Wild Ride

[DaleW]

Well I have had my new 2710 for a week now. WHAT A GREAT TRACTOR...72in mower works great ...loader is a real time saver but I can't stress enough for a new owner READ .. READ..READ and re-READ the owners manual on safety issues.
Took mine to mow the back field which is quite a slope. Figured going straight up and down was the best and safest course of action rather than sideways. Put the tractor in mid range and proceeded down the hill.....WELL 1/4 of the way down the rear tires loose traction and start slipping. Tried the brakes but they don't do too much good on non-rotating tires. Saw the rock wall getting closer and closer as I tried to figure out what to do. The thought ran through my head to put the bucket down to grab some ground but I figured that would launch me like a human cannon ball. Finally started a REAL slow turn to the left and wound up parallel to the rock wall when it finally stopped. Other than some stains on the seat the tractor and operator are fine.
Manual says 4WD should be used on slopes...I didn't...manual says use lo-range...I didn't. Put the tractor away for a few days and re-read the manuals cover to cover. No more roller coaster rides for me.
A question for anyone...I have ballast in the rear tires. Would additional weight on the 3pt help in a situation like this?
Thanks
DaleW

 

[ejb]

...sure the additional weight would have given you a little more momentum so that when you hit the wall you could make it thru...just kidding of course.

I don't think in this situation it would have helped, the additional weight would have pushed down harder on the tires, but then again, you would have had more mass trying to go down the hill faster.

You need to be careful using 4wd on hills, even if the manual calls for it...sure they will grip a little better, and allow you to make it up a slope that you couldn't in 2wd, but then again, they don't help in preventing rollovers either.

Maybe a good rule of thumb is to use the 4wd down the hills to prevent slipping, but keep it in 2wd on the way up, when you start slipping in 2wd, you are probably on a steep enough embankment.

 

[JerryG]

DaleW, glad to hear that you weren't hurt. If you have ballast in your tires, I doubt if adding wheel weights would have helped muched more. I have weights but, not ballast and I mow almost straight up and down. The best thing you can do is: 1)make sure the grass is dry 2)use 4 wheel drive 3) go slow and be real careful. If you are unsure about a spot and your going real slow sometimes you can feel the wheels start to slip before they let go. Good Luck......JerryG

 

[MChalkley]

DaleW, a number of members of this board have done that. While more weight on the 3-point hitch may have helped marginally, the only sure way is to use 4wd.

I think you should always use 4wd on steep unpaved slopes, no matter what direction you're going relative to the slope. The idea is to maintain control, period. Slipping is to be avoided at all costs, because once you start slipping, you've lost control of the situation. For example, what if you're climbing a 30 degree slope in 2wd and one rear tire slips but the other doesn't? All of a sudden, you're sideways on that 30 degree slope, and you're probably rolling over. So I'd use another means to determine whether the slope is too steep.

Personally, I don't worry about the slope front-to-back too much, but that doesn't mean you can't over-do it - you can. I recently scared myself a bit (after the fact) climbing a fill pile. I'd been digging out of it all day and it was really good fill - the kind that will clump well in your hand - and there was a sheer face about 10 feet tall starting 20 feet or so from the ground (the pile was obviously 30 feet or so high). Anyway, I didn't want to leave that cliff there, because I was afraid some kid might want to play on it and it could collapse, so I drove the tractor straight up the side of the pile until the bucket almost reached the top, stuck it in the pile and backed back down the slope. I didn't know it, but a guy on site with a big Cat 4-wheel-steer backhoe-loader was watching me, and when I got back down the hill, he was waving his arms and yelling for me to stop, so I did. He comes over to me and says "You aren't planning to do that again, are you?" I told him I thought it was ok and explained what I was doing and he said "I don't think killing yourself in the process is any better." I asked him what he was talking about and he suggested I get off the tractor and walk over to the pile with him. Well, when I did that, and crawled up that pile with him to where the tractor had been, I understood why he was so concerned. I told him it felt like a 45 degree angle, and he said "You were at every bit of a 45 degree angle, probably more." I think he over-reacted a bit, but I'm not sure because he's a really top-notch highly experienced heavy equipment operator. The thing is, I'm normally very conservative with stuff like that, so I don't know why it didn't bother me while I was doing it. At any rate, I'm seriously considering getting another tilt-meter for a front-to-back slope indicator, just so I know what's going on.

