What is the dumbest thing you have done with your equipment ?

[alpacalips]

I was about 18 and my relatives gathered to cut firewood for grandma from her property. Everyone else had quit for lunch but I went to skid one more log out of the woods to where the logs were decked behind the house.

I have no idea why, but instead of shutting the tractor off or even using the brake lock, I set the loader on the ground and got off the tractor to unhook the chain from the drawbar.

Well... tractor was pointed downhill and when I unhooked the log the tractor started rolling. It slowly gained speed with me running alongside. It missed Grandma's house, but was heading straight for uncle's brand new car, as well as the group of relatives who were just beginning to realize what was happening.

Somehow I managed to hit the brake pedals with my left hand and stop the tractor without running myself over with the back wheel.

No harm done, but a very embarrassing moment to say the least. When younger guys do dumb things I remind myself of the dumb things I did, and remember how my uncles and cousins didn't beat me up too bad over the incident.

 

[Jstpssng]

Another one of the many dumb things was back decades ago. The wife was helping me turn larger branches into firewood. Since I had taken "Time and Motion" classes in school that teach you how to engineer repetitive tasks more efficiently, we had a rhythm of she would pick up and hold while I kicked aside the recently cut wood and prepped for the next cut.

That's pick, kick, lift and cut; pick, kick, lift and cut; pick, kick lift and cut. Unfortunately, one was pick, kick, cut and oops. We got the rhythm out of order and I nicked her little finger with the tip of the chainsaw. It was just a nick and all was good.


Off to an old rural doc in a nearby town and when he asked my passive wife how it happened, she explained that "my husband cut me with a chainsaw". Whoa.

After the explanation, we all has a good laugh, no stitches were needed and I figured we best keep our chores gender-specific, She keeps the hearth and home and I do the rough things and maintenance . So far, it's working.

My father was a great one for expecting you to hold a piece of firewood while he cut it. When I started running saws I put a stop to that, at least when I was doing the cutting. Put it on the ground and step back, or it’s going to stay that length.

 

[GordonF]

Seeing the "2 men and a truck"ads,Jeb and Hoot decided they could do that. First job was disposing of old toilets,pipe busted tile and other debris from a second story remodel. After a couple trips down stairs with armloads of trash Jeb came up with the idea to lower stuff in a barrel using a rope and pulley system. They sat the filled barrel at edge of balcony,rigged the rope and pulley on a 4x4 extending out passed balcony. Jeb ran down,tied loose end of rope off to a tree then rushed back upstairs where Hoot would stand on 4x4 while Joe slide barrel over the edge. Great,Hoot's 300+ weight held 4x4 in place while Jeb returned to ground level,untied rope from tree in preparation for lowering barrel to the ground. The barrel being much heavier than Jeb hoisted him up as the barrel fell toward ground. As Jeb and barrel collided as they met,Jeb suffered a mangled ear but Jeb hung on to that rope. At the same moment Jeb reached the 4x4 and sprung his wrist, the bottom fell out of barrel and dumped contents on impact with ground then being lighter than Jeb headed back up as Jeb plunged back down. Jeb only suffered scratches as he collided with barrel this time. When Jeb hit the ground he let go of rope sending barrel on it's way down again. What was left of barrel didn't injure Jeb but when Hoot stepped off 4x4 to look over edge to see what was going on,the 4x4 put a knot on Jeb's head. After studying the situation Hoot suggested Jeb pull the truck beneath balcony and let him toss the remainder down into the bed.

 

[GordonF]

Are you Jeb or are you Hoot?

 

[mdmd531]

I’m an inexperienced self taught 52 year old female. The 4 ft of snow we got in NH in December 20/20 was my first time plowing with the plow and not the bucket. I thought I’d be nice and clean the end of my 75 yr old neighbors driveway. I was doing great until I wasn’t. One side sunk and I was stuck. The more I tried the more it started to tip. I got out and the tires were barely touching the ground. I called another neighbor and he came down with his backhoe and pulled me out. Turns out I hadn’t made it to the driveway. I was plowing in the culvert and added snow to her driveway instead of removing it. Scared the B-Jesus out of me and hurt my pride.

 

[Old Grunt]

Had to get at the shift linkage which had become jammed when I ran over a bunch of thick brush that got up into the works. Hauled out my big 3-ton floor jack, centered it under the rear axle, jacked it up and then proceeded to take the tire off so I could get at the linkage. Didn't account for the fact that the weight distribution would change when the tire came off and the tractor proceeded to fall off the Jack onto the ground. Had to go get a second tractor and use the bucket and chain to lift it up so I could get it high enough to get the jack back out from underneath it and get it squared away to work on it. Total brain fart on my part lol.

