Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Don't Let Others Operate Your Equipment

That is all.

Amen !

Okay. Back from taking a tractor to the shop.

They'll probably have it 6 weeks at least.

So... Yesterday I was shredding a wildlife plot field I'd planted, but 16.5" of rain in two weeks killed.

Client wanted me to replant using brown top millet. OK...

So I'm shredding the field with my newest tractor, and client walks out and asks if he can make a lap or two. Already had the shredder running at proper RPM's. Showed him how to work the clutch and brakes. Told him pointedly to just follow the contour I'd been cutting. Don't deviate or try and circle any trees, just follow the cut around like a race track.

Field is long and narrow.

So he gets in and takes off.. Everything fine. Until he gets to the other end of the long field. That is where he takes it on himself to start cutting rows out of the narrow end on the field, and was turning the tractor and shredder much too sharp. Like making a figure 8 at the end..So sharp I can hear the back tires rubbing on the shredder frame of the batwing. I'm jumping up and down, trying to wave him off from doing that to no avail... Then he calls on his cell phone. Tells me the shredder quit cutting. No shat. Bring it back to me.

Got back to me, and I walk around back of the tractor, and the main drive line is laying in the shredder frame with the tractor PTO shaft snapped off even with the housing. Probably buggered up the main drive line on shredder as well, CV joint and all.

Probably looking at a minimum of 6 weeks in the shop, and north of $2500 to fix.

I was nice. He felt bad. He's going to pay the repairs, but the down time is on me. He even offered to rent a tractor for me until this one is out of the shop. Told him nobody does that down here that I know of.

Thank God I have another tractor. Hopefully it won't mess up the rest of the season.

Not letting anyone on my tractors anymore. Well... maybe Randy Oldman03... He's about the only one I trust.

Had 600 hours on that tractor, and 1800 on my other one without tearing anything up, and let that guy on one for 5 minutes, and that's what happens.

Live and Learn.

Oh damn it anyway!


You know that is my number one fear of hiring help.


I'm afraid to turn someone loose in our equipment. Really like to find an older semi-retired guy who knows how to run chit without tearing it up.

That's about all I trust.

This guy who tore up my tractor was 72 years old, and retired engineer. He just doesn't follow directions, or have any common sense.

I bet he felt bad.


Oh well, that's what you get for trying to be nice.

Had a Construction, Excavating Company for years!
Very Successful!
Kept overhead and repairs to a Minimum!
Just did my maintenance regular, like, and, Never,
I mean NEVER, Loaned my sh@# out!

I'd rather come do it for you, and help you, than loan it out!
Heard, and know too many Horror stories!

Seen a lot of Dumb stuff out there!

Tough luck there. I realize a different situation, but I trust my hired man to operate any equipment that I own.

Sorry to hear that Barry. The downtime sucks just as much.

Learned from a very early age not to tear up farm equipment.
Dad’s training was severe. 😬

No bueno, Barry. Watch out for them engineers!

This!

Sorry for your headache rockinbbar. Hopefully the repair will be quick.

Bad judgement on your part huh?

Engineer enough said being in the excavation business business for over 30 years and born on the farm I currently run. The term engineer in common sense very seldom go together you will find one once in awhile and he usually has a farming background as a youngster

Comes to mind, one family friend talking about another, "I understand, if a machine has a weak spot, Miller can find it."

Not the best call I've made.

I have policy if I borrow some tool or piece of machinery, I take it back in better shape than when I got it.On the the other hand, I have found few people with that sense. Now,there are only two people I loan machinery to.Both are my long time hunting partners. They are also they only ones that ride my mule if necessary. Other than that, if people ask me, usually ask what they want done and if it isn't a big job I do it for them.

Engineer here, I was getting ready to be offended, but then you redeemed yourself with your last statement. Grew up on a dairy farm, then worked for close to 10 years through jr high, high school, and college on my buddies step dads farm. Mostly just the 60 year old man and 2 high school kids farming 3,000 acres and a 100 momma cows.

I was point blank told when I graduated from college that the only reason they hired me as an engineer was because of my farming background.

👍👍 we have never met but we know many of the same people in the Miller area Mount Vernon also I know several people that actually work at the same place you do if you're still employed at the same location David said few years ago.

