Weirdest close call with-OUT tragic results

[foggy1111]

Back in the 60's I was a teen and had just discovered smoking. I was delivering a 6000 Ford tractor to a farmer that had it repaired at my dad's shop. Had the tractor loaded on the back of an implement truck.

I was trying to light up a smoke and was not paying attention to the road or conditions as I headed south at a high rate of speed toward the river one January day. Got to the top of the hill and the hill was glare ice.....with a bridge looming ahead. :confused2:

Started downshifting and braking....to get slowed down....but the truck started coming around. Somehow did a 360 degree spin while going over the bridge.....but never tipped the truck or hit the bridge. :confused2::shocked:

I was ducking down for impact.....and I really dont know how I avoided hitting something....but the truck straightend out on the other side of the bridge and I put it in a lower gear and pressed onward. I did light the cigarette at the top of the hill.....on the other side. :thumbsup::cool2:

Still dont quite know how this could be as I write the re-cap. Amazingly stoopid kid. Slow lerner. :ashamed:

I delivered the tractor and took a different route home.

 

[Sledgie]

Delivering a bucket load of firewood for neighbor's fire pit by the lake, had done it many times before. This time a light rain was falling, as I eased down the hill to the 4 foot retaining wall to dump the load, the tractor started sliding. Brakes had no effect, so I put the bucket down to help stop. One front wheel ended up over the wall, and opposite rear tire was about 3 feet off the ground. I was able to use the loader to lift the front end in stages by piling firewood under the loader and front tire, but finally had to use the skid steer to pull it out. Neat thing was a party going on the next door deck, so had lots of advice.

 

[MossRoad]

Had a large load of brush on the FEL. Pushing it into the woods. A branch in the load sprung back, hit the joystick, which raised the FEL, which pushed the joystick farther back, which raised the FEL more, which pushed the joystick more.... it pretty much started raising itself faster and faster and I couldn't push the joystick forwards. The FEL finally reached the end of travel and stopped. But it was a quick event with no way out. Perhaps 1 or 2 seconds of me doing everything in sequence as I should with no results. I tried pushing the joystick forward. Nothing. I tried backing away from the load, nothing. By the time I shut off the tractor it had already reached end of travel. I had a pile of brush staring me in the face. Imagine a sharp stick poking into your eye (or chest or arteries) and going deeper and deeper as you squirmed while getting impaled. YIKES! Sounds like an episode of CSI.

Lesson learned. Make two trips if you have to. :thumbsup:

 

[redsox1]

I drove up a short but steep hill and stopped at the top to shift into a higher range. Thought I was in gear and took my foot off the brake and moved it over to the HST pedal to start accelerating. Didn't realize of course that instead of being in a higher range I had accidently put it into neutral. The tractor started to roll backwards down the hill while I frantically tried to mash the HST pedal thinking that I just needed more acceration. Didn't even think of simply stepping on the brakes (in my defense this all took place in a couple of seconds). So I rode it out backwards, steered around a tree (with a glancing blow from my BH) at the bottom of the hill and came to a jarring stop in the puckerbrush. Not a scratch on me or the tractor but a lesson learned to do my shifting on level ground and to double check that it's really in gear and not neighboring neutral.

 

[284 International]

I had my closest call on a tractor last week. I own a tiny Kubota B6000 and just finished mounting a little backhoe to match the front loader. I had never trailered it with the backhoe mounted, but was headed to a friend's house to tear out some sidewalks. I had picked up a lightweight set of 4500 lb rated ramps with the backhoe-I presumed per pair.

I always chock the tires and set some blocking under the rear of the trailer when loading any tractor, set my new ramps down, and proceeded to start driving up the ramps.

As the top tires reached the edge of the trailer, they reared up, so I was balanced on the rear two tires, on these ramps. This was startling, but I have a relatively high threshold for risk, and am confident steering with the brakes. As the rear tires reached reached the middle of the ramps, one just flat out gave way.

It sent the right rear tire plummeting right to the ground, with the left tire still on the other ramp, in first gear low range, chugging away. I'm fairly big (6'6 and 240) so am already cartoonish on the tiny B6000. I jumped/stepped out from the tractor and rolled clear.

With the machine now laying almost sideways, still trying to drive the rest of the way up the ramp. By the time I got to a (relatively) safe place up on the trailer and popped it out of gear, and finally shut the engine down, the tractor was almost perfectly sideways on the trailer, but laid over and resting on the outrigger for the backhoe.

I was so bothered I neglected to even take pictures; in hindsight I should have. My cheap ramps were very nearly the most expensive purchase I ever made, and I'm still not sure how they failed so catastrophically. The tractor probably might weigh 2000 lbs total, including the loader and backhoe. (The tractor is under 1100lbs, the backhoe is 500, the loader is tiny with a 36" wide bucket, so almost certainly doesn't weight even 400 lbs.)

A single ramp rated at 2250 lbs should have safely held the entire tractor and me; instead, only holding half the load one failed catastrophically. The upside is I went and bought steel to make my own set of ramps. I'm not having that happen ever again.

