Wow! It really is a good thing you were able to climb out of there. I always wanted to add a roll bar to my old tractor, but never got around to it. If I had seen your pictures a few years ago, I think I would have dug up the money and made it happen.
Just looked at your pics, good grief!
If you start pig-jumping, clutch in straight away. Throttle back, pick a lower gear and gently start off again. If the front end drifts, gently use the required brake to correct it. If controlling the front is a regular occurrence, you need more front weight.
You can use your rear linkage to give you more traction by slightly lifting the implement off the ground (even 10mm is enough). But if your going up a too steep hill already, this can really be bad news if the front is too light. The action is: wheel slip, you lift implement, more weight on rear tyres, more traction so weight is transfered from the front, front lifts, implement touches the ground which reduces weight on rear axle reducing tyre grip allowing the wheels to spin again, the front crashes down, the implement lifts and the cycle starts again. This action can happen on level ground if your pulling something. Flip-overs can happen very quickly, they’re as fast as the axle is turning. So you never lift the implement more than just off the ground. If you have it too high, it can result in flipping right over.
I’ve got a safety manual for tractors somewhere put out by our insurance outfit. From memory, pig-jumping can be prevented by choosing the right speed, altering ballast, not overloading the tractor, and altering driving tyre pressure (mainly lower cos most people over-inflate tractor tyres, but don’t go under the required minimum for the load/speed (my fronts are at 11 psi for a 2900kg load, rears 9 psi for a 4000kg load at 40km/h speed (radials, 24" and 38" rims))). Look at my profile pic.
Look here and hunt around.
The boss barrel-rolled his tractor. The fert spreader loaded with 5 tonnes slipped off the edge of a cutting and rolled. The drawbar torqued up until unwound by spinning the tractor on it’s long axis. Everything landed on their wheels and kept going. Except for the boss as Mr Newton and his hangers-on came calling. Boss departed the cab via the side glass (that’s how violent the unwinding was, basically he stayed still while the tractor went thru him) and 10 years later is still getting glass dug out of his knee.
Sorry this ended up a bit more involved than I thought, but there are many things needed to expain to cover this sort of situation. And I’ve probably missed a bit. Don’t be afraid to get back on. A good understanding of the physics can help. I need to find my book as I need to go over the front pivot, center of gravity change and roll-over link again.
Aren’t you womenfolk supposed to stay in the kitchen and make pies?
Then again - with your current spate of luck, you would have picked poison berries for the pie, added eggs with salmonella and then blown up the oven with a safety match, catching fire to the kitchen and being rescued by a medic who had swine flu.
Perhaps now would be a good time to curl up in bed and pull the blanket over your head for a few days.
Glad all is well, but - uh - don’t think I want to come visit you until the evil winds cease blowing over your house.
EGODS!
As a tractor owner without a roll bar ( our tractor is officially an antique. It was made in 81, I think.) I have a pretty good idea of how close you came to having your own Doper Memorial Thread.
This is the charm of having an accident. No matter what you’ve gone through, there are scores of people who have done the same thing or know a friend of a friend who DIED doing the same thing. And they have to tell you this information in case you didn’t realize how lucky you are!
:eek:
OK. I gots to know…how in the heck did he get his scrotum ripped off? WHAT EXACTLY WAS HE DOING? and, because this is very important, WAS BEER A FACTOR?
DETAILS! We DEMAND details!
The power takeoff is a shaft that goes out the back of the tractor and connects to the equipment you want to operate. The shaft turns at high speed powered by the tractor engine. They were sold for years without a safety shield around the shaft. It’s not hard to eventually come in contact with the unshielded rotating shaft. Here’s a link with a sad warning story at the beginning. I won’t fill in other details on the accident as you should be able to figure it out now. He wasn’t high or drunk.
StGermain, I don’t know if you’re the luckiest or unluckiest person on the face of the earth. Glad you’re still with us!
How did it feel to be under the tractor? What was going through your head?
I think very lucky as she has no major injuries.
Thank God you’re OK, St Germain. Funny, I nearly rolled my lawn tractor yesterday mowing the grass. I live on a very steep hill, over half an acre, so push mowing is out of the question, and I tried to go across a stretch that I normally just follow the hill up and down, and I nearly lost it.
I’m glad you’re OK and damn, those pics! You really could have been killed!
And as for the propane thing…yeesh. Good thing you aren’t a smoker, eh?
Years ago, at the State Fair, I happened to catch a safety demo at the Machinery Field. They had a tractor rigged with remote controls to show us all the ways to quickly end up under an overturned tractor. They showed two ways that pulling a stump with a tractor and a chain could kill you. If the chain breaks, it can whip forward right through the place where the driver sits. If it isn’t fastened low enough on the tractor, the tractor’s own torque can flip it over backward.
I think they sold a lot of roll bars that day.
Don’t get the impression I know about tractors. I’m a city feller.
Wow. I didn’t realize 1981 counted as antique already. Just sold my 1967 John Deere 4020 when I sold the ranch last year. It still worked like a champ–except that stupid 24-volt electrical system. I hated that!!!
I’m looking at buying a rollover protection bar for the tractor. It’ll be about $600, which is, as my sister notes, cheaper than a funeral.
StG
I don’t mind driving modern tractors with ROPS (RollOver Protection System), but I hate like hell driving something like this baby in road gear while pulling anything behind. There is nothing to grab on to in case of emergency - the best you can hope for is to land clear of the equipment.
Glad to hear you’ve survived the week so far, StGermain! I hope that next week is a little less exciting.
According to the Ford parts dealer, a couple of years ago our tractor was officially put on the Old list. It runs like a charm.
Glad you are okay or at least more or less okay.
I’ve got a friend in South Dakota who restores old tractors; he has some hair raising stories to tell. He’s been lucky so far.
I could see how someone could easily extricate themselves from underneath an overturned tractor provided, of course, they’re no larger than and at least as limber as a paper doll.
I shuddered after viewing those pics. You really are one extremely lucky lady.