Tractor Rollover with Pics

[TnWV]

Hello All, A friend rolled his granpfathers tractor this week and I thought I would post a few pics.

The tractor is a New Holland 3930 4X4. Luckily he wasn't actually on it when it rolled. He parked it on a path through the pasture with a round bale on front and back, and set the parking brake to help his grandfather with a bale that was coming apart. When he returned he found the tractor at the bottom of a deep holler on its side. They have three 3930's and one New Holland/Ford 5030, so he is very familiar with the tractors, but to his fault he failed to lower the FEL to the ground and relied on the parking brake. He'll not do that again.

Now for the fun part. I got to extract this thing with my Zetor. There wasn't any flat land to use as a good pulling spot, but we managed to find a couple of points that were less of a grade. My friend is a C130 pilot at our National Gaurd branch and was able to borrow some pretty good size and lengthy chains. I had my brush hog on for ballast and tied off the the front of my tractor and backed up to pull it. We had to pull it over on its wheels from about 60 feet away. Then I was able to manuever a little closer to the front of the tractor and make my way back up the mountain with it.

It was a tough pull, and his grandfather was very suprised that we were able to get it out with another tractor given its location. I had to use diff lock and move out of my own ruts a couple times, but all in all it wasn't too bad. No one got hurt and the tractor wasn't damaged at all, so luckily this just ends up as a reminder that no matter how familiar you are with a tractor, stuff happens so be careful at all times. The tractor sat on its side for about 5-6 hours, and only lost maybe a quart or two of engine oil. We let it sit until the next evening and topped off the fluids. It started right up and everything seemed to be good to go.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take a lot of pictures as I was operating my tractor, but did snap a few.

 

[RoyJackson]

Interesting post...
I'd be leery about towing from the loader (I would have used the draw bar) and I'm glad you did no damage to your Zetor.

 

[Johndeere3720]

Glad everyone was OK. Sounds like it all worked out smoothly, Stay safe out there! :thumbsup:

 

[TnWV]

Roy- chain isn't hooked to the loader. The tractor has a big pin on the front connected to the frame. I figured it was made to pull or push. I agree I would not use the loader to pull. With the land being kinda steep I figured it would be better to have the heaviest part if the tractor up hill to pull. I could be wrong about that though. I could have turned around and pulled from the draw bar once back on the path but wasn't that far from the barn so I just kept going in reverse.

 

[RoyJackson]

Roy- chain isn't hooked to the loader. The tractor has a big pin on the front connected to the frame. I figured it was made to pull or push. I agree I would not use the loader to pull. With the land being kinda steep I figured it would be better to have the heaviest part if the tractor up hill to pull. I could be wrong about that though. I could have turned around and pulled from the draw bar once back on the path but wasn't that far from the barn so I just kept going in reverse.

OK...I had assumed you rigged to the loader since you were running in reverse.

 

[handirifle]

Cool post, lots of good info for a tractor newbie like me.

I was helping load some sand into a form for steps that a contractor was doing for me. The steps come down a steep (about a 35-40 deg angle) but short (about 24" rise) hill going into my back yard. I had to approach it at an angle and knowing what I read here about high CG, I was keeping the loader down low, but every time I raised it the tractor (MF1010) tried to roll. It does have a ROPS, but it took one of the workers holding it upright with the ROPS to allow me to dump the sand. The first time I lifted it, the tractor started to teeter, and I dropped the bucket, real quick, out of fear, but that stabilized it.

The whole scenario was a good lesson to me, especially about approach angles, and the importance of the balance weight either front or back. Kinda like after the first time you take a corner too fast on a wet road on a motorcycle :shocked:. It's one lesson you do not soon forget.

Oh, and glad it was mentioned about (not) tying onto the loader, as I might have done that otherwise. I love this site.

The odd thing about this post, to me, is I trust setting my drag box and loader down, as a break, more than my break. Now I see why.

 

[TnWV]

Handirifle- I agree about wet roads and motorcycles. Learned that lesson once very early in my motorcycle days. Didn't wreck but it was as close as I ever came and you can bet that if I got caught in the rain again I took my time.

 

[magicheater]

Here are some pics of a roll over I witnessed after the fact. I was visiting across the road and heard something out of the ordinary so investigated. I had to guess they were driving on uneven terrain with the loader in the up position. Inexperienced operators is my bet. Only damage I could see was a broken window on the cab. May have been more when inspecting after getting all four wheels back on the ground. As you can see in the first pic they were trying to upright the tractor with a hand winch at a bad angle. Don't know how it ultimately turned out but no one got hurt physically. It was a rental unit as I found out in conversation, tractor had less then 20 hrs. on it. I did not envy the foreman on the job I talked to!

 

[BarryinMN]

Here is the front of my 4341 before the loader was mounted

 

[TnWV]

My friend started out using a hand winch before I got home from work and had zero luck moving it. They were figuring on getting a local guy with a small dozer but could not get ahold of him.

My tractor is identical to Barry's minus cab. The pin on the front is what I used to pull. I believe it is nearly as low as the draw bar.

Barry, do you have any idea what this was intended for? I haven't found it in my owners or service manual yet.