Yesterday was a bad day, I was traveling in the same relative area, about 300 ft from good ground, and realy got it stuck, as in over the rear hubs and up to the bottom of the hood. I was trying the same digging, fel, and cutting logs to put under the tire tactics that worked the day before, but progress was slow, if there was any at all. I had an idea, I cut some 3ft x 6 in locust logs, and took my chainsaw and made a double cut on the log 1 inch deep every 2 inches every 90 degrees, I then took another log and drove the notched logs into the end of the rear tire ruts, wedging them betweeen the rear of the back tire and the end of the ruts, it was my hope that the lugs on my R-4s would grab the notches and help lift the back end out of the ruts. I climbed on the tractor, put it in reverse, locked the diff, put the trans in low 1, and began using the lift and curl back method with the front end loader. The tractor began to move inch by inch, until all of a sudden I heard a loud fissing hissing noise. I initialy thought that I had torn a hydraulic line or filter off the bottom of the machine since it was totaly bellied out. I stopped the engine immediatly, and realized it was not hydraulic fluid spraying out, but calcium shooting out of the rear tire from where the valve stem on the inner tube used to be. The tire was comepletely flat in about 30 seconds, as all 35 or 40 gallons of calcium leaked out, and the worst part was that I was still just as buried, only now with a unbeaded flat rear tire. I had to call my brother in law to rescue me with his brand new 4x4 TC30 fel tractor{ New Holland calls it something different now, but to me its still a TC30}. An hour and 200 ft of chain later, the TC30 had me back up on solid ground. We jacked up the back of the Farmtrac and removed the flat tire, put it in the bucket of the TC30, and took it up the 50 foot slope to my house at the top of the ravine, wher we deposited it in the back of my 3/4 ton pickup so I could drop it off today to get repaired, $55.00 later it is done and ready to be picked up tomorrow. The worst part is that on last Thursday, I had a mishap with the front tire and wheel that ended up costing $230 in parts to fix, you can read my post in all other brands called Farmtrac 270 need front wheel to learn about that. Sorry though, no pics of the last stuck, as I was so p!$$*d off that the last thing on my mind was snapping photos. Thus far, this trail has cost me $285 dollars in 4 days and has caused me to have a very unhappy Wife. I will try to snap some pics tomorrow of the trail, tire installation in the field {calcium filled 100%} and the ongoing project.
This works VERY well but you have to remember to put the clutch in before the log hits the underside of the tractor.
