Did something dumb today.

[beenthere]

My 15-yr old learning experience was backing up a hay wagon (4 wheels) hooked behind a hay baler (2 wheels) behind a hand-clutch John Deere G, after pulling down a fenced-in lane and finding there was no outlet to turn around.
Was custom baling hay for the farmer I worked for, and unfamiliar with the farm where the hay was prepped for baling. Got it done eventually.

[fluidpowerpro]

It's not necessarily the length of the trailer. It's the length of the hitch.

[DbltreeBelgians]

My turn AGAIN. 🤬
Don't drive your SxS on a county road at night during deer rut season. (That was the dumb part) This didn't turn out well for my machine but luckily I had my 6 point harness on and never felt a thing other than being upside down briefly. Rolled from left front to right rear 



 

Pretty much tore up all the plastic, radiator, front bumper and roll cage. Had dealership inspect. No frame damage. I'll do all the repairs so should save on costs.
To top that off the *DanG deer got away.

Brent

[WV Sawmiller]

Brent,

   Sorry the buck got away. :D Glad you are okay and no major damage to the SXS.

   Yes, the deer are not thinking right now. I had one (an 8 point) chase a doe in front of me on my 4 wheeler 3 years ago. They passed 20' in front of me. I stopped, took my 30-06 off, pulled the loaded mag out of my pocket and loaded my rifle. I looked up and the buck was about 40 yards away on top of the doe. I patiently waited till he finished then shot him. 175 lb buck.

[thecfarm]

Well I know what an inside of a paint marker looks like.  :
I wanted to put a red mark on the chain, so I know where I started to sharpen my chainsaw.
Pulled on the cap and the whole end came off. 
Red paint on my left hand and I am standing wondering what just happened.
Paint marker is at least 10 years old. 

[firefighter ontheside]

I'm sorry your sxs is messed up Brent, but happy you were not injured.

Today I responded to a shed fire with brush burning.  When I pulled up the narrow steep road I came to the pumpers parked on the road.  If I parked on the road I would have caused the next truck to have to use extra hose to give their water to the pumpers that were there first.  The ditch was pretty flat and I drove right in.  Getting out of the truck was a little tricky because my door was up against a steep bank.  I got out without incident, but when I went to close the door my feet went out from under me due to the steepness and the myriads of leaves.  I fell on my side and right arm, but got back up without anyone seeing me.  I skinned my forearm, but wasn't bad at all.  Later I needed to make a phone call to call the son of the landowner.  When I reached for my phone it wasn't there.  Immediately I figured it had come off my hip when I fell.  I told Stephanie, one of my drivers, and while I was digging around in the leaves she called me.  First I heard it ringing and then I felt it vibrating.  I was standing on it.  Luckily with it being in an otterbox and still in the clip it wasn't damaged.  All good.

[Southside]

Could have been worse.  Imagine if you only felt it and didn't hear it, then thought it was a rattler or something.....

[DbltreeBelgians]

Kinda off topic but kinda not. I'm not gonna do anything dumb today. At least not that I know of. I'm sitting in the sunshine enjoying a cup of Joe in my favorite coffee cup. Thank you @Jeff and Tammy.
Y'all stay safe now



 



 

Brent

[firefighter ontheside]

I love to drink coffee out of my cup.

[Old Greenhorn]

I save mine for special times. I'm afraid of breaking it. I break about one a year and hopefully it's one of the tradeshow giveaway mugs, but sometimes it's not.

[aigheadish]

Well, I made a mistake discussing trailers...

At the house, I finally got the barn floor done, it's big chunky gravel covered by smaller gravel, it's looser than I'd like but it works fine for the time, energy, and money I have. I've built some lumber racks and started moving all the junk from the yard into it's permanent home in the barn. This weekend it was time to clear the bigger stuff out of the garage and put it in the barn, namely my little gokart buggy thing and the motorcycle. 

I have a motorcycle trailer, so I loaded up the bike from the garage and parked it off to the side where I could trade out my winter tires for the "all seasons" for my car, which I also store on this trailer. This was the last thing I moved as it got dark last night. 

The trailer was hooked up to the hitch on the mower, and we make our way back to the barn. As I'm pulling into the barn I find the trailer is getting a bit hung up on the entrance, where the grade is a bit more substantial. The mower tires start digging. I turn on the diff-lock back up about a foot and ease into it, and I'm able to get the trailer in. Now, the trailer is only going to fit into a specific spot, so I drive in as much as I can, and start to back up. The mower tires start digging. I pull forward a bit to try again and with a bit of back and forth and turning this way and that I'm finding that the bottom of the trailer is mostly bottomed out and I can't get it to turn into its spot. Well, OK, next I attempt a u-turn to see if I can swing the trailer around and just leave it in the middle of the barn for the time being. Next thing I know I'm about to run the mower into the tractor. Next next thing I know I've got the trailer jack-knifed against the mower's back tire, the front of the mower is basically pressed up against the tractor and nothing is moving. I shut her down and gave up for the day. The loose gravel, at least with smaller mower tires, may be an issue. I see a fair amount of strapping things to the backhoe to get them moved to the proper spots, and I'm not sure what I'll do about the trailer if it's too low for the barn floor. 

[firefighter ontheside]

I would just call that learning what works and what doesn't.

I just hooked up my trailer again and confirmed that it is correctly seated on the ball.


 

[Oliver05262]

I would say the problem starts with too many choices and it's easy to "assume" you have the right ball in place. My experience sez that you'd ought to put a pintle hitch on that trailer and be a lot more secure. Just don't forget to push the latch down (don't ask me why I mention that).
That also ensures that fewer folks ask to borrow the trailer, too.

