Scariest Tractor Moment

[kebo]

My worst moment was on the '81 2whl drive JD 750 I bought about 9 years. It was my first tractor and I think I had been using it maybe 2-3 months so I was still a newbie at the time. I was bushhogging with a 500 lb 4ft LandPride bushhog at my hunt club getting ready for deer season. Our club has a 3 acre pond on it and crossing the dam is the most convienent way to get to the other half of the property. The only problem is that the pond dam was built at the bottom of a large ravine, so that on either side of the dam you have some very steep hills to drive up and get out of it. I was driving up the steeper of the two hills in low gear and I had the bush hog lifted up in the air. (first mistake) About 1/3 of the way up the steep hill the front end began to raise up. After a few more feet it seemed like it was going to come ALL the way up so I panicked and pushed the clutch in (second mistake). Immediately the tractor began rolling back down the hill and I was headed straight for the corner of the pond because that road angled away from the pond. At least the front end was back on the ground though! However, in a second or two it seemed like it was flying downhill and headed straight for the pond! After I gathered my wits I just mashed the brakes in hard as I could, it was the only thing to do. Fortunately, the brakes were not in the best of shape and it came to a controlled stop maybe 20 feet from the corner of the pond. Had the brakes been really good, I think the sudden braking action would have caused the front end to come up once again and maybe even flip it over. I learned then that anytime you must drive a steep incline with a heavy implement attached, either back up the incline or in the case of a bushhog just drop it and let it roll behind the tractor. At least that takes a lot of weight off the rear of tractor. Or just go another way if possible! Regardless, I don't cross that dam dam anymore, I take the long way around or just let someone else bushhog the other half of the lease!!

 

[farmboy12]

Actually, as long as you have an implement, you can't flip backwards. Unless the pins break, then you might as well pray!


Kyle

 

[funny farmer]

I don't if this scared me so bad, but my wife was really scared. I went down to the dirtpile and grabed a half load of dirt in my fel. The problem was is it was in the right side of the bucket. I sped past her in the driveway and being a smartass I locked up the left brake and cranked the steering wheel to the left. With all the wheight in the right side of the bucket it caused the back left tire to come off the ground about a foot and a half. I completed my full turn around like that and pulled up to her with a smile on my face. I thought she was going to kill me, she chewed my *** for a bit and that was it. I didn't try do that, but I thought it was pretty neat at the time, but then you get to thinking, what if it went all the way over? Just some stupid things that happen when your inexperienced and showing off.

 

[F.L. Jennings]

She'll be comin' round the mountain........

This happened a long time ago but I still draw up a little when I remember it..........

My first tractor was an Allis-Chalmers WD45 - with the wide front end thank God. We live on high ground 100 feet above a stream and I was going down the road to get to a place where I crossed the water. There is a steep and crooked road that winds from the top down to alongside the stream. Right at the bottom of the hill the road makes a 90 degree hair pin turn to the right then runs parallel to a long hole of water. There was no shoulder, just a rocky 90% slope down to the surface of the Middle Fork. I was pulling a trailer and was in 3rd gear as I recall quite plainly.

For some reason as I started the long decline, I scared myself into thinking I was going too fast so I tried downshifting into 2nd. No deal. In my temporary fright I'd forgotten the transmission wouldn't downshift unless you were stopped. The old brakes were gone and I was standing up on them. Ever increasing in speed down the winding narrow road (it's named the Narrows road!) I thought about abandoning ship, but a deep tree filled hollow was on my left and a wall of rock on my right. Getting run over by that trailer at 35mph wouldn't be a choice either. All the way down I was erect on the brakes and trying to shift into any gear. I must have worn a quarter inch from the teeth grinding together.

My cap blew off, and the slack in the old front end that normally wobbled the wheels back and forth like a birds wings flapping, had planed out so that the wheels were running as true as true could be without a hint of wobble! I continued standing up on the brakes while approaching the hairpin curve with a wooded 25 foot drop to the water at the left and a wall of blue slate on my right I just prayed that I would not meet another vehicle at that place.

By God's grace I steered tractor, trailer and all around the corner ( I feared a turnover if I lived as far as the turn) and slowly coasted to a stop on the level part of the road along the river. I staggered off the seat and onto the 12ft. wide asphalt. I was shaking like paint mixer and steam was pouring from out of each wheel well in two vertical clouds from the friction I had been applying to the brakes. God saved my hide for sure. After pacing around a bit and trying to calm down I continued with my adventure of cutting Cedar fence posts west of the river.

From then on whenever I used that old AC and remembered that ill advised maneuver, I would unconsciously reach down to the gear shift and make sure that it was really in gear.

