Never loan out you’re equipment!

OkieKubota

OkieKubota

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Yikes
yep I come from a large family. Someone always wanting to use something. Used to loan things out. After all that’s the Christian thing to do right.
Not any more. I have to depend on my equipment for my business. If someones gonna break it, it’s gonna be me
 
Oh crap ! Unless I’m cross eyed, it’s hard for me to see how that got turned over on that slight of a slope. I regularly worked up to 2.5:1 slopes with a dozer and that looks almost flat. Maybe I’m looking at it wrong......
 
Hi guys...I should let you all know this was not my bulldozer but is a friend of mines that is the same model. This happened Friday... my friend has been doing excavation for the past 20 years and has this dozer, 2 backhoes, a huge excavator, and a couple small dump trucks. He is about 2 months behind on jobs right now and he used to employ a guy a few years ago to run the dozer while he did other things. The guy that used to be his employee was one of the back logged jobs and wanted his own land cleared. The X-employee gave him a deal, told him he would clear his own place if he would drop off the machine and would take out his own old hourly rate of $15 an hour from what my buddy normally got and would pay him the balance which would have been about $65 an hour and the guy would clear his own land and my buddy could do a backhoe job he had which he thought would be a win/win and 2 jobs would be done. I did one of his jobs with my equipment Thursday and on Friday had one of my own over near Muskogee to do so I wasn’t available.

About 4:30 pm the x-employee called him and said he had flipped the dozer. My buddy asked him if he was okay and the guy said he was just banged up a little so my buddy told him he would be there in 15 minutes and that he should be somewhere else when he got there. After he got there and got the story form the x-employees friend who lived next door on how it happened they hooked 2 cab tractors to it and pulled it back over. He can’t find any damage and he finally talked to the guy who was running it and he said it dies as soon as it rolled so didn’t keep running with oil away from the oil pump. Seems he was pushing a big leaning tree that was leaning downhill and he was pushing against the lean from the downhill side. He finally got it to break over but he was too far up on the tree and when it went he was hung on the root ball and it flipped him over. He sent me the picture yesterday because he was too aggravated to talk about it Friday night...told me the guy wanted to keep the dozer and finish the job but he told him that he would never sit in that dozer seat again! Said he is just gonna load it up and take it home, job unfinished...
 
So what’s your take on this. Since the guy had operated that machine before, is it something that just happened or is the guy a non operator I guess what I’m saying , was this guy ever a good operator
 
I glad nobody was hurt... and that it wasn't your machine Okie.

Buckley, I would guess that the owner trusted his ex-employee or else he wouldn't have left it with him. Hopefully it was just one of those random bad situations that makes it a good idea to have safety equipment no matter how good you are.

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Buckly said:
So what’s your take on this. Since the guy had operated that machine before, is it something that just happened or is the guy a non operator I guess what I’m saying , was this guy ever a good operator
Click to expand...
Poor judgment, pushing against the lean, stayed into it too long to make sure the tree didn’t come back and fall on the dozer. Just like with a chainsaw you try to read the tree to see where it wants to go and if there is no problem for it to go there such as a power line, house, fence, etc then put it where it wants to be. This tree should have been pushed from the upper side to get it to go the direction it was already leaning. For some reason this guy went against everything he had learned...perhaps he had gotten careless because he had operated this dozer 5 years and had operated 15 years total. When a tree with a large root ball starts going you should back off just like when a tree starts going with a chainsaw...that root ball is many times larger and heavier than the dozer and when it starts going and you are on a little slope or something it can come up out of the ground like a huge fulcrum and actually throw a bulldozer...my friend was mad because the operator used poor judgment...
 
My brother in law sent me this picture this morning. Ugh. All I know is the operator was extremely experienced, and the equipment was paid off as of March 30. Heavy equipment ain’t no joke.

IMG_0035.JPG


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cutman said:
My brother in law sent me this picture this morning. Ugh. All I know is the operator was extremely experienced, and the equipment was paid off as of March 30. Heavy equipment ain’t no joke.

View attachment 18558


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Click to expand...

We had a scraper burn like that once. I’m betting on a broken hydraulic line and the oil hitting the exhaust. Makes a wonderful fire that no fire extinguisher will put out, and it gets really hot really quick. When you’re on a job site in the middle of nowhere about all you can do is wring your hands or break out the weenies.
 
OkieKubota said:
Poor judgment, pushing against the lean, stayed into it too long to make sure the tree didn’t come back and fall on the dozer. Just like with a chainsaw you try to read the tree to see where it wants to go and if there is no problem for it to go there such as a power line, house, fence, etc then put it where it wants to be. This tree should have been pushed from the upper side to get it to go the direction it was already leaning. For some reason this guy went against everything he had learned...perhaps he had gotten careless because he had operated this dozer 5 years and had operated 15 years total. When a tree with a large root ball starts going you should back off just like when a tree starts going with a chainsaw...that root ball is many times larger and heavier than the dozer and when it starts going and you are on a little slope or something it can come up out of the ground like a huge fulcrum and actually throw a bulldozer...my friend was mad because the operator used poor judgment...
Click to expand...


Small dozer, big rootball, I can see that. :eek: I’ve had them lift up a D6 before and give me a little thrill, I’ve been temporarily hung up on them even:confused:, but never had one flip me. Just be thankful only feelings were hurt.
 
Working on farms when I was young I gained a lot of experience running equipment. I have cleared roads and opened up fields with a dozer. One thing I was taught early on was to trench in front and each side of a tree to reduce the root ball and push the tree away from the trench when pushing a tree over.
My biggest fear was always a 'dead fall' hanging among branches. You wanted to know where they were and work off the opposite side where they would fall away from you rather than on you. This was long enough ago where you didn't have cabs, ROPS or sweeps.
One other thing I learned was everything in the woods is a spring. Every twig, branch, limb and bush. There is always something waiting to spring back and trying to knock you out of the seat. You really need to pay attention.
Lynn
 
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