Stepdecks and Dozers

Well the theory behind the law as it was told to me by an old hand was for safety. The laws were written back in the days before interstates and divided highways. Safety minded law makers surmised that meeting a blade coming at you was safer towards the rear so that you would glance off as opposed to it facing forward and pulling you into the load.

Don't know the truth behind that but it makes sense to me.

 

Wish my lesson had been that simple. When I was 16 got to learn by sliding our 951 cat off the side of our step. my wife might be right, it's quite possible I do have brain damage. Considering how many times my head has bounced off steel. But I'm pretty sure she is implying I was born this dumb.

 

I turned over an old Case 380 rubber tire backhoe while trying to load it up the back of a trailer. The front started to raise up and the brakes werent locked,.. so when I hit the brake my foot hit the right brake and it put the front over the side and then the back followed. I banged my head pretty good too. Young,.. we could take head hits and shrug it off back then.

Hurst

 

Ya, if I was to do that today, I don't think I'd be able to get myself out of bed for a month. Takes to long to heal now. I always heard youth is wasted on the young, the older I get the more I realize how right that statement is.

 

Oh wrecked equipment time. Well my father used to make me pack the rows in my 80 acre flood irrigation plot with the tractor after planting. So with our JD 4020 you could only pack 2 rows at a time and I was in a hurry and wanting to go to the lake to ski. I went and borrowed the neighbors which had a single front tire so I could pack 3 rows per pass.

Well there's a reason why everyone who ever owned one of those 3 wheelers wanted a wide front. I was flying down the row patting myself on the back for increasing my productivity 50% when the front tire caught a side of the row, spun the wheel out of my hand, threw me about 15' into the not so soft dirt as it flipped and rolled destroying the tractor.

Luckily I survived with some minor bruises and a really sore arse from a belt. My dad gave the neighbor our 4020 to replace his and I got downgraded to an 8N Ford for the next couple years till I was old enough to use the real tractors.

Fast forward about 16 years and I was trying to side load an HD41 Fiat-Allis dozer because that antique mechanical RGN with an even more antique jeep we had was a PITA to unhook. I had watched my dad do it a dozen times, he would lay two railroad ties under the side of the trailer to keep it from twisting too far and provide something for the dozer to crawl up on. Then once sideways on the trailer he would just spin it straight and put the blade down. In an attempt to save time yet again I tried it because it looked so easy. Well everything went textbook perfect till I fell off the right side of the trailer then I was ******. With the left tracks sitting tight against the right rail down on the ground and the right track up on the trailer over on the side where there was no ties the left rail was rocked up tight against the bottom of the dozer and I was stuck. Now if there had been no ties to keep the trailer twisted uncoupling the neck wouldn't have been quite such a problem but there was two ties, the dozer was sitting on them keeping them in place and the other side of the deck was twisted tight to the ground. I was able to get out from under the neck initially but once the king-pin popped free the neck rocked over so hard and fast it threw half the junk up in it out on the ground. There was no hooking back up to it, there was just too much angle on the neck.

So to make a long story short, I had to drive to town and get a wrecker to come out and remove the neck, back the dozer off the trailer, get the wrecker to lift the one side so I could get the ties out then load it the proper way. My time saving plan only cost me an entire day so I have given up on ANYTHING the "saves time"!!! But the good news, it twisted that old Aspen so bad we finally got a newer one (to me, it was actually older in age) with hydraulics. Dad still has that junk to this day including the powerhouse WT9000 Ford truck with the turbocharged 318 Detroit (they called it a 350) and 4X4 air shift tranny.

 

Somehow, without even knowing you or your dad, I can just see him shaking his head! LOL Just busting, as I will admit I have been on your side of the headshaking more than once.

But those "experiences" make you the person you are today, I just don't see a lot of young folk today that get those chances to screw up, otherwise known as First Hand Knowledge.

 

Ha ha. I put a lot of miles on the old Detroit's. Great motors for their day.
My dad never gave me grief when I broke things. He always said something like, ya learn by screwing up.

 

Yeah my dad was always pretty good about it, as long as we didn't get hurt he considered it lesson learned.

As for the old Detroit, we had several of them but only one was the 350, the rest were 318's. They did a decent job but took an entirely different mindset to drive one. Rev it till it wouldn't rev any further then grab the next gear as fast as possible. My dad say the best way to drive one was to slam your foot in the door each morning and drive it like your pissed off at it.

We had one old conventional KW with a 318 that really liked to run backwards. If you lugged it to the point of killing it then stomped the clutch at just the right time it would come back to life in the wrong direction. Then we had one in another Ford that came unspooled and ran away with itself. My brother pulled the emergency shutdown (drops a door over the blower to choke the air) but the cable was rusted and just pulled in two so we sat there watching as it ran wide open at what sounded like 5k rpm till it grenaded parts out through the sides of the block.

 

Dude, are we related? My dad said the exact same thing. Slam your foot in the door, it will run better.
I remember the first time I accidentally got one of those Detroit's going back wards. I just knew someone had put something very bad in my lunch.

I never blew a Detroit apart, but we had a case do the same thing. Nothing like spending a week rebuilding the engine in your loader and having it commit suicide the first time it's started.