 

[Ridgewalker]

You guys have me worried as heck. I drove tractors on my uncles farm from the ages of 13 to 17 and never had any kind of dust up. I have had my TC29 for 2 years and ditto...so now I am thinking I am way over due for something bad to happen.

Do you know how much fun that takes out of tractoring?

Thanks a lot guys!

 

[farmboy12]

She'll be comin' round the mountain........

This happened a long time ago but I still draw up a little when I remember it..........

My first tractor was an Allis-Chalmers WD45 - with the wide front end thank God. We live on high ground 100 feet above a stream and I was going down the road to get to a place where I crossed the water. There is a steep and crooked road that winds from the top down to alongside the stream. Right at the bottom of the hill the road makes a 90 degree hair pin turn to the right then runs parallel to a long hole of water. There was no shoulder, just a rocky 90% slope down to the surface of the Middle Fork. I was pulling a trailer and was in 3rd gear as I recall quite plainly.

For some reason as I started the long decline, I scared myself into thinking I was going too fast so I tried downshifting into 2nd. No deal. In my temporary fright I'd forgotten the transmission wouldn't downshift unless you were stopped. The old brakes were gone and I was standing up on them. Ever increasing in speed down the winding narrow road (it's named the Narrows road!) I thought about abandoning ship, but a deep tree filled hollow was on my left and a wall of rock on my right. Getting run over by that trailer at 35mph wouldn't be a choice either. All the way down I was erect on the brakes and trying to shift into any gear. I must have worn a quarter inch from the teeth grinding together.

My cap blew off, and the slack in the old front end that normally wobbled the wheels back and forth like a birds wings flapping, had planed out so that the wheels were running as true as true could be without a hint of wobble! I continued standing up on the brakes while approaching the hairpin curve with a wooded 25 foot drop to the water at the left and a wall of blue slate on my right I just prayed that I would not meet another vehicle at that place.

By God's grace I steered tractor, trailer and all around the corner ( I feared a turnover if I lived as far as the turn) and slowly coasted to a stop on the level part of the road along the river. I staggered off the seat and onto the 12ft. wide asphalt. I was shaking like paint mixer and steam was pouring from out of each wheel well in two vertical clouds from the friction I had been applying to the brakes. God saved my hide for sure. After pacing around a bit and trying to calm down I continued with my adventure of cutting Cedar fence posts west of the river.

From then on whenever I used that old AC and remembered that ill advised maneuver, I would unconsciously reach down to the gear shift and make sure that it was really in gear.

Something very similar happened to my dad on an AC B when he was a kid. The brakes worked but he knew well enough not to press on the brakes because if he had just slightly tapped one more than the other, he was dead.


I think it's also worth noting that that '52 AC came with the farm, and had original rear tires until one blew in '07, so we changed both. 55 year old tires!

 

[F.L. Jennings]

One More scary moment;

This one happened just last winter. I had been felling some nice Ash trees down in the river bottom below our house. We are again heating totally with wood and I was stocking up. It's always muddy there in the winter and had been raining off and on for a couple of days. The place where I had been cutting was right below our house which is 100 feet above the stream.

The cut Ash chunks were on some high ground that had an old channel around either side and the old channels were very muddy. I knew that the water was going to be rising a lot that night and the next day because of upstream rains. I just wanted to salvage my hard earned firewood before it got washed all the way to Mexico. I wallowed my Kubota L4200 across the old muddy channels and onto the elevated ground where the wood was cut and waiting. I have extensions on my FEL so I can carry near to a face cord of wood. After loading up I managed to get turned around and headed back across the muddy old channel. I made it about half way before sinking down to the frame, 4WD and all.

After trying to work back and forth for a while and just managing to make a giant mud hole I finally dumped the wood. I began to draw up a little thinking about the coming flood and possibly having to leave my nice tractor there!
Even with the wood dumped I was still stuck. Fortunately I had the backhoe mounted, even though the bucket was temporarily replaced with a wood splitter. I carry a heavy chain on the bucket at all times (my tractor looks like a tinker's wagon) so attached one end to the backhoe boom and the other to a tree. Using a combination of the backhoe and articulating the FEL to push too I finally was at least back onto the little island of higher mud.

I found another crossing that I hadn't wallowed out and put the tractor in 2nd or 3rd gear and with one last prayer tore across with mud flying everywhere from the four spinning tires. I made it and my stomach went back to normal size from the tennis ball it had been!:

I pulled on down next to where I had dumped the wood and loaded it up for the second time. It was cold, grey and coming a light rain. The slowly rising Middle Fork was gushing and gurgling right next to me about 20 feet away. I wallowed the loaded tractor back a couple of hundred yards to the foot of our ridge, leaving deep muddy furrows all the way. Going back up the winding trail through Cedar Hollow was a breeze. The next morning you could hear the river roaring against the trees now that it was out of it's bank. It was six or seven feet over where I had been working. I sure hate those situations, but if you live in the country and do much, sooner or later they will raise their head!

