'Fess Up'......mistakes you've made or close calls.......

[Flintknapper]

When operating a tractor, there are all kinds of ways we can get ourselves into trouble. I thought it might good to share some of our experiences.

Obviously, we all have different uses for our tractors, tractor size and implements employed, so I would expect a wide range of replies.

But with respect to SAFETY, tell us of an experience you've had personally or know of.... that either could have been avoided or is something to watch for.

 

[WhitleyStu]

When prepping earth next to a new home foundation with a tiller check for hidden ground rod location. I hit one 20 years ago and it stalled my BX engine immediately!

 

[Motion]

My 17 year old son was using the 5" rotary cutter when the overspeed coupler failed at the PTO shaft as the shaft driven by the blades whipped around it caught his tee shirt along his back left a mark, a couple of inches higher, the piece of the coupling and "U" joint would have hit head, he'd probably be dead. VERY LUCKY! Installing drive shaft loops is a good idea to minimize damage.

 

[Flintknapper]

I'll begin with a recent experience of my own.

I pretty much NEVER wear a seat belt when operating my Compact (open station) tractor. And prior to my experience have not had issues with that choice.

But I am persuaded now (in certain circumstances) to start doing so.

I was mowing some road frontage on my property late this past summer. I keep about 1/4 mile of it mowed regularly and the other 1/4 mile maybe once a year...since the county mows it twice a year anyway.

What happened:

There is Johnson Grass and Crimson Clover that grows quite thickly along the road frontage/easement and can grow tall enough that it becomes unsightly and also begins to intrude on my fence line.

I was mowing the area I don't often attend to. I had my shredder and FEL in place. Mowing slowly in 4wd.

All was well and I was mostly focused on my rear-view mirror to watch for traffic coming up behind me (when making the pass nearest the pavement).

All of the sudden....my right front wheel dropped down into a hole I couldn't see because of all the foliage. A hole that had never been there before. When that happened the tractor tilted front to rear (lifting the left side rear tire) and caused the tractor to come to an abrupt stop as the FEL dug in the dirt.

The result of that is that it launched me out of the seat and up against the steering wheel. And only by grabbing the steering wheel was I able to keep from falling off the tractor to the tilted side.

The tractor remained running and the front tire in the hole spinning and the lifted tire in the rear spinning (thankfully). I quickly got back in the seat and stabbed the clutch. I was fortunate that the front loader (held low) caught the tractor and that I was mowing at a fairly low speed.

But it could have turned out much differently. If I had not had the front loader on the tractor, it would have tipped on its side for certain and no telling where I would have landed without my seat belt on. I still don't wear it doing many chores but I DO when mowing road frontage now.

 

[TheOldHokie]

When operating a tractor, there are all kinds of ways we can get ourselves into trouble. I thought it might good to share some of our experiences.

Obviously, we all have different uses for our tractors, tractor size and implements employed, so I would expect a wide range of replies.

But with respect to SAFETY, tell us of an experience you've had personally or know of.... that either could have been avoided or is something to watch for.

I hope you are prepared for the avalanch you are about to get. I am 71 and my list could fill a book. A couple simple examples:

1) Jacking up a loader to put it on the tractor. Jack slipped and loader pinched my misplaced right hand in the boom. Excruciating pain, trapped like a wild animal, and jack out of my reach. Also alone in the woods with my 7 year old son. Fortunately I could coach him and he got the jack back under the loader and rsised it enough to free me. Probably saved my life and my hand which was numb for a month.

2) Hauling a trailer full of firewood UP a hill. Tires lost traction and tractor, trailer, and operator took a 300 foot out of control sled ride BACKWARDS down the hill. Finally came to rest against a big tree.

You get the picture. Tractoring is a dangerous business and its EASY to make a mistake that can kill you. Keep your wits about you and whenever you are working on or around machinery think long and hard about what could happen if you loose control of the machine or your equipment. Forewarned is forearmed.

Dan

 

[Flintknapper]

I hope you are prepared for the avalanch you are about to get. I am 71 and my list could fill a book. A couple simple examples:

1) Jacking up a loader to put it on the tractor. Jack slipped and loader pinched my misplaced right hand in the boom. Excruciating pain, trapped like a wild animal, and jack out of my reach. Also alone in the woods with my 7 year old son. Fortunately I could coach him and he got the jack back under the loader and rsised it enough to free me. Probably saved my life and my hand which was numb for a month.