 

[AGRIMAN]

I have several, but this is the biggest one (so far). Mid morning on a cool fall day, I hit the highway moving a 4 row cotton picker (small house) about 20 miles to another field. Because I had to cross the river, the only route is through the middle of town (only one bridge for miles). No problem as I have done it thousands of times. The bridge is approx 500 foot long and it's a narrow four lane so it's not that bad.

So I'm flying down the highway, taking up most it (duals front and rear) with the radio playing and the hydrostat pushed all the way. My trusted helper following closely behind me in my truck with my bulldog riding shot gun on top of the toolbox. Life is good :thumbsup:

Everything is going according to plan until a reach the bridge. I made it about 100 or so across the bridge went I feel the picker stop pulling. Not really sure what was going on, I reached for the hydrostat lever with plans to slow down some and BAM!!!!!!

The next thing I remember is opening my eyes and somehow, I'm wedged between the steering console and the windshield and I'm looking down at the water below. It's only about 30 but at that time it might as well been a 1000? I pull myself up and started to think, what in the h#ll just happened. My first thought was that someone had hit me from behind. Then in pure panic mode, I think about my dog!

I reached up and open the cab door and climbed out to find my best friend (save and sound) standing next to the picker (in the road!) staring up at me. You should have seen the look on my dog's face? LOL. About that time my trusted helper rounds the back of the picker and I asked if he is ok and if we had been hit from behind. He tells me no, we have not been hit, but that both the RH side front tires had came off.

Well I get down to survey the damage and it's not pretty. The axle nut has came off inside the final drive housing and with it, the axle and both tires. (well that explains the loss of power!) The duals (and axle) are wedged underneath the rear of the picker and is basically the only thing that's keeping it from laying completely over and may have saved me from going swimming. What a mess!

Luckily, our local construction company (small town) sent a small crane and one of their service trucks. After a quick change of underwear I got started. The only way to get it off the bridge was fix it and drive it off. We used the crane to lever it back up and remove the duals from underneath. To our surprise, the axle and bearings were not totally trashed and the nut was found inside the housing.

I can honestly say that I have rebuilt a final drive on a bridge. I finally made it to the other side of the bridge around 5.00 that afternoon, about 7 hours later than planned.

You can bet that I put a brand new cotter key in that castle nut!:thumbsup:

Never made it to the field (with that picker). It took 2 months and 50k to fix all the damage.

 

[pat32rf]

My first tractor was a small Bota with a FEL (but no ROP) that I had purchased used from a landscape outfit. I had grown up on tractors but that was 40 years previous.
One day I went to town and left the keys in the tractor and my tenant (a long distance trucker) looking to do me a "favour". First he went out behind the barn and tried to move a large stone that he thought was in my way. It rolled to one side of the bucket (the downhill side) and laid the tractor on its side, slow enough so he could step clear.
He then went and got my tow rope and truck, thinking that he would roll it back upright. By the time I got there the tractor was completely upside down, resting on the FEL posts and the bucket, with a slightly crushed seat, bent steering wheel and broken tail lights, with my 1" nylon tow rope pinned underneath.

 

[cartod]

Today. Going down a small hill at an angle and my bucket was too low. The low side of my bucket caught and just about upset the tractor. I hate that feeling!

 

[crowbar032]

One year setting tobacco, I had bugged Dad all day to drive the tractor back to the house (I was in like 4th grade). The tractor in question is a Massey Ferguson 150 and it had a three point disk attached to it at the time. Dad told me to go down the hill then turn up hill and go through the gate. I, being smarter, thought it would be quicker/easier to turn down the hill, stop, back up, then go through the gate. I turned down the hill, hit the clutch and wasn't big/heavy enough to make the mechanical brakes engage. The tractor picked up speed and I bailed off as it went through 5 strands of barbed wire fence and taking out two fence posts. The disk banging along behind. The disc coulters ended up missing me by about 2 feet. The tractor proceeded down over the hill into the edge of a pond unharmed and still idling in neutral. Somehow Dad got smarter after that day.

This was a minor close call compared to some of you guys, but it scared me into being much more careful now that I'm an adult.

 

[FritzII]

I drove up a short but steep hill and stopped at the top to shift into a higher range. Thought I was in gear and took my foot off the brake and moved it over to the HST pedal to start accelerating. Didn't realize of course that instead of being in a higher range I had accidently put it into neutral. The tractor started to roll backwards down the hill while I frantically tried to mash the HST pedal thinking that I just needed more acceration. Didn't even think of simply stepping on the brakes (in my defense this all took place in a couple of seconds). So I rode it out backwards, steered around a tree (with a glancing blow from my BH) at the bottom of the hill and came to a jarring stop in the puckerbrush. Not a scratch on me or the tractor but a lesson learned to do my shifting on level ground and to double check that it's really in gear and not neighboring neutral.

I did almost the same thing. My brakes are on the left side though. I had my right foot buried into the forward pedal and my left foot finally found the brakes. I only rolled 10 ft or so. I won't make that mistake again !!!