What is the biggest mess you made with machinery?

Michael Soldan

Well-known Member
I was using my bush hog to mow around the yard and barn at the farm. I had areas I cut with my riding mower but used the bush hog in the long grass and rougher going. Well , I backed up to the fence and dropped the cutter and all of a sudden the tractor started to strain , I shut off the PTO and lifted and pulled into the yard. Apparently I had left a roll of web fence beside the fence and I got into it. You never saw such a mess in your life ,wire around the stump jumper , around the shaft,around the blades. I thought I could clean it up with a wire cutter and after a few minutes realized it would take a year that way. I got my grinder with a cutting blade and after two hours or better I had the bush hog cleared and a big pile of scrap wire. From that day on I always walked the path I would take to ensure there were no big rocks, wire stumps or blocks of wood.
 
I blocked the mower up and used a torch! Mine was about 50 feet of 1/8 cable.

Cut a 16 foot cultimulcher down to 12 foot.
 
I was bush-hogging a field for a customer, never been on it before, hadn't been mown in years.

Backing into a corner, dropped the mower right on top of an innerspring mattress.

I was a while getting that unwrapped...
 
After the tornado in spring of 2011 a neighbor sent his crew of hispanics to walk over about 20 acres of grassland for me. Picked up a huge trailer load of scrap wood, tin, ect. that was from a chicken farm west of me. After they left i went over it on my 4 wheeler and found a few small items. When i went to mow it thought all was good. Unfortunately we had missed the ends of the neighbors fence. 3 strand high tensile wire. Caught it with outside wing on bat wing mower. All i see is a row of fence post coming at me. Shut pto off and happen to have wire cutters with me. Cut wire at fence line and drug the tangled mess to shop. Luckily it had caught on stump jumper. About 1 hour later using torch and bolt cutters i was free.
 
Thats why I like to run the 730 Case with dozer blade down when mowing unknown areas. Logs or rocks can be pushed aside by the blade so the mower does not have to hit them. Works most of the time. I've been lucky and never hit any wire yet.
 
Few years ago on a cold November night combining corn with a 6620 the unloading auger housing broke when my uncle started unloading a full grain tank. Corn started pouring out the housing. I held the corn in with duct tape until we could drive it home. Got it home and laid a tarp out and proceeded to let 150 bushels of corn run out until it was empty. Patched up the housing to finish the season and used the loader to pick up the spilled grain.

Another on that has happened a couple of times is while unloading ear corn if 1 ear ever gets underneath the elevator chain, the chain begins to run on top of the corn and if you're not watching you'll have one hell of a mess in a short time. Picking up ear corn ain't fun

This post was edited by 620 John on 03/20/2023 at 08:05 am.
 
I was driving a Ditch Witch trencher across a vacant lot when a piece of rebar bounced up into the U joint and wrapped around the drive shaft in a confined area. Boy was that fun
 
Back in my teenage ears, I was plowing our garden one spring with the IH 300 and found the lid of the septic tank with the front wheel. It was fairly light steel plate and rusted enough it went through, which of course brought the plowing operation to an immediate halt. We ended up bring up the manure spreader, dipping out as much as we could, then setting up blocking and a jack in the tank (guess who got THAT job?), jacking the wheel back up to level and putting beams at ground level spanning the tank to get it out.
 
We store ear corn in 20 ft shipping containers. We had one of our excavators at the farm so we stood one container on end and as we picked corn we would empty the corn into the bucket of the excavator and i would dump it in the container. worked real good till we decided to set it down when it was 3/4 full. The chain popped on the way down and about a 1/3 spilled out on the ground.
Ron
 
I was harvesting wheat with our Gleaner A2 Middle of the day hot and dry the belt came off of the straw spreader. the straw hung on one of the spreader arms when I heard the machine grunt and one of the clutches start jumping it was stopped up from one end to the other. All by myself no shade and about 98 degrees. must have taken two hours to dig it all out
Ron
 
Using the company Terex payloader to cut trees off the gravel pit. Managed to drop a tree on the loader. Sheered the air cleaner off and broke the big cast radiator cowl. Spent the weekend welding that cowl back together and repaired everything so the loader was in service Monday morning.
 
Neighbor trimming around his field across the road. Tree on the property line and he goes around. Gets on the other side and backs up to the tree and drops the JD brush hog. Such a calamity arose and then quiet. Pulled out of the ditch and went home, never to return. I went and looked...he dropped the brush hog onto a hidden rock pile. Bunch of green stuff probably still laying there...doomsday for the JD brush hog.
 
I chained something one time that was hydraulic. I forgot that I had put a chain on it, and activated the hydraulics in a self automatic thinkless mental mode. That really got things all bent to heck.