The moral is: always be careful, but front-to-back slopes aren't nearly as critical as side-to-side, as long as you're properly ballasted, in 4wd, and can maintain traction. But remember, if you start over backward, the 3-point hitch implement on the back won't help you a bit, because there's no downward pressure on it, unlike the front end loader, which does have down pressure and can stop the tractor from tipping forward.

Mark

 

[Kelvin]

This was a big issue on the last board (see "archives" under "Safety" if I remember correctly).

I always use 4wd going both up and down my slopes, and after having done it seemingly over a hundreds times, I forgot to put the tractor in 4wd the other day and went for a wild ride myself. While gathering my thoughts at the bottom of the hill, I thought about this question:

Would the use of the differential lock help gain traction going downhill? After all, if I were driving up the hill and started slipping I would engage the differential lock for more traction, so why not going downhill?

In the same sense, I would think that if ballast provides more traction, then it would provide more traction regardless of terrain slope.

Another War Story: Recently I was going down a wet dirt bank very slowly on my B2150 HSD (with Ag tires, empty loader and yard box) in 4wd. To my surprise, about 3/4 of the way down the hill the rear end started to side slip. Luckily I had the available room to steer into the slip (like you would on snow/ice) and merely ended up at the bottom of the hill at a slightly different location that I had planned. I would have hated it if the tractor had of slid around to where it was crossways on the hill...with the momentum it would have turned over easily. Fortunately I wear my seat belt any time I get near the hills (and nearly 100% of all other times).

 

[MChalkley]

Kelvin - Like you, I feel like anything that works on level ground has to help on a slope. The problem is that there's no way to rely on it as a first line of defense because it may not be enough, and the best approach is to prevent the slippage from starting in the first place. But if I were going up or down a hill in 4wd and it started to slip or spin, I'd certainly engage the differential lock. And when I got off the hill, I'd either get some more correctly located ballast or stay off that hill.

Mark

 

[Thomas]

Dale,
I'm glad to read that your okay also the tractor fine.

Like Mark mention this is how we all have learn.
Maybe it was a good thing you didn't drop your front end loader down,for you might have hit a hard object. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif
If you have self doubt about going places with your tractor than don't,for the out come may not be worth it.

Have given your New Kubota a nick name yet. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Have a great weekend. /w3tcompact/icons/cool.gif

Thomas..NH

 

[TomG]

I know there are different opinions on the subject. I am more comfortable backing down steep hills. Weight transfer shifts weight to rear wheels and should give more traction. When going backwards, lowering the loader bucket would act more like an anchor than a vaulting pole.

One of the advantages of 4wd is that some braking is applied to the front wheels. Of course, if the tires are already slipping, braking doesn't do much good. The differential lock should be good, but I'm not sure I could engage mine in such a situation.

Best advise I've heard is: 'If it feels unsafe, it probably is, and it's better to do it some other way.'

 

[glen b.]

Guess I'll have to add my "learning the hard way" story. I was tilling a yard for replanting and it had a small but fairly steep slope that I thought was no problem because I would be going straight down it. I didn't have the tractor in 4 wheel drive. Anyway with the tiller running in the ground it just about launched me down that slope. The scary part was there was another house directly in front of me. I got it stopped in time but now I don't even till on level ground without the 4 wheel in. It still amazes me to this day how much that tiller pushed me down the hill. Just to prove my stupidity to all of you a little more the next time I was tilling a down hill slope only this time in a wide open place I experimented a little and tried it with the 4 wheel in and then out just to prove to myself that it really happened that way and and to shorten this story, it did. Anytime you are on a slope, use the 4 wheel drive. When that tractor took off with me down that slope all I could think of was, this must be the way a navy pilot feels getting launched off an aircraft carrier. glen

 

[Bird]

glen b, I can just imagine you going down the slope propelled by a tiller. Was that with the B2710? And what size tiller? Nearly all my tilling has been on pretty level ground, but a 40" tiller would propel the B7100 forward unless I used 4WD and low range; however, I use the same tiller with the B2710 in 2WD and mid-range and it's never pushed me forward (but of course, like I said, I've not been headed downhill, either).

Bird