Safety when selling a tractor

[btolle]

Last Saturday I had a gentleman looking at a tractor/FEL/bush hog I had for sale. Tractor was idling and he got down on his knee and reached up under the bush hog to check the blades.

I immediately hit the fuel shutoff and killed the tractor.

The man is in his 60's and has worked around machinery all his life but I suspect that in his enthusiasm about buying a "new" tractor he had a lapse of memory about what can happen. He looked a little red-faced when he realized what he had done and seemed to appreciate my concern for his safety.

Sure, the chances of the PTO accidentally being engaged are about 1 in a million, but that 1 is all it would have taken to have maimed or killed him.

If you are selling a tractor or even showing it to a friend please remember that they may not realize just how dangerous tractors and implements can be. Or, even those who know better may get excited and forget safety rules.

I am sure that most of us have done dumb things at times and later realized just how much danger we put ourselves in.

Have fun, but always put safety first!

Bill Tolle

 

[DDT]

Some times having a brain fart will need to be pointed out before some thing happens. If it happens, the guilty will know it then. We all need woke up once in a while. Thanks for being there.

 

[virgil]

Its always a little nerve wracking when a coustomer showes up with 3 kids who are turned loose on the lot and in the shop.
Don't mean to sound like a stick in the mud... but this ain't wall-mart, or putt putt golf !
virgil

 

[virgil]

When you load a hay spear or a set of forks in the back of someones pickup, be sure to turn the "pointed end" toward the rear of the pickup.

If the coustomer gets rearended on the way home, the spear / forks will not go threw the cab like a hot knife threw butter.

 

[California]

Its good to see that the sellers posting here recognise how ignorant a buyer can be.

When I bought my 20 year old 'new' toy last year the seller started it, asked if I could drive a manual transmission, and went back to finish his lunch.

I nearly did a horizontal loop when I tried to to slow down. The hand throttle didn't slow the engine and the left brake froze, fully engaged. I sat there pointed in an unexpected direction with the engine roaring and was frankly, a little spooked. Nothing I could think of would kill the engine so I used the compression release.

When everything quieted down I did the checkout I had neglected to do before starting. The right brake was so far out of adjustment that it hadn't engaged when I pressed it, and so far down that my foot on the right brake pedal was also holding down the foot throttle.

The seller said he forgot to tell me to not use the left brake because it always did that. I found other neglected maintenance after I got it home but thankfully the issues were all minor on a fundamentally solid tractor. I doubt anyone had gone over this thing bumper to bumper in the last 10 years, possibly never since it was new. Obviously the seller and I had vastly different assumptions about what "original condition" meant.

 

[willfick]

You have to use a different dictionary for classified ads.
"Original condition" means the oil hasn't been changed since it left the dealer.
"50% undercarriage" means one of the tracks is still on the dozer.
Wm

 

[virgil]

good-and-used

does not mean the same thing as

good-used

 

[8NTX]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( good-and-used

does not mean the same thing as

good-used )</font>

Sometimes, "used" should be replaced with "used up".