I quit loaning my stuff out. I learned I'm never to busy to pull someone out.

The last two pictures and post is what I call f****** stupid I usually keep one or two people on the farm employed and 20 to 30 on the heavy equipment side . Pics on the last two
post I was instantly fire! !weather they be it a a 10 day or 30 year employe doing something that stupid.

It isn't just novices who screw up. In the short six years I worked as an excavator I saw my share of screw-ups, thankfully none of which were mine. None of the screw-ups on my job sites involved serious injury, but there was a fatality on a big job near where we were working. The other company was digging a sewer trunk line with a big Koehring 1066 excavator. The operator backed up right over the foreman. That was before back-up alarms. I had previously worked for that company but didn't know the people involved.

Barry, hate to hear about the screw-up. Something like that is bad anytime, but especially at this time of the year. Hope you get the rig back soon.

Lord what a mess
This topic could go for many pages
The border jumpers just shrug and start removing
the exploded hydraulic hoses letting oil run everywhere
The white guys say " I dun bin runnin' ' quipmunt like
this all muh life " then if you were to look at their
personal equipment the sides and deck of their
shredder is all bent up and the PTO shaft has a bow,
and their lawnmower looks like it fell off the trailer
at highway speed. Won't even start in about
backhoe buckets and cylinders

,

Reputation I earned over the years always return it in better shape. Uncle would call and ask if I needed to borrow something. Just went and fixed it for him when I didn't need to use it.

An engineer should never be trusted with anything of value, or anything made of metal, pencils ,paper and laptops limit the damage they can do to reasonable levels, and limited down time.

I also don't borrow other people's stuff. I can use my own stuff forever without issue. But as soon as I borrow something it'll break!

-Jake

Yep....

I can honestly tell you me and deflave are trustworthy and won’t mess up your equipment. We are semi professionals

I don’t loan anything of my mechanical things to anyone, been fuuucked a couple of times

20 days and that damn tractor is still in the shop!

Growing up, my father always had hired help.

I guess I'm used to others operating our machines.

Any farmboy knows all about turning too quick with equipment.
Either because he did it, or saw it.

In my case, both.

Still can't believe how easy it was to get the old WD-45 into the tongue
of the rake. Lucky, I stopped at the thumb-thump of the tire tread hitting.


People have been hurt bad when the brought the rake up over the tires
on the old tractors with no fenders.


Hmmm. Often wondered why so many are missing the fenders?
Maybe tight turns? And tire chains.

Will they make your payment for you?

Barry, do you know if they have the parts. Severe parts shortage around here. Had a 5 month old battery go bad. Took it back to NAPA to exchange it and they didn't have one exactly like it. I needed screw post and all they had were the solid one. Bought two adapters and took what I could get. Asked the parts man about shortages and he went to naming them off..... oil, filters, antifreeze, batteries, radiators, freon, tools, and I dont remember what else. I asked if it was the china flu causing the problem and he said he wasn't sure. Probably a combination of the china flu and embargoes.

Hope they got your needed parts and they get it together soon.

that ship that was stuck in the canal messed up a lot of shipping in the world. we are having prob. getting common steel like angel & flat bar

Dealt with a tractor battery shortage awhile back here as well.

Talked to Chris in Service today... You might remember him... the BIG guy.

Anyway, he's just slammed. Haying season, shredding season, no new tractors to replace broken ones, so he's having to repair more. Just busy as hell.

Glad I have my backup tractor, and it's going strong... (knock on wood).

Tain't one of those.

Just the downtime is my penance.

Hope you get it back soon.

Friend of mine killed this way 3 years ago,new rake. 47 years old...

Hey Jersey boy, I ran a 1066 in New York City for Cruz Construction, two big Detroit’s Air over hydraulic. Took four lowboys to move that piece. That was a long time ago :-)Do you remember what company had that incident? There weren’t many 1066s up in the Northeast.

I paid too much for my equipment to let someone else tear it up. Dad always taught me that if I needed to borrow something to buy it instead. Chances are I'll need it again.

We were in deer camp a couple years ago and I had just bought a new log splitter for my farm. One of the guys thought it would be ok to just help himself to my new splitter and told me he was going to use it. I said, "I want to get one thing straight and up front. I don't buy equipment to be used as community property". That shut it down right there and others in camp know where I stand.

