What is the dumbest thing you have done with your equipment ?

[seville009]

Skidsteer with a snowblower - when I'm done blowing snow, I lift the blower up high and tilt it all the way down and shake it to knock off excess snow before putting it in the garage. Was too close to the house, and when I was shaking the blower, the back end slid into the side of the garage and pushed in the wall/stud about three inches.

Same skidsteer - during the summer.....was trying to fix a wet spot under some trees in the field - moving dirt around under a large tree. Skidsteer died all of the sudden. I had driven straight into the stub if a tree limb (that I had cut years earlier) and it went into the top of my cab right into my overhead instrument panel. Was only doing the work because it was a nice day and I was bored. Cost me about $1,500....

 

[JasperFrank]

20 years of maintaining our assement road. Only to have all the original residents die or move out, and then be asked to sign up with, and contribute to, a road maintenenace HOA agreement.

 

[CobyRupert]

One cold morning, I left for a field intending to load a truck & gooseneck trailer full of round bale hay….

I left the truck engine on, put the steering in a straight line and put it in neutral. Turned on headlights, 4 ways & beacon. Ran back to tractor and plunged the bale spear into the back lower bale at the end of the trailer. I pushed the trailer and the truck up the hill in a straight line until the trucks front tires came to a rest on the public road. Put tractor E-brake on and ran back up to the truck...

Put truck back in neutral and ran back to tractor, which was holding me from rolling backwards.
Got back in tractor and pushed the entire truck onto the road blocking traffic from both directions. By the grace of God, there was a small development road directly across the street.

A woman came out of her house screaming at me about all the mud I left on “her” development road. I said “its a public street”, jumped in my truck and left.

This was good. Got to do what you got to do. Like they also say: “Get ‘er done!”

 

[Thomas]

Years ago I was mowing field with L2800 next pass by came upon dark cloud just above the ground,stop rear tire over yellow jacket hive hoping R4 would fill in the hole...WRONG got stung couple time before I was able shut the engine off and scoot,day later and spray can bee killer mowing continue.

 

[sixdogs]

I used to take the belly mower deck off my B7800 by putting a chain on the front weight bracket to lift the front of the tractor off the ground with a 100 HP loader tractor. Then I easily slid the mower out underneath.

It worked until one day I just barely clipped the edge of the hood with my loader bucket by maybe 0.10". Over $600 worth of parts 18 years ago and I just went ahead and ordered everything the same day in order to wash off my stupid move.

 

[Oz_Kioti]

Not long after getting my first tractor with a FEL (47hp LG/LS) my brother and I were cleaning out the rocks & boulders from a section of creek at the bottom of our property, so it would be deep enough to form a good reservoir to pump from.

I had the tractor right in the creek, facing upstream, and managed to get the bucket under a large boulder. It stayed in the bucket when I crowded it - good - so I raised the FEL in order to reverse out and up onto the bank. As the back wheels went up the bank, I had to raise the FEL even more to clear another large boulder on the edge of the creek bank.

Just at that point, the right rear wheel went down in a small hollow in the ground. My brother's expression as he saw a looming tractor roll-over coming his way, said it all. Just as the whole tractor lurched sideways with the left rear up off the ground, I grabbed the FEL joystick, pushed it forward, the bucket and boulder hit the ground with a thud, and the tractor settled back onto four wheels!

I learned a lot that day, and thankfully it didn't cost me.

 

[mo1]

Dumbest thing I ever did was planting a few passes with the wrong row spacing when using a new piece of equipment. I saw the furrows I had just made looked too close to the tractor's tire tracks from that pass, the middle ones were just barely inside of the tracks when they should have been spaced evenly. Stopped and looked and sure enough, the spacing was wrong. Second dumbest thing was to drive off after thinking I put the fuel cap back on, but forgot to actually do so.

 

[marhar]

The Second dumbest thing I have done: Again working with my father. We were pulling logs out of the woods to have them milled. I chained up to a large popular tree, put the tractor in low 1 and slowly pulled the log. The log hung on the base of another tree and the front end of the tractor came off the wheels. Low 1 does not seem that fast when pulling but when the tractor stopped pulling and started raising off the ground low 1 is fast. I pressed the clutch as fast as I could, the front in came down; I though I was going to have to take a break and clean up.....it was close.

 

[jaxs]

Seeing the "2 men and a truck"ads,Jeb and Hoot decided they could do that. First job was disposing of old toilets,pipe busted tile and other debris from a second story remodel. After a couple trips down stairs with armloads of trash Jeb came up with the idea to lower stuff in a barrel using a rope and pulley system. They sat the filled barrel at edge of balcony,rigged the rope and pulley on a 4x4 extending out passed balcony. Jeb ran down,tied loose end of rope off to a tree then rushed back upstairs where Hoot would stand on 4x4 while Joe slide barrel over the edge. Great,Hoot's 300+ weight held 4x4 in place while Jeb returned to ground level,untied rope from tree in preparation for lowering barrel to the ground. The barrel being much heavier than Jeb hoisted him up as the barrel fell toward ground. As Jeb and barrel collided as they met,Jeb suffered a mangled ear but Jeb hung on to that rope. At the same moment Jeb reached the 4x4 and sprung his wrist, the bottom fell out of barrel and dumped contents on impact with ground then being lighter than Jeb headed back up as Jeb plunged back down. Jeb only suffered scratches as he collided with barrel this time. When Jeb hit the ground he let go of rope sending barrel on it's way down again. What was left of barrel didn't injure Jeb but when Hoot stepped off 4x4 to look over edge to see what was going on,the 4x4 put a knot on Jeb's head. After studying the situation Hoot suggested Jeb pull the truck beneath balcony and let him toss the remainder down into the bed.

 

[5030]

Here's a good one for you. Put my wife in ER when I swung the boom around on the Mini Ex and knocked her silly with it. Never saw her but believe me I got reamed big time and almost was relegated to sleeping in the barn for a while. No lasting injury other than some nice bruises and a bad headache. Thought I killed her at first, just knocked her out.