2) Hauling a trailer full of firewood UP a hill. Tires lost traction and tractor, trailer, and operator took a 300 foot out of control sled ride BACKWARDS down the hill. Finally came to rest against a big tree.

You get the picture. Tractoring is a dangerous business and its EASY to make a mistake that can kill you. Keep your wits about you and whenever you are working on or around machinery think long and hard about what could happen if you loose control of the machine or your equipment. Forewarned is forearmed.

Dan

Like you (I am 68 yrs. old) I have many years of experience using different types of tractors and implements, so I have had my share of mishaps. Some were oversights or calculated risks of my own volition, other things were completely unexpected.

The use of large, powerful machinery comes with certain inherit risks and dangers, so we don't need to increase those risks by being inattentive or choosing to ignore them....as I did.

Hopefully, sharing our mishaps might help another person think about the possibilities and perhaps avoid an unwanted result.

I am also hoping that each of us will be respectful of the person sharing their mishap here and they will not be admonished by others in a negative way. We all make mistakes. Lets learn from them.

Thank you for sharing yours.

 

[hagrid]

I am preparing my admonishments.

One moment, plz...

 

[NCL4701]

Most of mine are from my youth using a 9N Ford. There’s was no way to add front weight and with anything much on the 3 point going up hill it had a tendency for the tractor to rotate around the rear wheels instead of the wheels rotating. Notorious machines for flipping over backward and squashing the driver. I was aware of that so not usually a problem… so long as I was reasonably vigilant. Worst experience I had with it, I was being complacent crossing a creek cut with a pickup type disc harrow that was at the max weight for the 3 point. Procedure was set the discs straight so they wouldn’t cut in, drop the disc in the creek, and drag it up the steep bank coming out of the cut.

I came home from school (I was probably 16), disced from about 4:00 to about 10:00 and was headed home half asleep. Didn’t drop the disc before starting to the climb out of the creek. At the start of the climb, the wheels stopped rotating and the tractor started rotating over backward. Tractor was probably about 75 degrees through its rearward rollover before I got on the clutch. It was so under ballasted on the front it didn’t come down very hard on the front axle so no harm done. Just set the discs straight, dropped the lift, and drove out.

Proper ballasting: not a good thing to ignore.

 

[TheOldHokie]

Like you (I am 68 yrs. old) I have many years of experience using different types of tractors and implements, so I have had my share of mishaps. Some were oversights or calculated risks of my own volition, other things were completely unexpected.

The use of large, powerful machinery comes with certain inherit risks and dangers, so we don't need to increase those risks by being inattentive or choosing to ignore them....as I did.

Hopefully, sharing our mishaps might help another person think about the possibilities and perhaps avoid an unwanted result.

I am also hoping that each of us will be respectful of the person sharing their mishap here and they will not be admonished by others in a negative way. We all make mistakes. Lets learn from them.

Thank you for sharing yours.

I will share one more thought before I shut my yap.

The single largest danger I know of is operating machinery on hills. I grew up in WV and PA around family farms the were all very hilly and I have seen way to many examples of things going wrong. Traction is hard to accurately judge and its easy to lose control. Case in point:

When I built my shop I hired a very experienced excavator who is older and more experienced than I and had many years in the seat. He was using a Cat 953 track loader to take cut from the hillside behind my shop to the low side were it was being used for fill. The job was almost done when we got just a tiny sprinkle of rain. As he was headed down the hill with a bucket of fill the machine suddenly lost traction and started to slide dead sideways straight for my brand new $100K building. Fortunately he was experienced and managed to quickly dump the bucket anduse it to halt the slide. He simply shut it down, climbed out, walked down the hill, and told me he would be back to retrieve the loader and finish the job when the ground dried off . Left muttering something about brown pants.

He was a really good old boy and i liked him a lot

Dan

 

[Bmyers]

I started to list different girls I dated through the years and then realized you were talking about TRACTOR mistakes.

 

[ve9aa]

I started to list different girls I dated through the years and then realized you were talking about TRACTOR mistakes.

I made a kindof 8' long hay bale spear dooey (strapped under my bucket) and was trying to pick up a very heavy roll of fencing out of a utility trailer, in a strange sortof way, it was good that I was new to all this as I lifted it very slowly.

As I was lifting, I felt the tractor tilt and 1 rear wheel come off the ground.

No brown pants, but I wasn't long lowering the roll of fencing and getting the tractor back on all 4 again.

The next day I ordered a ballast box !

