handy dandy doo dad

Hoeman00 · Oct 5, 2003

Harv I was digging out an old drainage ditch for the f-i-l.
4' deep topsoil and about 6" of water on top of all of it (equal about 4.5' of mashed potato consistency MUD).
It was SO bad I had to turn the hoe around w/ the hoe pull myself past the next area then turn back around w/ the hoe and dig the next 20'.
500' took 15 hours because they were AFRAID of putting the D6C in there to pull me along.
I had a couple of riders until the first turn around then everybody stated clear of the bucking Deere.
I have to put in 2000 gal septic tanks.
They are cast in top 1/2 and bottom 1/2 ,about 15,000# each.
One job this summer is on a really steep slope, had 3/4" rain earlier in the day.
I told the precast people to send a super boom so they could stay by the house where it is flat.
They send a super short boom and the driver says NO problem I can get down that slope.
He got a run and headed down the hill back wards, everything was fine til he turned to go across the slope.
One of the fisrt times I saw a truck get STUCK going downhill.
All I had was the SSL so I tried to get him to set off 1/2 the tank and put the other one on sideways over the tandems since the front end was buried.
The driver ended up calling another super boom (longer reach), they thought the second truck w/ winch cound pull the other one back more but he could only shake the first truck.
After some pacing off the area, the first truck unloaded and set the tank back as far uphill as he could reach .
The second truck set up by the house on flat ground and grabbed each 1/2 and set them in.
I had to ask WHY didn't the other truck bring them in the first place.
Another hour of me pushing w/ SSL and the other truck's winch and he was out.
Don't u love it when a 1/2 hour job turns into an all-nighter.
Harv have u ever had a septic tank float?

ScottAR · Oct 5, 2003

With TSC's "may not match catalog" policy, one might end up with a "slappy" that's never seen a septic tank, much less put one in. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

OkeeDon · Oct 5, 2003

Two kids in their late twenties maybe who were staring at the clock wanting quitting time to get there sooner rather than later. They really didn't have time for an old phart that talked too much...Quittin' time came and went and the generation gap was bridged. Funny how making things talk can do so much more than make things.


Yep. Kids think all the old phartz wear yellow pants and drive Mercury Grand Marquis's slow in the left lane. 'Course, I kinda think that myself, not yet seeing myself as old, even though I'm older than most of those folks who think the car is going to flip over if they go around a corner at more than 3 MPH.

They're usually kinda surprised when they learn that I actually like their hydraulically-powered dancing suspensions or some such - or more properly, that I like the effort and ingenuity that they put into it, knowing how much good it's going to do for them some day to have that experience! Having done some pointless things in my own far distant youth, I try to encourage them no matter what.

Having run a Cat 416, I mentally went along with you on that short ride, and didn't like how it felt. /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

Slamfire · Oct 5, 2003

It started to rain, just as the backhoe man called for the tank at my place. And was slicker 'n you know when he got here. The hoe pulled the truck into position, and me 'n my little OC-3 pulled him back out. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Taylortractornut · Oct 5, 2003

Harv around here you can put in 2 well tiles on small housholds for a septic system and alot of hunting clubs use them. I got so ired of having to get in the hole by myself when installing them and not having a a good place to chain them so i built a doo dad that looks like a spreader bar and has an air brake pancake on the ends that run a moveable jaw. i set it over the halves and release that air to them and im attached. I can then set the sections in the hole from the hoe seat. the spreader bar part has then ends capped to act as a tank and it also has a small air compressor tank on it. I can handle 7 sections before refilling the tank and the usual jobs only needs 2 sections. As for old Pharts, most of my friends are in that category and 90 percent of my knowlege is from them lol.

theonlybull · Oct 5, 2003

don't ya just hate when ya leave the hoe in gear, spin around and pull her open to drop the stabilizers....... did it one day behind my house, dropped a wheel into the trench, the managed to hook the front bucket behind a tree....... kinda hard on the tree, and it made for one fun ride lol.....

course that's no worse the redoing our shop driveway, and back dragin the stone with our old JD crawler.. i dropped the blade(6") from the shop wall, pulled the float valve and started to back up..... had it in 3rd gear, and forgot to flip the reverser.... ya shoulda seen the look on my old man's face when i stoped 1/2" from the corner board. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

