Working on tractor with loader up...do you?

[Soundguy]

Renze... Gemeni said what I wanted to say.. in a real clear articulate way.

It's your choice to take risks with your own life.. but when positn in a public forum as if it is ok to stand under a dangling sword.. and then call everybody else afraid.. well.. I'm sorry.. It's not opinion.. its risk assessment.. each individual is free to make their own choices. i don't live in fear of my laoder bucket falling on me.. why? cause i prop it up with a stout piece of timber.. one less thing on my mind. besides.. i have a family to support. it would be the ultimate act of selfishness to throw safety to the wind and do things the most dangerous way I could.. and them leave my family without my financial support, help, or companionship. In short.. think about others.. not just yourself.. ( others includes the 14 year old kid reading this thread that is going to 'help' his dad by doing something with the laoder before dad gets home.. as a 'suprise'.. and just when he walks under the bucket, the dog jump into the tractor seat after a butterfly, dropping the laoder bucket, trapping and slowly crushing / killing the 14 year old kid, for his family to find later.. all because he rad that it was OK to do this .. and that if you dind't.. you were scared...) See where this is going?

Soundguy

Soundguy, I find it amusing how some people are eager to call another an idiot because they dont share your point of view...

Bushmen from Africa are scared the heck by any storm or high water, because they know they life below the sea level in the western netherlands. On the other hand, Dutch city slickers sleep sweet at 5,5 meter below sea level, while they cant close an eye in an African nomad hut because of the little critters, and a jackal howl in the far distance.

When you grow up with things, you cope easier with the risks involved.

 

[gemini5362]

Renze I believe the problem is people that look to this website for information. There will be some people that have never had a tractor with FEL before and know absolutely nothing about hydraulics.

so...the conclusion is that the majority of people here agrees that i'm an idiot, because what i say might misguide some rookies that never been around FELs before, who follow blindly what they read here ?? Then who are the idiots

lifting chains might break. They are tested annually in a hydraulic test bench that strains them to somewhere about 150% of the nominal permitted work load. If they hold, they are safety approved for professional use for another year.

when i attack the muck heap with my loader, the rear end of my Zetor 5245 comes loose when i back out of the bunk silo because there´s a nasty 1 foot high ridge to keep effluent in and rain water out.
When there is just an empty bucket, the pressure in the cylinder will be somewhere about 10% of the scenario when it is loaded to full lift capacity and you ride over a bump.-
The chance that the hydraulic system will just break, is next to non existant.
IF it does break, there is so little pressure in the cylinder that it takes quite some time before all the oil is pressed out and the loader is down.

Now there might be a chance that it starts going down due to a leaking cylinder o ring. If there was enough leakage to make oil seep past the o ring on an empty loader, the fully loaded loader will drop down so fast that you´d sure noticed. In that scenario i might think it over, but with leakage within normal operating margins, i dont care at all to work under it.
When i hide myself behind a welding helmet, i do check the loader every few minutes just to be sure, but for a 100 hour service, the risk of getting hurt by a dropping loader is a 1000 times smaller than getting hurt by the flower pot that falls off the balcony of the 5th floor....

I can respect your opinion about safety, so i expect you to respect mine as well (unless you´re an idiot off course)

I believe I have stated in another post that previous to my present position I worked in a steel mill as part of the maintenance department. I have seen several instances where hydraulics stopped working all of a sudden. I have seen front end loaders with a very light load all of a sudden drop to the ground. I have seen hydraulics that tilted a furnace weighing in excess of a 100 tons fail or fall forward onto the mechanical stops. Most of the cases I have seen have been from something in the valving and a lot of time it was from a check valve. The mill where I worked often chained 15 to 30 ton steel bars to lifting magnets on a crane and moved them around the plant. I do not ever remember one instance of a lifting chain breaking. I am glad that you have not been privy to catastrophic failure. I dont know why you check the loader every few minutes when you are under a welding helmet if you are sure that instantaneous failures cannot occur. There should be no need to stop welding just to check. That sounds very counter productive to me.