Drove a tricycle tractor front end right into a big badger hole that I already knew was there. Was mowing hay and the grass was kind of tall. Figured I'd see it, before I drove into it. I was wrong, and drove right into it nose first. Didn't break anything, but had one heck of a time getting the front end jacked up and out of there.

And I have been guilty of getting my hand on the wrong hydraulic lever and back up with a planter still in the ground. Anybody on here ever did that?? Get your hand on the lever for the markers, thinking your raising the planter itself, and back up without looking. Don't take long to realize your mistake, but it's already to late. Been there and done that a couple times. Don't remember really doing much damage, but the digging compacted dirt out of planter disks with a screw driver is real time consuming.

And one time I was taking a tree down that had been torn up by storm damage. Broke off about 8 foot up. But not broke all the way off. Done some sawing, but was concerned about what it'd do if I sawed it all the way off. Figured I just hook onto it with a chain, pull it with the tractor, and snap the rest of that little bit off. Well it didn't break off, and the draw bar on the tractor broke when I ranked on the chain. Should of hooked up different, or pulled at an angle, or done something different. I remember scratching my head, saying to myself, I bet this way would of worked. But then remembering, oh crap, you can't retry it now, because now your draw bar is broke. Not to many times you are broke down to the point of being dead in the water. But this time, I was dead in the water. Not much you can do with a tractor and broken draw bar.
 
My big mess was the summer of 1970 . My one buddy and i took on a contract mowing job for Teennaco (sp) to mow four lines right aways . Over some of the most nasty ground you ever want to put a tractor on . We had a 310 Case Dozer with three point and PTO and we rented a 430 Case wheel tractor and two 8 foot three point Hd brush hog We mowed hills so steep that a dirt bike could not climb . the one hill we mowed if you walked to the edge and put your toes out over it and them looked down thru your toes to see the bottom . First day we made one round with the dozer and wheel tractor and stopped , we had to make changes . On the dozer we welded two I H ft. weight brackets to the top of it and put 20 100 lb weights on it , on the 430 Case we had 12 ft. bolt on's on it Then we were somewhat ready to battle . We made up a tow cabled out of 7/16 cable with two slip hooks and i carried it on the left fender of the wheel tractor . One afternoon some how that cable started to sip down while i was going down a steep hill i had my left hand holding onto the fender when all of a sudden the fender wet flyen out of my hand and under the brush hog munching up the fender and wrapping the cable up . at the same time all this was going on my Buddy hits a rock ledge and shears the shaft stump jumper and all out of the one on the dozer.
 

Not mine but I had to fix it
My brother took down a poly wire electric fence we had for a pasture beside the poultry barns. He told his son to put the old poly wire in his pickup, but the boy layed it on the ground instead
A week later the wife was mowing around the buildings and claimed she didn t see the bundles of rolled up poly wire
Took me over an hour to cut that mess out

mvphoto103605.jpg
 
I was unloading a grain cart onto a 2 ton truck. The truck was parked on a bit of a hill - but nothing two steep. Brother parked it there and jumped in his car to go run around on a Saturday night and left me to finish unloading the grain cart and then I was to drive the truck home and unload it into drying bin (I was about 12-13 so I was stuck at home).

Pulled up to the truck with the 400 bushel cart and started unloading. Got towards the end of the load I crawled down into the grain cart to scoop the last little bit of the sides down as it was supposed to rain and I had been warned to get it good and clean or it would be my a**. Got the last little bit of grain out of the cart and crawled out only to find the truck was gone and the last little bit of grain had gone out onto the ground. It was dark and no lights were working on the tractor - in my 12 year old mind I thought Some SOB came and stole the truck while I was in the cart!


Took a minute and shut the tractor off and then started walking - found the truck about 150 yards away sitting in a waterway with the back tires in a ditch. Got in it and figure out my brother had parked the truck in 4th gear instead of 1st and the engine didn't hold it - even on the mildly sloping ground. Unhooked the grain cart and luckily there was a chain in the truck and I had to first dig out the ditch because it wasn't coming out by just pulling. Finally dragged out of the waterway fighting for every inch as I only had an 886 to pull a fully loaded 500 bushel truck out. Then I had to scoop the grain off the top of the truck as it had rolled back very slowly and a bushel or two milo were on top of the cab and the engine hood.

By the time I got the tarp rolled across the load it was midnight and starting to rain. Fought my way across the field then down the dirt road (now 100% mud) just in time to meet my dad coming out to the field looking for me. I got chewed out for wasting so much time and wasn't I smart enough to check the truck before unloading and then it just what he needed was another dumb kid breaking his machinery be beating it up playing in the mud and bouncing it through ditches... Then I got chewed out and beat up by my brother who (naturally) claimed he didn't park the truck in 4th gear and who was I to tell dad that he did.
 

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Back
Top