Oops, hate it when that happens

Cut the grass yesterday at a 2nd house I own by our rural property. Brush hogged the rear couple of acres and then switched to the finish mower for the front. Got done, switched back to the brush hog and parked the tractor. Walked up to the house for something and when I walked back, I noticed this.



I did run over a bunch of limbs on the ground while hogging but nothing sticking that far up. I think I would notice that. (And NO, I wasn't texting while driving :lol: ) Only thing I can think of is that when I was hogging near the edge of the woods where there's a lot of brush, a limb from a fallen tree was sticking out. I've had that happen before. (One time a long branch was sticking into the path and jammed and pinned my leg against the transmission when I caught it with the rear wheel. Thought I broke the leg, but managed to back out with only DEEP scrapes and abrasions. It DID get infected but antibiotics took care of that.)

Anyway, the limb above missed the radiator and only damage is cosmetic. Still hate to see that nice tractor with a busted nose.

From the spot of rust on the other side, it looks like you tried that before.

(quoted from post at 08:27:23 08/24/15) From the spot of rust on the other side, it looks like you tried that before.

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:lol: Actually, that happened the day I bought the tractor. I pulled it off the trailer and went to park it in front of my backhoe and misjudged the distance :roll: and bumped the loader bucket. Boy was I PO'ed at myself. The guy who restored the tractor did a nice job and first day I had it, I scratched it up.

It looks like it went up over the radiator tank. Funny how the letters went like they did. Looks like a 3600. You could make a brush guard that rises up from a standard front bumper that fastens to the front axle. Good excuse to pound out that one dent, the rest looks good, fix 'er up, make a brush guard if you are in these conditions often.

I've seen enough of what clearing or similar work can do, trees, downed limbs, branches, vines, widow makers, etc. Recently, the top of a tree we were working under closed off a trail made by a trespasser on another farm I help look after. The top of a willow tree snapped off randomly, hinged right over and stuck into the ground, precisely at the center of the trail! I have a few photos of it. Its mostly unpredictable, all of it. These are not common, but one had best be aware when in the woods, this would have killed had someone been under it.

A lot of people balk at having a loader on while doing field work, but for this kind of work, and I've done my share, a loader bucket is really nice to have. Just like when I bale hay, I leave the outside row for last, one time the pick up caught a piece of cut/split firewood, that somehow was inside the perimeter, it walked in off the pile some how !!!! LOL ! Lucky it was seen and the baler stopped. Always crap on the outside, so at least if you break something, just the outside row is left. If the perimeter is brush and trees, downed, leaners or what have you, cut the middle, then go around and push in the sides, or just leave it. I have one line that is loaded with widow makers, I will have to clear all of those before I go in there to mow. My old 850 with a wagner loader has cleared some of the worst of field perimeters here. I did pull the return hose off the reservoir once, and got a good size stick to hit the distributor cap, easy repairs both of them could be worse. I was doing this work after an ice storm from the previous winter, hundreds of acres of field perimeters, finally got a piece of staghorn sumac to poke into a small coolant hose on a JD 3150, never saw it.

I cleared a path down a slope near my house, a bit steep, but made easy access to the back of the place from the yard. Cut with a chainsaw, cleared by hand, all looks good. I head down with the D7 and half way through, some kind of vine winds up in the track or something and off the bank on my left comes a good size piece of dead elm, smacking me right in the side of the head, hard enough it would have dropped me to my knees, but I was sitting. Set the blade down and had to take a break, never saw that coming.

I've had limbs and sticks come through full brush cages too, hard to predict what can go wrong when in the brush.

That's never good. looks like you don't need to buy a new radiator if you sere still running it. That was sure a surprise to see that limb sticking out of your grill. lucky that wasn't your head. I did something like that
one time with a chain link corner brace in heavy weeds. I got over into the fence line. The pipe glanced off my chest, and went under my arm. Stan

Ouch!

My neighbor punched one through the windshield of his backhoe a week or two ago. He saw the log, and rolled the front wheel over it, but it twisted and up popped a limb right through the glass.

I think this site has your parts if you are going to fix it.