Taylortractornut · Oct 5, 2003

Ive done the same thing with an old trackloader loading gravel in the pit but had a hand clutch rod brake and ran over a new F600 Ford dump truck of the counties before i could kill it.
Iremeber when i was about 5 dad had come in from a month on the road with a dirt moving company he was a foreman and operator for and had to dig up a a trench down the 2 acres where the yard was. Whwhen the folks that originlly owned the lot had the place cleared they buried all the logs in the yards and they had undermined and cause a nice thing of suprize sink holes. Dad brought a 580 Case home and dug a hole the the entire reach of the machine, Meanwhile brother came in off the same job and dad put him to work on the hoe. He was about 19 and a good sized fella then. He reached back and idled the hoe up and stood up to turn the seat around when he walked back to sit down the strap of his overalls caught the shuttle and pulled it in reverse. he was head right for the hole standing up finally he dropped the out riggers and stopped the machine. I can still remeber that day well.
When i first started running a hoe dad brought one home and I was about 12 or so and we had a new satellite dish that was a pos. Dad told me to get a scoop of gravel and I went to the pile sgot gravel backed up then cut my wheels the opposite way and took off. Id forgotten about the extra part on the back lol wiped out the dish.
MY ford hoe has a bad centering spring in the left rear out rigger that causes the out rigger to deploy whilst trveling now so till i fix it Ill have to watch out working around cars and buildings lol.

dieselsmoke1 · Nov 9, 2003

We've gotten a little off topic, but what the heck, I'll add my story.

I was clearing a constuction lot with a hard working albeit very hardheaded helper and an old WAIN-ROY loader/hoe (why do I think no one here has heard of them?)

We piled the trees and brush, added a few gallons of diesel and lit it up.

The old girl had a clutch pack reversing transmision with tourqe converter and leaked a little ATF. No big deal, always kept some in the truck, except today I'm out. Now when the fluid got a little low, the forward pack would still engage, but the reversing pack wouldn't.

I gave my helper very specific instructions, "Stay here with the fire and watch it , and DO NOT use the loader to bunch the fire. It WILL NOT back up. I'll be right back with some tranny fluid."

When I got back, my inept helper had done exactly opposite of my instructions, the old girl was parked on top of hot coals, pinned up against the pile, tires smoking, paint burning, ATF and hydraulic fluid residue heating and dripping down into the fire. A roman candle waiting to happen.

I threw a chain around the backhoe bucket and drug it out of the fire with my 4wd pickup.

The old girl survived, and still had the scorch marks on her till she was retired. The helper was lucky I didn't throw him in the fire!

Taylortractornut · Nov 9, 2003

Dieselsmoke Im only 23 but ive seen a few Wain Roys. Was the tractor part a David Brown or other prime mover. I saw a leased Timber Jack do an atomic melt down on a brush pile like that. THe company I worked for when I was 21 rented 2 timber Jacks and trained 2 labores to run them bunching brush and draggin trees Id down with the TD15. We were on a TVA job and had to remove all the trees we downed to a central burn pile. I usually kept the 300 Komatsu he for downing but under the power lines i used a dozer and track loader. Theyd grapple them and drag them to the site then they got to burning them. I reminded the older laborer that if they went in too high that the grapple could get und the rear end and theyd hang there. Well he gave me a raking about how he was so much older and yadda yadda the next thing I look up and the skidder is on fire hung in the brush with the grpple under the rear. By the time I got there with the excavator I could only save the blade with rake and the grapple. I jus reached up and hooked the cab, I extinguished the fire with the great multi use Alabama red clay. I was very p o ed about it all, He told me notto worr it wasnt mine. I let him know in a hurry that there was no need in the machine with less than 150 hours get burnt.

dieselsmoke1 · Nov 9, 2003

( Was the tractor part a David Brown or other prime mover. )

She was a concocted mish mash of parts from all over. Had a 4 cyl Ford gas engine, the front wheels were from a Ford ton truck. Seems like the reversing tranny was an Eaton. When I broke the center out of a rear rim I found a replacement on a junked Minneapolis Moline combine. The hydraulic pump was front mounted crankshaft driven, don't remember the brand.

I got my degree in Creative Equipment Repair with this old gal /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif