Runaway tractor nearly killed me yesterday!

texasjohn · Jun 16, 2008

ROX, fear not the FEL. GET one and you will NEVER be sorry. Use 4WD, be sure and put weight on the rear when you use it...I just LEAVE something heavy on my 3PH all the time because 99% of the time when I get in the tractor the FEL gets used, somewhere along the way. Get a toothbar as well. Put chain hooks on it. Get a quick attach so you can use several implements. With all you do, there is no reason to forgo the benefits of a FEL...none at all. You respect equipment and that's all it takes to benefit from a tractor with FEL.

dtd24 · Jun 17, 2008

This post is exactly why I love this place. It's like a free saftey course. I never thought of not having brakes on the front tires. When I plan to lift something heavy, especially now that I have the grapple on the FEL, I use my backhoe attachment for ballast.

Learning from someones mistakes helps me not create those same mistakes and operate safer.

Thank you for sharing your experience, I am glad you pulled though it.

texasjohn · Jun 18, 2008

I think the message is:

approach from down hill side
weight on rear
4wd at all such times
be ready and DROP the FEL/3PH if things start going wierd, put something on/in the ground, QUICK!

dmccarty · Jun 23, 2008

Miltrade,

When you got stuck did you push the forks down to lift up your front tires and then try to back out? If you did not get any "lift" because you had the forks on the tractor instead of a bucket throwng some decent sized limbs/wood in the hole can give the forks something to push against to lift up the tractor.

But with those slicks on the tractor you still might not have been able to move backwards. Sometimes you have to go forward..

I have not gotten the tractor stuck to the point of needing a pull. The worse I have done was crossing two trenches with a load of wet sand. I happened to cross the first trench so that my rear tires where in the one trench just when my front tires went into the other trench.

I could push down with the FEL to get the front tires out so I had to dump the sand. That alowed me to lift out the front tires and back out. If I had been 6 feet in left or right of where I had the trenches I would not have had a problem. I just happened to cross the trenches where they were apart the same length as the tractor axles.

The most nervous I got was using the backhoe to cross trenches I had been digging. Long story short that hoe did not have enough length to get me as far across the trench as I liked. I was TOO close to the trench and in danger of flipping.

I would hate to have known my heart rate. I put retaining wall blocking in the trench so i could drive out. The trench was to lay the block so I had it handy.

Seems like you made rational decisions for each event its just when you added them all together they ended up being not so rational in hindsight.

Which is usually how it goes.

Why was the tranny in such a high gear? When I'm messing with stumps and such I'm in the low range and first gear. And often wishing I had a creeper gear.

Later,
Dan

texasjohn · Jun 23, 2008

I think the point is that his tractor turned into a teter-totter... with rear wheels off the ground, thus because he was in 2 (rear wheel) drive, the engine speed did not slow him down, brakes are on the rear and off the ground and there are no brakes on the front wheels. So, he was stering a 2 wheeler down the hill because of terrain, tractor weight (im) balance, and gaining speed because he had no braking capability and didn't want to jam his forks into the ground at that speed because he was afeared of turning a flip.

roguesam · Oct 18, 2009

Story reminded me of my own errors after purchasing my first 4WD. Minneapolis, first heavy snow storm since I bought it and my wife and her sister want to go to the nursery due to early spring fever. I, of course, offer to drive them because "I have 4WD". We start heading down a minor incline and I "of 4WD" am driving too fast to stop in a reasonable amount of time. Slid through a stop light, missing a city bus by inches. Stopping distance remains the same, 4WD or not....

PANHAPP · Oct 18, 2009

Miltrade if you learn only one thing from this experience it should be that you have to be ready to drop the load immediately. There is no time to think about it. You evidently had your hand on the control. When you feel
it start to go push forward dont think. If you start to feel a wheel ( or both ) come up push forward. Thinking about it can make the difference between turning the tractor over or not (or taking a ride like you did). Your forks were relatively level if you slid them under the stump so I would think you could have dropped it even after you rolled forward. If not curl and drop. DO NOT LET ANY ONE NEAR THE TRACTOR WHEN USING THE LOADER. If someone needs to guide something use a rope.

farmfun · Oct 25, 2009

jk96 said:
You probably took off because you lifted the rear, or lifted enough to loose your braking ability. (no brakes on the front). Ask me how I know. If you were in 4 wheel drive and low gear it probably wouldn't have happened. I learned this going down our drive with a bucket full of gravel. It can happen in a flash as you found out. Glad your ok.

The bolded text above just became a note on my tractor's dash ...

Thank you

Sackett2 · Oct 25, 2009

After I got my Montana, I was fine using it all over the place; then I decided to read the owners manual. It mentioned not using the 4wd unless needed, so I took I put it into 2wd and drove down my parents asphalt driveway. I quickly discovered I wasn't braking as effectively and to get it to stop, i actually skidded one tire. It took another skid mark for me to figure out that i had grown use to the 4wd helping stop the tractor. It stays in 4wd most the time now.

tatra805 · Oct 27, 2009

Just read this thread, agree with you all on the 4wd but not on the add weight when new to FEL

I learned the behaviour and balance of my tractor without any counterweights and that now, with counterweight, ensures i "know" or "feel" that a load is over the normal limit and the counter weight is keeping me horizontal.

If you start with counterweights and you cross the limits (which you will in your learning phase) the outcome may be more dramatic as you are talking a lot more weight moving the wrong direction.

Learn light, work heavy is my advise.