Tractor shakes anyone?!?

[Fuddy1952]

It's hard to see in pictures but through my woods is an old road I use, I've cut a few dead trees, and near end I want to turn and go uphill. We've had rain so the ground is soft. There's some narrow spots near the creek. One coming back the tractor wanted to slide toward creek. I swung backhoe uphill thinking that would help but seemed to make it worse. Then I could see the bank crumbling away on downhill side. I had put a tree along bank so I eased front bucket down touching it and went through praying. Back tire was coming up a little, uphill side.
When it dries out better I'll put dirt in downhill side.
I'm still shaking!!!!!

 

[YLee Kioti]

(Using Elvis inner voice) Awww Maaaahn....... hope your done spitting foam....glad you on solid ground now......

Been using BB and Grader Blade to reduce the high tops along creek and the four trenches the previous owner dug out to burn brush.

Yeah the lean angle backing up to cut left me white knuckled fatigued.....so now got the trenches filled and the high tops skimmed down.....

So can relate....nothing like soft black gumbo giving out underneath yah......

Hope yah had a few cold beers, you know to handle the shakes....lol...

 

[RNeumann]

Thx for sharing! It is hard to swing that BH arm down hill in that situation. Having to trust it will “catch” you doesn’t sound too hard to do....until
you actually go to do it.

I was taking a class from a Special Forces Medic. He had a lot of good sayings. The one that applies here is “I was shaking more than a dog pooping (the other word) broken glass”

 

[kthompson]

Glad it ended well. The lower you can keep the weight the less likely a tipping situation is. If you had extended and lowered the backhoe that may made a lot of difference. Would think you did well with the loader. Been few years but did load testing for a crane company years ago. We would have to do so to we reached tipping and the whole safety issue was keep the load LOW for one the load touched the ground the tipping would stop. We also had to drive the crane across a hill that was steep than the picture you showed. We only did so straight on but that was done more so to test the brakes and it amazed me how stable those machines were on the grade up,topping the hill and down the other side. This was a man made hill made for this use. It might help you understand the safe limits to get you some different weights and play with them on level ground to help get ideas on both how easy your machine can tip but also really how much it will take to tip it. With backhoe be sure to run the boom out with as heavy weight as you can lift or have but do so with weight near the ground. If you have someone else who can operate it have them do it also while you can "WATCH" the action on the offside of wheels or outriggers lifting.

Machines normally are more stable than we think but, when they roll it often is with bad and too often fatal. Here we have very little hills or much in sloped land but we have a lot of ditches and have a neighbor who was roll over victim as he made too tight a turn and too fast and dropped tire in ditch. Had another who was killed in his rollover dropping his tire off of side of field where cut not for road ditch. First one took turn too fast and dropped tire in ditch and the one killed could well have been drinking.

 

[BrokenTrack]

It takes a lot to roll a tractor over...and that is by design, and shear physics.

It is pretty east to put them up on three wheels which induces the "pucker factor" for the operator, but if they did not do that, they would break traction all the time when working.

So they tip up on three wheels, the front axle hits the frame, and most of the time they stop at that point. Steep inclines, speed, or off-set weights is what makes them go over.

I have only done it once in some 40 years of operating a tractor, and that includes being a boom mower operator on road ditches. In that job every day there is a "pucker factor moment". Still, when I rolled my Kubota over, it went over so slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, I just stepped off the tractor as it went over. Literally, stepped out on the ground and walked away as it flopped. It was almost surreal.

For those that care about such details; I just took the skidder and flopped it back on its four wheels again.

 

[Citydude]

Definitely brings “ creepy feelings” into play as you teeter on the downhill tires....

 

[Gary Fowler]

I know the feeling of bank sloughing off. I had to get my other tractor to drag my B26 out of my pond when I hit "quicksand like area". Suddenly the water side just sunk into the ground. The floor boards were setting in the mud on the water side with tractor at near 45 degree angle and the backhoe wouldn't pick it up out of the mud for some reason. I was afraid it was going into the pond on it's side, so I used my P7010 to just drag it sideways out of the mud. Broke the bead on a front tire and filled it with mud in the process but no other damage. Had to remove the rim and use a hose to wash all the mud out before airing it back up.

Your tractor could have easily rolled over into the creek if the bank had slipped off which can happen when the soil is wet after a rain, especially on a hill. IT works similar to a snow slide.

 

[ovrszd]

For me, first consideration when entering the timber is soil conditions. This time of year it's hidden frost buried under thawed ground cover. Not pretty.

 

[stuckmotor]

For a second there, I thought you were going to say you anchored the tractor to the hill with the backhoe bucket to stop the slide. Glad you're OK.

 

[Fuddy1952]

I remember something someone here said months ago, keep heavy end uphill, good advice.
I can go straight downhill comfortably and back straight uphill no problem.
There are tricky situations where you can't steer and cases where the right speed is critical, too slow or fast is bad.