FEL Humility....Digging to China!

[IndianaPaul]

Thought I'd share my FEL humility lesson with board. Just took delivery of a TC45D not long ago, plus the 16LA w/HD 72" bucket. Love it! However, got a good dose of the lesson "textbook knowledge with no common sense is like loading books on the back of an As....!

Decided last week to take the loader off. Came off with ease as advertised. Unfortunately, took it off in my pole barn which will not have a concrete floor in it for another 2 weeks. Did have enough sense to make sure that the stand leg was on a nice hard 2'x'2 piece of concrete, DID NOT think about putting same type of concrete pad under the bucket.

Needless to say when I went to re-attach today I had a chore on my hand: pulled up to loader arms, drove in, hooked up the hydraulics, rolled the bucket to drop into the brackets and Uh Oh...edge of blade began to slowly dig holes in the floor rather than pushing arms into the brackets. Took me about 30 minutes to figure it out (and a 2 foot deep hole). Ended up rolling bucket all the way back onto 2 of the concrete pas on each side, then sliding a 4 x 4 lengthways under the bucket. When I dumped the bucket this time, arms locked into brackets as planned.

Lesson for the day: 1) Should have had the floor poured last fall when wife told me to; 2) need a solid surface underneath loader in the future.

Indiana Paul

 

[RobS]

<font color=blue>Should have had the floor poured last fall when wife told me to</font color=blue>

Paul, I think this is the real key point in your story. ANY time my wife tells me to build/buy anything even remotely tractor related I'm out the door as fast as I can /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Good to hear everything worked out and I'll think twice about removing my loader in the dirt now /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[paccorti]

This must be one of those fundemental lessons of tractor ownership. Get stuck, get scared or entertain others with some ridiculous situation. I'm glad you got the loader back on. I never ceases to amaze me that what appears to be a good idea initially can be so very bad. Don't feel bad... I've been there too. Almost got thoroughly stuck. Lesson learned? Tractors with full buckets are harder to move than unloaded tractors.

I've had my TC35D for almost 1 year now. Still have not attempted to remove the loader. No big need so far. I'm sure that when the time comes my antics will amuse somebody (wife probably). Thanks for sharing.

Peter