[doc henderson]

my car trailer is 7k rated and came with a 2-inch ball.  I just bumped to 2 5/16th when I replaced it, so just have one size on most.  I have a couple 5 x 8 trailer that still have a 2-inch.

[Tom K]

That also ensures that fewer folks ask to borrow the trailer, too.

That never seems to work out the way I want it to for a couple reasons.

All my friends are smart enough to realize I also have a receiver that works for whatever hitch setup the trailer has, and they just ask to borrow that too.

The last 2 times someone in my family moved got stuck helping just to pull the trailer because I "had the right hitch", well and it's my trailer.

I though going to mainly goosenecks would help, now the neighbor asks me to haul his cattle instead of borrowing my trailer.

Luckily, no one has asked to borrow any of the goosenecks yet. The list of people I would trust with any of my trailers isn't very long, the list I would trust with my truck & trailer is really short.

I'm glad my dump trailer is a gooseneck, no one asks to use it.

[Peter Drouin]

You can be a nice guy if you want. For me, I just say NO. 
I have worked hard for what I have.
For some, I will help and do the job with them with my stuff. 
If they borrow something and break it, They say sorry about that. Then the fix comes out of my pocket.
Ben there dun that, no more.
Go buy your own like I did. I don't borrow anything from anyone. Just my way. ;)

[firefighter ontheside]

While I know pintle hitches have their advantage, there's nothing I like about them.  Theyre rattly and noisy.  The error I made the other day had nothing to do with the size of the ball.  It was just me being dumb.  With that said, I did one time accidentally tow the 2 5/16 hitch with the 2" ball.  That went ok too luckily. We have a boat trailer and smaller trailer that have the 2" ball.

[DWyatt]

Go buy your own like I did. I don't borrow anything from anyone. Just my way.

This is how I do it. Any of my friend's that let me borrow things know that I have the cash and the character to replace it if something bad happens. I bring it back greased, full of fuel, and clean. 

[dougtrr2]

Pintle hitches have their place, but they are not fool proof.  I had an incident when I was in the Air Force.  A young airman was towing a large piece of equipment that came unhooked and tore up the back of the tow vehicle.  He swore that he hooked it up properly and had the safety cotter key in place.  We were very skeptical but did a thorough investigation.  After talking to and listening to the people that use the equipment everyday we believed and cleared the young airman.  We found that when a pintle hitch gets worn, it is possible to slam it shut with the safety cotter pin in place.  That bends the cotter pin, making it into a little crank.  If it happens to be turned the right way it slightly raised the latch.  Once that happens it is possible, with enough force for the hitch to open up.

Be careful out there.

Doug in SW IA

[Stephen1]

I had to replace my pintle hitch ring last spring as it was worn half way through. It wouldn't pass the safety we have to get every year. I like the pintle as they are much easier to hook up too. 

[Big_eddy]

I'll tell my trailer story. It was not today, or even this year, but I won't ever forget it. I have a compact tractor with backhoe. I have a 16' flatbed trailer that I use from time to time to transport it somewhere else. This particular day I was going to a friends early the next morning to dig a short trench for him, and I thought I would load the tractor on the trailer in the evening so I could get an early start. My trailer lives around in the back yard where the truck can't go, so I used the trailer mover on the tractor to bring it around front and dropped it on the lawn. Got in the truck to hook up, and realized I was almost out of gas. It is a ways to my friends in the opposite direction from the gas station, so better fill up tonight, otherwise I need to backtrack tomorrow. But it was starting to get dark, so I'll load the tractor on the trailer now, then run the truck over and fill it up. Easier to load in daylight, and they have lights at the pump. So, I stuck the backhoe on the tractor, pulled up so my front wheels were just touching the rear of the trailer, reached over the trailer with the bucket and used downpressure to lower the trailer rear to the ground and drove the front wheels on. Then lifted the bucket and the hoe up and proceeded to drive the rest of the way on. Then I moved forward towards the front to balance the weight over the axles.  Uh oh. Now I have all the tractor on the trailer, the back of the trailer is off the ground, the jack is not on the ground, I'm on my sloped front lawn and we're accelerating towards the pond!!! Panic set in and I froze. Backing up would have transferred weight back and the tail would have touched back down. Continuing forward would have moved weight to the front and the jack would have dug in, but I just sat there doing nothing as I sped across the lawn :0. Eventually I regained my senses and hit reverse hard, stopping the trailer with the hitch sticking out about two feet over the pond and the jack in the water. At which point I just set the brake, got off the tractor and went inside.  
I was late to my friends the next day. It was pretty tough getting the trailer back into position to hook up to the truck, what with the hitch 2' out over the pond. Needless to say, I no longer preload the trailer when it's not attached to the truck.  

[sawguy21]

A little chilly to be going swimming methinks :D

[firefighter ontheside]

Yikes.  Yeah, sometimes shortcuts don't end up as such.  Before I bought tractor I had never loaded something like that on a trailer.  Luckily for me I saw videos of guys picking up the back of their truck while loading a tractor on the trailer without jackstands under the rear of the trailer.  My tractor may not be heavy enough to pick up the back of my heavy truck, but I'm not going to find out.

[Crusarius]

it is always fun to watch someone jackknife a trailer from the seat of the equipment being loaded on the trailer. Once the rear wheels come off the ground, unless you are in 4wd park and parking brakes are ineffective. However if the truck had air brakes they might just work in the air?

[Peter Drouin]

I had an old Brick-layer friend who did that on a job site loading a 1044 LULL. When the truck came up, He jumped out and ran to the truck, Somehow got pinch between the truck and the trailer. Too bad. All he had to do was drive off and it would have stopped.