Barry, it's been a couple weeks since the last report on the tractor and bush hog. Have you got it back? If not, has Chris said when you might get it?

If you haven't got it, hope they get it fixed soon.

Not yet, Randy.

You get your stuff straightened out with the equipment and tires?

Enough stuff will break on a farm when used properly. Misuse is a killer in time not in the field. I see it a lot here with the hired help they can get now. miles

Yeah, right now, knock on wood, every things up and running.

Truth!

Reply to Bambam:

The company I worked for in 1968 was Argee Construction out of Lincoln Park, NJ. That's the company I think had the accident. The accident happened in 1970, I think, In Park Ridge, NJ, Bergen County. The small company I worked for at the time was not Argee. We were doing the improvements on a development. My boss was a former estimator for Argee.

I remember Cruz. That was a big outfit. We were tiny.

Barry, it's been almost a couple of weeks.... got the rig back, yet?

Thanks, Randy.

No sir. No gottee.

I built a fire under the dealer about 2 weeks ago. Guess I need to pay them another visit.

In the meantime, I've been wearing my butt out in that big tractor/shredder. No end in sight. Thank God that rig has been running 100%.

Just got done with the Jacobs ranch. Did all the smaller places, but not the big one we did first last year. That was fine by me.

Hope things are good with you up there. Not much rain out of the latest storm. Dry.

BTW, my brother found a new F150 and is going to sell his old one. I think it's a 2019...

I know the feeling from the borrowers side of the fence.

Had done some work with the neighbors tractor and just driving out the driveway, the front wheel went anigoggling.

Checked it out and the wheel bearings had totally failed.

Pulled it to the side (shared driveway) using the brakes to steer and went for a Coleman.
Got it all apart and next day in town went to the bearing outfit and got bearings luckily a direct reference set with o0td having to pay the dealer only sourcing prices.

Get home break out the Coleman, bearing grease and a stool.
An hour later it was all fixed and ready to go.
LUCKILY it was something simple and chap.

Speaking of dealer premium . . .

Year ago I built a brass tumbler using 2 Fafnir pillow block bearings.

Later when I was in their plant I mentioned how pricey they seemed to be . . .

My escort laughed, and said I was lucky I bought them in Fafnir gray, they were over twice as much when purchased in John Deere Green,

I asked pappy one day when I was about twelve if he thought I was old enough to learn to run his old Oliver . He said " Boy , putting a kid on a tractor will only do two things . #1 get the kid hurt and #2 tear up a perfectly good tractor ." So , the answer was no . Never could understand his thinking since I was already driving his daddy's old T model truck . Having had kids of my own , I now know exactly what he was talking about .

As an update, I'm supposed to get the tractor in question when I started this thread, back on Wednesday.

Dammit. Be like getting a new tractor, they have had it so long...

Wow, that's 3 months! At least you're getting it back before winter.

Yeah. It just missed the bulk of my busy season, shredding for clients.

Good thing I had another tractor and shredder. I used it hard this summer. Thank God it held up, and was reliable.

A couple of years ago, I bought a used Cat 938 wheel loader. The thing was like brand new with only about 2500 hours on it. About 3 months after I bought it, one of my jack nuts ripped the fender off of it.

Wow Barry.

I had forgot this thread, found my post and thought it seemed
familiar.😉

That's a long time to wait on a piece of equipment!

I don’t borrow and I don’t loan.

Good to hear you're finally getting the rig back.

Good deal Barry ! Glad your finally gonna get it back.

What happened to you is why our farmers only ask me to help run equipement when they don't see another viable option. I've never broken anything, but I am slower, more cautious, than the guys who do it for a living, so they get frustrated when I run at about 85% of the speed that they are used to. My regular job during planting and harvest is to shuttle the tool truck and Thunder Creek fuel trailer, to do parts runs, or to tow the heads when they need to be removed from the combines when moving from farm to farm.

I won't run the combines or drive truck during harvest and I won't have anything to do with anhydrous ammonia or any other ag chemicals. But I don't add any direct costs to the operation and am always will to help out within the parameters of my comfort and ability.