I agree anyone that would come on here and see your anti-safety advice then follow it without reading all the rest of the posts about being safe is an idiot.

I am glad you can respect my opinion about safety but I dont believe there is anywhere that says I have to respect your opinion. I am not an idiot I just happen to believe you are wrong. I do not respect any opinion that says it is ok to work unsafely and makes fun of people that do work safely.

 

[Soundguy]

At least on our manlift.. there are safety check pilots on the hyd cyl itself...

I'm sure something similar is used in many other modern man-lift applications

We have a couple units that also have inertial drop arrestors built into the mechaincal telescoping framework... not sure how common that is.. but that model I'm speaking of is a small electric over hyd unit to be used indoors to work on ceiling lighting.. etc..

Soundguy

If hydraulics are so uncertain is using a man platform or a cherry picker dangerous ? I used to have a tree care business where we used a telehandler with a work platform attached to it for high work, the boys seemed to prefer that to hanging on a rope with a chainsaw tied to your belt.
Previously i said that i use angle iron when working under loaders but only for something major like an inframe motor rebuild , use common sense when greasing or whatever you can avoid standing directly under the bucket.

 

[Renze]

I am glad you can respect my opinion about safety but I dont believe there is anywhere that says I have to respect your opinion. I am not an idiot I just happen to believe you are wrong. I do not respect any opinion that says it is ok to work unsafely and makes fun of people that do work safely.

Then you might have a problem.... MY opinion is that it is safe. I dont make fun of anyone that thinks it is not safe to work under raised loader booms, it's your assumption, because i reply to people agreeing that i am an idiot for doing so...

I did not say it is o.k. to work unsafe. My conception of safe working practice is just a little different than yours, I dont have any problems with that at all, but it seems you do....

Every footstep you set might be your last. every one of them involves a risk. Some more than others, some steps involve so much risk that not everybody is willing to take them, others so little that nobody even thinks of their existance. Inbetween is a grey area, it aint black and white.
I dont think it makes sense to create black or white from the grey inbetween.

"what is truth? "

 

[gemini5362]

Then you might have a problem.... MY opinion is that it is safe. I dont make fun of anyone that thinks it is not safe to work under raised loader booms, it's your assumption, because i reply to people agreeing that i am an idiot for doing so...

I did not say it is o.k. to work unsafe. My conception of safe working practice is just a little different than yours, I dont have any problems with that at all, but it seems you do....

Every footstep you set might be your last. every one of them involves a risk. Some more than others, some steps involve so much risk that not everybody is willing to take them, others so little that nobody even thinks of their existance. Inbetween is a grey area, it aint black and white.
I dont think it makes sense to create black or white from the grey inbetween.

"what is truth? "

OK, where do i begin, first of all some of the comments about turning this into an idiot versus paranoid discussion, talking about living in fear, etc is making fun of people that advocate safety. What I get out of your statement above is. YOU dont say it is ok to work unsafe, YOU just decide what is and isnt safe, If it is something that you feel is safe and others feel that it is unsafe they are either paranoid or living in fear. It is interesting that every other poster in this topic feels that working under raised and unblocked loader arms is unsafe. Not just a few but every person that posted to this topic besides you feel that it is unsafe. Your response to them was once again that they were paranoid and living in fear. You mentioned that you respond to people calling you an idiot. I believe in one of your earlier posts that you said " I TOO AM AN IDIOT." in the same post someone posted one of the reasons working under raised loader arms being unsafe was because an " O " ring might break. Your response to that was a literary reply of "That is crap" I do not know that people are calling you an idiot or just agreeing with you that you are one. I have said that you have the right to your opinion as do I and the other posters on this website. If you want to work under those conditions feel free to do so. It is just sad that you feel the need to make disparaging comments to those that disagree with you.

