and the grass is getting too tall so i go to brush hog the front part of the property. i start my first pass down the fence line paying attention not to get the FEL into the new fence. i hear this horrendous scraping noise and look back to see hundreds of feet of barbed wire being pulled underneath the brush hog. it literally took 10 hours to completely remove it all. neighbor felt bad for leaving the wire on my side and brush hogged the front of my property until i got my brush hog up and running.

at our previous place, the mobile home sat on a slight hill. i was dumping some dirt next to the house and the hill was wet. the fully loaded tractor started sliding towards the house w/ the brakes on. i couldn't drop the bucket b/c the power meter was below the bucket. i finally thought to drop the brush hog, but not before the corner of the bucket went about 2.5" into the siding.

the old long died a quiet death (spun a bearing) and was replaced w/ a 4wd mahindra w/ FEL. i've only hit one tree with it. my less than smart moves w/ it have centered around digging my pond deeper and having huge loads of wet clay in the bucket. trying to save time, i'd back out of the pond, instead of turning around. the heavy weight of the load in the bucket would lift the back end of the tractor (and attached box blade) up off of the ground. at first i thought it was kinda cool b/c i could adjust the FEL and balance the tractor on the front tires as i backed up out of the pond. i did this a bunch of times w/o incident. well one time i did it, not realizing i wasn't lined up perpendicular to the slope, and when the rear end of the tractor lifted up, the whole thing started to roll toward the down hill side. luckily i had my hand on the FEL control stick and shoved it all the way forward and let the bucket free fall all the way to the ground, which, of course, caused the rear of the tractor to slam back down. the pucker factor was high on that particular night. needless to say i don't try to balance the tractor on two wheels any more. neither do i back up hills w/ a loaded FEL.

 

[bpsooner]

This is an outstanding thread. It sure gives all of us things to think about when out on the tractor. If a newbie ever wanted to know "What not to do", It has all the info they would ever want.

I guess the worse thing I ever have done was taking out a 2 day old fence with the FEL while brush hogging. I spent several days out in the hot sun putting up that fence to see it go away in a matter of seconds. I guess I am a slow learner because a month later I took out my father in laws electric fence with the tractor.

 

[woodlandfarms]

I have a litany of things I have run over, crushed, ran into in my careless ways...

But for dumb, it probably was my first time on a tractor. Young, had learned to drive the farm truck around so I got the concept of shifting. Dad says take the Deere to the next field. I jump in it, all excited. I remember Dads instructions. Don't shift unless you are completely stopped. Well, I think you guys see where this is going. Down the road I go. Accelerating in first, then stopping, putting it in second, taking off again, Getting into third and.....

Dad caught up to me in the pickup as I was parking the tractor. Just stared. Wondered who's son I was I am sure.

The other minor one was the day I borrowed a friends XXX with a seat killswitch. First thing I am doing with it is loader work. Hood is poor design so I stand up to look at what I am scooping... Engine stalls, I think it is me... I repeat the activity for a couple of hours, probably restarting the tractor once every three of four minutes. Finally call the friend and say hey, I think there is something wrong. He drives back (half hour drive) and can't get it to repeat. I do it, get it to stall. He stares at me, goes to the fridge for a beer, taking a 6 pack as payment for his time and leaves without saying a word.