Some time later, with about 400lbs of ballast, that roll of fencing came right out of the trailer with no fuss whatsoever.

That day(s) I learned the importance of ballast !

 

[Lil Foot]

I often wear coveralls when operating the tractor. I was getting off the tractor to have a closer look at something when my baggy pant leg hooked over the shifter and pulled it into gear. Away it went, heading towards my new garage. Thankfully, it was in 1st gear, low range, so I was able to jump back on & stomp the clutch. And yes, the brake was on, but was over powered by low gearing.

 

[ctfjr]

Several years and a tractor ago A big windstorm snapped a tree off about three feet above ground. It was over but still attached to the stump. I decided to use the fel to break it free so I could push it into the woods. After a few tries it broke from the stump.
Note to self - trees weigh a lot
When it came off the stump it caught on the bucket pushing it right to the ground and launched the rear wheels up in the air. When I stabbed at the fel control to drop the bucket the tractor dropped with a god awful thud.
I was wearing the seat belt but was sore for a week.

 

[DustyRusty]

I started to list different girls I dated through the years and then realized you were talking about TRACTOR mistakes.

This sounds like it is going to be more interesting. Please continue with your post.

 

[fried1765]

I started to list different girls I dated through the years and then realized you were talking about TRACTOR mistakes.

At 57 years old my (ex)wife's "mistake" cost me half of everything I owned!

 

[johnjk]

No real tractor screw ups yet but a wood cutting one. Was dropping dead ash trees on the property line and in a hurry, not practicing good technique, I had the saw kick back and catch me mid way between the groin and knee. No chaps, no other safety gear either. Been cutting wood for decades and never needed it. Lucky for me the jeans fouled the chain and stopped it. Lost a good pair of jeans but only had a scratch that was around 3” long on my leg. Tell you what, after checking I wasn’t gonna bleed out and emptying my pants, I hopped up on the B3200 and ordered the proper safety gear. Didn’t touch that saw until it arrived. This is also the reason I have my cell on me when cutting wood or on the tractor when operating it.

 

[johnjk]

and one more wood related. Splitting wood with a hydraulic splitter a few years back and did a stupid. My splitter has two posts at the back to force any wood off the wedge that may be stuck as the ram retracts. Stupid me looks down and sees a lot of tree dirt/ bark and as the ram is retracting, sticks my hand in to remove it. Got caught by the side of the splitting wedge and post. As I watched my wrist collapse in, I was able to twist my arm and pop free. My son was working with me and drove me to the ER. Didn’t break anything, super lucky but I did rearrange the little bones in the wrist. Took about 3 months to get full use back and a couple weeks in a soft cast. Any cleanup is done with the splitter powered off.

 

[fried1765]

No real tractor screw ups yet but a wood cutting one. Was dropping dead ash trees on the property line and in a hurry, not practicing good technique, I had the saw kick back and catch me mid way between the groin and knee. No chaps, no other safety gear either. Been cutting wood for decades and never needed it. Lucky for me the jeans fouled the chain and stopped it. Lost a good pair of jeans but only had a scratch that was around 3” long on my leg. Tell you what, after checking I wasn’t gonna bleed out and emptying my pants, I hopped up on the B3200 and ordered the proper safety gear. Didn’t touch that saw until it arrived. This is also the reason I have my cell on me when cutting wood or on the tractor when operating it.

Old folks like me (82) should keep their cell phone with them wherever they go.
"Help I've Fallen and I can't get Up"
Though not swimming....maybe!

 

[jimh406]

I don't know how much danger I was in, but it felt a little dangerous. Part of the feeling could have been me being new to tractors.

Any way, I was driving down my road from my upper shed downhill on snow. The rear of my tractor started sliding off the road. Not a huge drop off, but if I had gone farther I might have turned over. I was going slow enough that I got it back on the road.

I ordered chains and don't drive the tractor on snow without them any more.

 

[DaveFromMi]

Past history:
My Grandpa flipped a JD Model 60 over on himself and was killed.
My Dad had a JD Model B driving a conveyor for a corn crib. I was kicking corn out of the gravity bed and heard the tractor die. The hired hand was wrapped up in the driveshaft (loose coat). Thank God the B was driving it.
My brief history:
Hauling a large load of cow manure to the garden (no ballast) and stopped too quickly before dumping. Tractor tipped about a foot forward and bottomed out on the FEL.
Reached the pucker factor limit mowing across an incline from road to pasture. Tractor felt tippy so I made a right turn and went downhill. I think my max angle was about 30°.