Frank

The flooding river this summer got up 12-15 feet over the bottom.

My deer stand below the house is lashed to a big Gum. That driftwood is 12feet above grade.

 

[ALHILLDIRT]

4 years ago Labor Day, I was rushing to finish my food plots. It was about 90 degrees with 98 percent humidity, because there was a rain coming. Long story short I got way to hot and wasn't thinking clearly. I backed my truck and trailer up a slight incline (didn't set the brake, and left it out out of gear). Ran around to the trailer dropped the ramps and started to pull the tractor (with disk) up on the trailer. When the rear wheels on the tractor cleared the ramps, the movement caused everything to start rolling down the drive. I accidently popped the clutch which caused the front end of the tractor to come up, and at the same time hit the right brake pedal, which caused the front end to fall over the side of the trailer. I guess I was lucky, because it stopped all forward movement. It took an hour of cooling down in the cab of the truck with air on, before I felt well enough to even think about cleaning up my mess. Lucky for me I have a friend with large wrecker who was able to come out an pick up the tractor so I could pull out from under. My friends I learned a valuable lesson that day - Beware of heat. I was in bad shape and didn't realize it, a dangerous combination on equipment.

 

[Big Thom]

I am getting an education reading all these posts.

Last summer I was bush hogging with our new JD 790. I wanted to cut a path up a long sloping trail going up the side of a dike. I could see where there was a path cut into the side of the dike so I thought I could make it up with side without a probe. I started up the path, in reverse, with the bush hog raised about twelve inches off theground. I am not good at driving a straight line when going backwards and got off the side of the path. I could feel the tractor tilting and trying to go over, or at the best slide down the very steep sides of the dike. The good Lord was watching over me as I had the good sense to drop the FEL to stabilize the tractor as I jumped on the brakes hard. It stopped sliding. I dropped the bush hog and after my heart rate slowed back to 150% of normal, slightly raised the FEl and inched down the hill to teh bottom.
I have come to the conclusion that you often run into trouble on a tractor when you take it into where it doesn't really need to be. There was no reason to try and cut that path, or to cross the low area coverd by Reed Carnary grass where I once got stuck ... When you get into area where you don't really need to be, or try to do something you shouldn't, it's gonna catch up to you sooner or later.
Be safe out there.

 

[orangebluegreen]

My dad and I were home builders in Ohio going back many years ago.

When I think of the things he did it amazes me I'm still alive.

1 Digging some footers with our backhoe I'm standing by the ditch reading the transit. He says move (he wants to dump the dirt next to me) I don't move as fast as his swing of the bucket and go flying through the air when hit by the bucket.

2 Again he is digging, this time downspouts to the street from the house. Again I'm standing by with a shovel cleaning up a bit and making sure the slope is right. Next thing I see a huge flash and BOOM! He had cut clean through the buried electric lines feeding the entire development. If I had been touching the tractor it would have ruined my whole day. We didn't have to pay for it because the lines were supposed to be three feet down but apparently improper burial or the ground having heaved them up put them about a foot below the ground at the street where we were.

3 Not a tractor, but dump trucks are exciting also.

I'm lying on the ground in a newly dug basement wondering what just happened. I ask another employee what happened......
I was standing behind the dump truck opening the small shoot to fill wheel barrows down in the basement (no block walls yet). Next thing I know I'm on the ground in the basement. Without telling me, my dad had climbed up the raised bed to open the tailgate while I was still behind the truck. The weight of the tailgate opening pushed me like a rag doll into the basement. I don't even remember flying through the air, perhaps I blacked out a moment?

I won't even include adventures of trailering the old Ford TLB without tiedowns and heavy ramps that flew off the trailer bed at speed on the road. When I used to tell him he was dangerous he didn't get it. Amazingly we never had an injury on the job, including the guy who climbed up the ladder onto the roof while putting tar paper down. One problem, he was already on the roof so we thought. While no one was watching he was rolling out the paper going backwards and backed right off the roof! Luckily he was from West Virginia where some of them are tough as they come.

Edit:
I take that no injury statement back. After viewing this thread further and seeing the ladders it reminded me of another one. In a hurry as usual he once placed an extension ladder upside down so the hard plastic surface was making ground contact vs. the rubber surface. It was on a sloping concrete driveway and it slipped, he came crashing down and shattered his heel, was in a cast and had a limp ever after.