 

[jimmysisson]

Years ago I used a TLB to help hoist a barn frame into place. Guys were swarming all over the thing to set braces and pin tenons. Worked great, saved lots of manual labor. Next day, neighbor borrows TLB to spread a little gravel, empty bucket drops (from 2' up) zap! to ground when hose ruptures. Ever since (35 yrs) I've been cautious, not paranoid, around raised implements. Nothing teaches like a near accident.
Jim

 

[mjarrels]

My rule is that anything that is man-made will at some point fail.

mark

 

[Soundguy]

You are exactly correct.

In post #21.. he called himself an idiot. In post # 24, I said, literally, that I agreed with him.

For the record.. OSHA and every equipment manufacturer than i can find has warnings about working under unsupported hyds. That's why my batwing mower has safety decals all over it, and swing down, pin-in-place' safety arms that prevent the wings from falling, and swing down supports to hold the lift wheels up if the lift cyl leads down.

I also agree.. with your take on the situation. Renze doesn't say it is ok to be unsafe.. but he does say that it is up to him to decide what is unsafe.. thus defacto.. he is saying it is ok to do things that are generally accepted to be unsafe as long as he is ok with it.. Gotta love circular logic and rationilization..

Soundguy

OK, where do i begin, first of all some of the comments about turning this into an idiot versus paranoid discussion, talking about living in fear, etc is making fun of people that advocate safety. What I get out of your statement above is. YOU dont say it is ok to work unsafe, YOU just decide what is and isnt safe, If it is something that you feel is safe and others feel that it is unsafe they are either paranoid or living in fear. It is interesting that every other poster in this topic feels that working under raised and unblocked loader arms is unsafe. Not just a few but every person that posted to this topic besides you feel that it is unsafe. Your response to them was once again that they were paranoid and living in fear. You mentioned that you respond to people calling you an idiot. I believe in one of your earlier posts that you said " I TOO AM AN IDIOT." in the same post someone posted one of the reasons working under raised loader arms being unsafe was because an " O " ring might break. Your response to that was a literary reply of "That is crap" I do not know that people are calling you an idiot or just agreeing with you that you are one. I have said that you have the right to your opinion as do I and the other posters on this website. If you want to work under those conditions feel free to do so. It is just sad that you feel the need to make disparaging comments to those that disagree with you.

 

[Renze]

I was getting back to what was written in these posts:

Okay, I'll step up to the podium: My name is George and I'm an idiot.

Guess that I am an idiot, have cleaned the screen with the loader up.

Now i dont find it interesting enough to dig into the linguistic details etcetera to determin if i called myself an idiot, or i was being sarcastic about the direction this thread was taking...

Then somethign else: i didnt say that it was crap to not work under raised loaders. I said that it is crap thinking that everything with a .59$ct part in it that might defunct, is unsafe.

My remark about paranoids vs. stupid, it was only a sketch of the direction this thread was taking after some smart people decided to teach us how they think everybody else should work.... It just aint working that way

About making fun of people that advocate safety, did that hurt you ?? Or are you just uncomfortable with people that advocate their opinion ?

I think i better withdraw from this discussion, it's getting us nowhere.
Renze

 

[Soundguy]

You may be on to something here. it seems the rest of the responders in this threas are thinking fairly rationally, and DON'T advocate doing something that is unsafe, that can be made safe VERY EASILY in just a couple minutes or less, an with no cost.

Kinda like putting your cigarette out before looking down into your gas tank, vs not doing it. One is obviously safer than the other.. The safe options takes virtually no time and is free. Doing it the unsafe way may not ever get you hurt.. until that one time the cherry falls into the tank.. it's that slim chance / 1 time that rational people take some modest steps to avoid, reguardless if the chance of it happening is slim or wide.... Hard to put up a credible argument against that sort of thing..

In all fairness.. i don't think anyone disagrees with you that the liklyhood of a failure is very remote.. it's just that no one wants to take the chance when it is so easy to get mitigate the danger.. Perhaps if it was a different set of circumstances.. then opinions may be different.. however.. for this set of circumstances.. it's pretty apparrent what the majority is thinking.

good luck

Soundguy

I think i better withdraw from this discussion, it's getting us nowhere.
Renze