Field Jacks and Traction Boards

   / Field Jacks and Traction Boards #1  

glennmac

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2000
Messages
1,586
Location
Western Connecticut
Tractor
2003 Kubota L3430
Havent been around much because I have been shopping for computers, bidding on computers, learning a lot about online auction fraud ... and, oh yeah, spending many hours, yet again, extricating my tractor from the part of my propery known as the Oozama Ver Boten.

The short explanation is that I have finally figured out the best way to unstick my tractor: jack up each end of tractor, and slide a traction board under the lifted wheels. I now need some thoughts on what kind of jack to buy and how I can get or make boards, or some other surface, with a superior traction texture on it.

The longer explanation. It has been a dry year, so I had succeeded last month in brush cutting all the phragmites and cattails that grow in the Oozama. I sneaked in backwards with the cutter and only got stuck twice. The evil vegetation began to spring up again, of course, but October was very dry, encouraging my inveterate foolishness.

Being lazy, I decided to go into the low growth Oozma zone with my 72" mmm on the tractor, instead of swapping on the rear cutter. Oh, it was doing a beautiful job, cutting a smooth green carpet. Then it happened. The gauge wheels of the mmm dug into the muck in a low patch, the useless and horrid R4's did their instant mud slick thing, the wheels began digging holes, and I quickly ended up essentially floating on the mmm deck. Not only were the gauge wheels in the muck, but it was all up underneath the deck.

We tried many ways to move the tractor including pulling it with the Honda CRV, which just dug its own trenches. Because of the buried mmm housing, that tractor wasnt going to move forward or backwards under any circumstance I had available.

So, let's try to remove the mower and drive over it. Can't. The spring pins wont pull out of the link arms. Too much shear force on the link pins due to the pressure of the tractor on the buried deck, plus I cant reach under the deck to undo the pto shaft.

So we are forced to use a rare, mystical maneuver: the lateral ROPS pull. We tie ropes and chains from the Honda to the top of the ROPS and pull the tractor sideways, tipping it slightly. Eureka. Ths relieves the pressure on the deck and I get the link pins out on one side. Ditto on the other.

Now we want to use the car to pull the deck sideways out from under the tractor. But it wont fit. There are too many vertical projections on top of the deck that will hit the underside of the lowered, buried tractor. I remove the gauge wheel assembly on the far side of the deck. I remove some of the other arms and links. This is difficult and curseworthy, because I broke the only hammer I ever owned when I built my bridge in August, lost the only pliers I ever owned, and I had to use rocks and sticks to hammer out tight pins from the torqued tractor undercarriage. (The US should carpet bomb whatever country makes cotter pins--awful, detestable devices.)

Still, there is not enough room to fit the deck under the tractor. We finally get the brilliant idea to jack up the front of the tractor. Personally, I havent seen a jack since the '70's but my son says we have a one in the Mustang. He comes back with this little screw thing. We put it on a board on top of the ooze, and after fumbling with several inconvenient jack locations, this water-torture device succeeds in raising the front of the tractor several inches. I can remove the pto shaft that is jammed with mud and vegetation. We then succeed in pulling the deck sideways out from under the tractor. Victory! -- with half the tractor, disassembled with Stone Age tools, spread all over the ground .

Essentially, this procedure, in the end, worked. So I now want to buy a real jack and some sort of traction boards for the inevitable future burials.

1. Jack. It has to be light enough for me to carry it 500 yards from the garage to the Oozama. It has to be able to go very high. You really need to place the top of the jack much higher up on the tractor than you would on the underside of a car; you have to be able to raise the end of the tractor at least 18"; and you have to allow another 6" for submersion of the support board into the muck. Also, it has to be stable at weird angles, because sometimes the tractor is tilted when one side buries deeper than another. Any thoughts on a type or brand of jack?

2. The under-wheel traction surface. The problem with boards is that they are too slick when they get mud on them. They are also heavy to carry (for me) and a little too narrow. I am envisioning some sort of lightweight surface, about 15" wide, and with some sort of rough, grabbing surface texture. Plastic? Aluminum? Plywood? Is there something that I can apply to make the surface grabby and nubby, or is there some ready-made product already known to the off-roading, 4-wheeling crowd?

By the way, this entire problem was caused and complicated by the mmm. It would not have happened with a rear mount mower. The mmm reduces the flotation of the tires because it adds more weight to the tractor than a rmm. In addition, the rmm is easily detachable from the tractor. So we can add this to the advantages of a rmm over a mmm: less likely to cause you to get buried, and easier to get out, when you foolishly try to mow a swamp.
 
   / Field Jacks and Traction Boards #2  
The jacks they make for 4 x 4 trucks that have been lifted sound like they ought to work. They're designed to attach higher up on a vehicle and lift higher. They should have them at any 4 x 4 or off road shop.

http://www.hi-lift.com

They show someone lifting a tractor.

The ramps made for driving a garden tractor onto a pickup might work if they are attached to something to prevent them from sinking into the mud. The ramps I have are aluminum and look like a ladder, i.e., separate rungs that are ribbed for traction. Cost $200.

Your story sounds like my first time with a 4 x4. It was my first truck and first 4 x 4 and I foolishly thought I could go anywhere. Drove out into our pasture to dump some soil. Got stuck. No problem, I'll just drop it into four wheel drive. I soon found out that, yes Virginia, all four wheels can spin. I had to call a tow truck. He couldn't get closer than 200' or he would have gotten stuck. Fortunately, he could spool off enough cable from his tow arm to reach my back axle and pull me out of the field.

