Always Set Parking Brake!

[dzoller]

No damage...he should went out bought Powerball ticket with that kind of luck.

I beg to differ, it would've been a waste of money! You see, he probably used up all of his good luck for that year

 

[Deano]

Nice STRONG reminder!!! Thanks for the post!

 

[manzer7]

I always have at least 2 of these three things; brake set, loader down, implement down. When setting the brake, SET the darned thing hard enough to stop the tractor. I wouldn't care to guess how many times that I've jumped onto the family's L2800 after my brother has used it, to find that he has put the brake on but not even enough to lug the engine if I don't notice.

I have a JD1025R and I used to set it very hard and it split the connection (aluminum) from the pedal to the rear connection and brakes were gone. It split right on the shaft. They fixed it OK with a new part. I can't understand why they would have wanted to save money & weight on such an important piece of safety equipment. Service is very good !!! Can't complain here !! Time to put the front snowblower on. Snow is starting to trickle in now . . . . . . .

 

[Deere Dude]

I have a 3 series JD and was pulling a few logs up a fairly steep hill. To rehook the chain I had it in low range, FEL down and weight box down and brake firmly set, like always.

This time while remounting the tractor, my lardbutt knocked the shifter into neutral. To start pulling again I raised the FEL and the box blade, and all was fine. I stepped on the forward footfeed and released the brake handle. Instantly I was rolled back about 10 feet before I was able to jam on the brake again. Scared the starch out of me because this was going down an undrivably 200' steep hill loaded with big oaks.

 

[RalphVa]

Always, on tractor and cars and pickup. On tractor on slope, I always turn the wheels so the fronts will be as much as possible pointed across the hill and not up or down it.

 

[Cycledude]

No worries about forgetting to release the parking brake on my LS because it has a pretty loud beeper that goes off if you attempt to drive with the parking brake on.
It also has a beeper that beeps if you get out of the seat without setting the parking brake first.
Yes the safety features get a little annoying sometimes but overall they are very nice and pretty much force you to do things properly so I’m happy to have them.

 

[timetobakethedonuts]

The fellow here was very lucky this tractor stopped without apparent damage to anything. I bought my Massey hydro 4wd TLB brand new, never having owned a tractor. When they delivered it on my steep road (could not pull into me driveway), the driver backed it downslope. and it teter-tottered when he hit the ramps. He looked shocked, but he took the opportunity to tell me to research tractor rollovers and tractor safety - because I could seriously injure or kill myself. I did exactly that, and found an excellent case study page (this was in 2008, I can no longer find it). Seemed like over half of the accidents were older operators who knew better in their younger days, and did something careless. Several others were young inexperienced operators. My property is all sloped - 25-30% over half of it. My tires are not loaded. So I learned to be careful to dig the bucket in a bit, or the backhoe bucket if facing uphill. I slipped up ONCE. I don't recall the reason. The tractor slipped backwards downhill with the engine off about 10 feet before I was able to brake it. I have 500+ hours on it now and try to look out for risky situations, always.

 

[ljjhouser]

I almost always use the brake. However, I don't have a lot of confidence in it. Sometimes, on flat ground, I do not. BUT, I always drop the box blade and bucket. And I try not to park it on a hill. Always a risk. AND That is also why 4WD or proper 3 pt ballast is important. It doesn't do any good to set the brake on a hill in 2wd and a load in the bucket without ballast.
But that is something we all must learn. First time user may have learned something about tractors. Not sure what, but something.

I can't imagine how it avoided a rollover. Just sitting there on all four.

 

[JasperFrank]

A long time ago, I once parked my friend's Bronco on what I though was relatively flat ground. Walking to to his shop, I hear the slight noise of gravel under tires. Looked back and his truck was rolling slowly towards a heavy trafficked main road. Early Broncos have a push button type door handle. His door handle did not work so well. Running by the side of this thing.... pressing... pressing and pressing this damn button, till it opened just in time for me to hit the brakes at the curb. The wheels were right on the curb. 45 years later. I still set the parking brake on everything, even if there is no conceivable reason to do so.

 

[Jstpssng]

Back in my powerline maintenance days we were using an older F250 crewcab with 8 foot bed and homemade cap. One evening after work I was in the back doing something when I realized that the driver had left it in neutral and the truck was rolling. I jumped out of the back, ran around to the passenger side and tried to unlock it; then remembered that lock didn't work. Not wanting to get downhill from a rolling vehicle I ran all around the back and down beside it, unlocked the driver's door, jumped in and got it stopped just before going into the lake. Considering the amount of gas, oil, and chemicals in the back it would have been an ecological disaster.

 

[mmranch]

I've made a number of modifications to my tractor over the years. One of them was to modify the brake to make it extra safe. Our property is in the mountains and nothing is flat. All of my tasks are pretty treacherous and must be done with safety in mind. After using the tractor for a couple of years, I decided I really didn't like the way the parking brake was setup to work.

The parking brake works fine but the design is that you press the brakes down and then press the parking brake pedal which locks the brakes down against the floor. To disengage the parking brake... you press the brake pedals down again, which removes the parking brake.

That's great... unless something magical happens that makes the parking brake become unlocked. For example... magic, or entering the tight confines of the cab with big boots on and accidentally hitting the brake pedal while not seated in the tractor yet, or while chainsawing a tree branch... said branch falls through the open door of the tractor and smacks the brake pedals, etc. Basically, it wasn't safe enough for my liking.

So I modified the brake pedals with a bracket bolted to the cab firewall and a pin which goes through the bracket and brake pedals to lock the pedals down to the floor. So basically, the parking brake is ON and the pedals are locked down to the floor with the pin. There is no movement of the pedals possible when the pin is in place. I never leave the tractor without that pin in place.

In addition, if the backhoe is on the tractor I use it to block downhill movement. If the chipper is on the tractor I put it down to slow downhill movement (probably need to weld some spikes on the bottom of the chipper to make this more effective).

 

[newbury]

When I was about 18 I got a summer job as a stableboy at a small private girls camp
There were 4 of us "boys" and maybe 20 or so horses. We had an ancient 2 ton "farm truck" to haul the manure. One day somebody parked it where we emptied it with a full load in the morning. On a hill in front of the stable. Later as 2 of us were in the back shoveling the product out it started to roll. Luckily one guy was quick enough to jump in and brake it before it rolled the 20 or so yards and crashed into the barn.

That was my lesson in the importance of confirming equipment is "locked down".