 

[NCL4701]

Had an old creek crossing that was barely wide enough for the Mule. Even though the L4701 isn’t huge, it scraped both sides going through and all that meant there was only one set of wheel tracks. Add the milkshake mud in the bottom and it just wasn’t much of a crossing. Decided to widen it and put something in the bottom to stabilize it. Two dumb things with that little project.

First, the L was the first “real” loader, first 4WD, and first R4’s I’d used. Had a trip bucket before that but that’s much different. It was the first time I did any digging with it (very new at the time) and I was enjoying how effective it was at removing the small trees and cutting down the banks; until the right front wheel broke through a crust and disappeared in the milkshake mud. Locked the diff and backed out. Then the dumb started. Instead of calling it a day and letting everything stabilize before continuing, I forged ahead. About 2 minutes later, the right rear broke through and the whole tractor listed off at about a 30 degree angle and it was nose down pretty steep just due to the crossing grade. Probably would have rolled but the right rear wheel jammed against the cut bank which was about 3’ high by that point. Diff lock did no good. Just stuck. Finally did something smart. Stopped, and just thought for a minute. Dumped the load in the bucket to lighten the front end, then used the loader to pick up the front end and push backward curling while easing it in reverse with diff locked. It came right out but I felt pretty stupid putting it in that position.

Then stupid part 2. Was talking to my Dad who lives 100 yards from me but was in inpatient rehab for a few months at the time. Was telling him I was going to have to get some rip rap or something to stabilize that mud that apparently went to China. He said he’d often stabilized mud holes for driving with red cedar logs. Verified via text he really meant logs. Didn’t make much sense to me but he’s been doing this stuff way longer than me and I had a pile of 10’ cedar logs so I grappled some of them into the creek figuring if it worked I’d lash them to a nearby tree to keep them in place. That kept anything from sinking but stuff with wheels smaller than about 3’ diameter struggled crossing them. Pulled them out and replaced with a couple yards of busted scrap concrete a buddy needed to get rid of anyway.

Told Dad how it turned out. He said he’d never tried logs. Figured that would only work with tracks. He would have used rip rap or scrap concrete. Afterward I checked the text to make sure I hadn’t misheard him.

I figured he was laughing his butt off laying there in the nursing home knowing he talked me into doing something that dumb. I know he won’t try to hurt me or the equipment but he’s tried a few similar things since then and I’m a lot more careful what of his “wisdom of experience” advice I take now. Love him, but he’s an odd bird sometimes.

 

[CobyRupert]

Was going to say, everything always goes perfect. If true, either I do very little or have a bad memory.
Thinking more there were a couple times.

I was about 12 or 13 years old in the 1980’s pulling a fully loaded kicker hay wagon with a 1950’s Case VAC (Tractordata says 2400lbs and 13hp at drawbar.) This one had loaded tires and a low 1st gear to make up for no horsepower. Pulling the wagon up a slope out of the field wasn’t a problem, it was that I hit the 1/500 chance that a car would be coming down the road at the same. Being 12, I pushed in the clutch and attempted using the brakes to hold it from rolling backwards. The tractor hadn’t seen brakes in decades so backwards we went. I wasn’t very practiced at backing up a wagon back then so we quickly jackknifed which stopped things. Luckily it was earlier than later as we didn’t have enough momentum to flip.

I constantly treat my rotary mower like a bulldozer and back it into questionable places that are usually hiding a post, a boulder or a tree that promptly folds the sides into the blades. It takes about an hour, a chain, a come-a-long , and two perfectly spaced apart trees to make the banging noises and sparks to go away.

I also drive that mower in a field of pine stumps. Now they’re rotten, but first time I promptly hooked the bar that holds the mower’s rear safety chain guards and ripped them all off. Then hooked the front chain bar on another one and stood the 7’ mower straight up behind the tractor seat. Luckily it ripped that front bar off too and the mower came down AWAY from the tractor.

Also drive it through ditches so deep and at an angle that it try’s to support tractor’s weight. That bends things good.

I once buried tractor up to its axles in low marshy spot. Luckily I had a pto log winch hooked on tractor. I parked my truck above the marsh on other side of a bushy hedge row and ran cable 60-70’ to truck as an anchor. I told my 13 year old daughter to pull the winch cord when I got the tractor wound up and tires are spinning and I’d work the FEL to pry out too. Lots of moving parts. …but don’t keep pulling the cord if the winch clutch is burning and cable is not being reeled in.
All went as plan, but instead of reeling cable in to get tractor out, I (and she) didn’t notice we were reeling the truck through the bushes into the marsh!

 

[johng143]

mine is shown here

wheels down on water is a bad error.

 

[sixdogs]

Great thread. I thought I had a corner on dumb moves and feel so much better now.