I had to drive, very slowly, to the nearest self service car wash to clean out the underside of the truck, particularly the wheels. I had to drive slowly because the mud had done a great job of unbalancing my wheels.

tractor.gif
 
   / Field Jacks and Traction Boards #3  
When we used to get stuck out four wheeling, this is what we did. We had an electric winch, but a hydraulic winch seems more useful for a tractor application. You could use it for other applications besides this. Buy a hydraulic winch and fabricate a 3pt hitch mount. Fabricate some hoses and a valve to get you about 15 to 20 feet to the side of the tractor. Put a pulley on the drawbar so that the cable runs down and through the pulley then out behind the tractor. Walk back from the tractor to the first solid ground that you can find. Pound a heavy steel fence post with wings into the ground at a 45 degree angle leaning away from the back of the tractor. Pound it in until a foot sticks out of the ground. Continue away from the tractor another 10 feet and pound in another post. Repeat this several times, could take as little as three posts and as many as a dozen. You'll find out. Chain the posts together. Attach the winch cable to the post nearest the tractor. Lay a large blanket on the cable about half way between the tractor and the posts, in case the cable breaks, this will slow it down. Step off to the side as far as you can. Put the tractor in neutral. Operate the valve and slowly pull the tractor backwards until it is unstuck. Worked every time for a truck. I think they called it a sand anchor. Remember, cables are dangerous. Stay out of their way. Very crude diagram attached.

<font color=green> MossRoad </font color=green>
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   / Field Jacks and Traction Boards #4  
HI-Lift jacks are great. They are a must have for any off roader or farmer. However, they can slip off of a vehicle if not chained to it. They also can lift so high that the vehicle being lifted can become unstable. Jack up the tractor, place some jack stands under it and lower it onto the stands before venturing under it. Never go under a jacked tractor.

<font color=green> MossRoad </font color=green>
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   / Field Jacks and Traction Boards #5  
Two things...

Get rid of those industrial tires... bite the bullet and get ag's...

Mount an electric winch on the front end weight rack with a long spool of cable.

Or get those boards and jack and waste time doing it over and over again... /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

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   / Field Jacks and Traction Boards #6  
Or...quit going into Oozama. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

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   / Field Jacks and Traction Boards #7  
I agree with Mike. Stay out.

Not good coming from me as many of you have seen my water ballet efforts in the 4x4 I have.

Yes when we get stuck in the mud, you need to get something under your wheels giving traction, or get pulled out. Only 2 choices - Neither are easy but the pulled out idea is easier when there are others around.

We use a "snatch strap" Light sound like somethign you buy from an adult shop but it is like a giant elastic band. Unstuck vehicle drives away from stuck vehicle, thus launching it out of the bog.

Fun stuff but maybe not so on an unstable tractor. Wouldn't do the mmm any good either !

Cheers

<font color=blue>Neil from OZ.</font color=blue>
 
   / Field Jacks and Traction Boards #8  
Glenn -

If you go with the hi-lift jack, you might want to get the Jack Mate to go along with it. Then you will have a sturdy jack and a poor man's winch:

pull.h2.jpg


I have this combination, and it has come in handy for a variety of odd jobs. I'm almost sorry I haven't actually stuck my tractor yet. /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

But perhaps even before you get a jack or winch (and I think I speak for a number of us on this board), you should learn to carry a DIGITAL CAMERA!!!!! /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

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   / Field Jacks and Traction Boards #9  
The Hilift jack is indispensable, I've got hundreds of hours experience using these to get unstuck. If you get one you need to practice with it for a while on dry hard ground so you know it's characteristics.

You have to figure out which way the weight is going to raise and angle the jack a little bit to compensate. If, for example, the tractor is going to have a tendency to come or arc towards you you need to angle the jack base towards you to compensate. This is a little hard to explain so you need to practice where you have room to let the jack back down if the load gets off center. If the jack gets stuck at the wrong angle you might not have room to work that long handle to let it down. I've had to beat these jacks out from under vehicles with sledgehammers before. If you don't get it right you also stand the chance of the jack going towards the vehicle and creasing your sheetmetal.
Block your wheels if possible and pay attention! Anytime you're messing with a stuck vehicle you stand the chance of slipping and falling or the vehicle getting unstuck long enough to land on you.
Another thing to watch for on these jacks is letting them down. The second the weight comes off the jack the lifting mechanism immediately drops. I've pinched and smashed my fingers a bunch of times because of this.
As for ramps, go to a Army/Navy surplus store and ask them where to get landing mat. This is used for building temporary runways for aircraft. It used to be steel but I think they now make it out of aluminum. The steel is heavier than you probably want to mess with but there is nothing better for bridging. I can borrow 12' aluminum bridging used for moving mobile homes but just the thought of packing that heavy s%#t keeps me out of the woods when its wet! :)
 
   / Field Jacks and Traction Boards #10  
Glenn-
Oozama Ver Boten sounds like a very forbidding place. Perhaps you could attack it with aircraft landing mat from your local surplus supplier. Also, there is no law against having two Hi Lift jacks. 3/4" plywood makes good bases, and you could tack wooden strips to them to keep the jacks from slipping.
BTW- What's a phragmite?

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<font color=green>stan</font color=green>
 

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