D6N can not swim

[old-iron-habit]

A year ago a neighbor buried his 200 class Komatsu excavator. I can't find the post now to add to it, but he had the counterweight sunk so deep it would not build oil pressure. They took a few days to freeze and dig it out and life went on. A month or two ago in a spot less than 100 yards of where the excavator was stuck he took his newer D6N that he bought a couple months earlier swimming. He had ditched a trail and then plugged it to try to dry it up enough downstream for him to do some clearing. The DNR ordered him to drain the ditch. He took the Cat and decided to smooth the road before he drained the ditch. Low and behold he slipped into the ditch. Afraid he would turn over he turned it down into the ditch as he slid. Then panicked because he can't swim and never turned the engine off as it went under. When he came to his senses and found that he was OK he realized that the engine was no longer running. With the machine pointed downhill the water was up to within 2 inches of the top of the seat front. After using the excavator to pull the dam, the water lowered a couple feet. Then using the excavator, his D5, and his D65(?) as anchors they rented a heavy duty rotator wrecker with a 6 part line on the main winch to slowly extract it from the mud and water. The got it in the shop and drained all compartments. No water came from the engine and very little elsewhere. Cat looked at it and estimated $40,000.00 to $50,000.00 to be reasonable sure it would work to its expected hours. He decided not to go that route, filled all he compartments with new fluids and started it up. So far they have about 50 hours run time with no known issues. Is it possible that he air cleaner plugged with water killing it before it injested water? What do you guys think he can expect down the road? This fellow is always pushing the limits and getting bad stuck is a fairly often occurrence. He is retired with his son running his roofing business and knowing he can't take his money with him, he plays with expensive toys. None of this work is for hire. Just playing on his own property. I can hardly wait to see next years episode.

 

[Nige]

D1ckheads like him should have their toys taken away IMHO........before they kill someone. Unfortunately because he already has a son if he kills himself he wouldn't qualify for a Darwin Award, much though he would deserve one.

 

[Dickjr.]

I have never seen the point or reason to do a nice piece of machinery this way. Couple years ago I pushed out some sycamore trees which are a complete biotch. The following spring the owner had a guy with a size bigger machine push out some more. I was working next door in a cab machine and could hear him ramming the tree. The guy I was working for asked me what he was doing , my reply was to make my previous work look in efficient by knocking the tree over, and taking years of life off his tractor. If I owned that tractor we would of had words in a bad way.

 

[DMiller]

Can't fix stupid. He is the obvious definition of that.

 

[old-iron-habit]

I don't think this guy deliberately wrecks anything. He just makes poor decisions in his machine operating habits and the way he goes about things. He was very smart in his business and became very successful. He does play at the limits and it has bit him more than twice. A few years ago he bought a untralight airplane without his wifes knowledge and a month later ended up crashing it into a big round hay bale when it veered to one side on touchdown. The thought would never enter his head about needing a 50 ft wide landing strip if the plane only has a 18 ft wingspan. He laid in the field for hours with the plane upside down on top of him dripping gas on him. A neighbor found him when curious what the heck was out their. He spent a number of weeks in the hospital on that one. He says the hospital needed a guard on him to keep his wife from killing him. In this case he walked the Cat over there from his shop and decided to do the road before starting the excavator and draining the ditch. He figured as long as he was in the Cat he may as well finish with it before shutting it off. He never gave a thought to sliding in. On the other hand if some one is in a bad way in the area he is among the first to help out.

 

[Welder Dave]

Sounds like he just needs to step away from operating anything or he's going to end up seriously injuring or killing himself. Some people just aren't fit to operate equipment. What he did in his business is irrelevant. He had to be too close to the edge to slide in. Money don't buy brains or common sense but can buy you a casket.

 

[DoyleX]

I know a guy that rode a Euc truck down to the depths of around 100' under water after the frozen bank gave out underneath him. Got it recovered a few days later, heated up and dried out, fluids changed. All of the components went south throughout the following years.

Last year up near OIH I know of a fellow who sunk his new deere crawler way over the engine/transmission during a -30 night in the dark wearing nothing but jeans and a sweatshirt. Had to run something like a mile to the pickup. Should have seen the sweatshirt that was cut off with a utility knife froze stiff. Insurance Co. totaled the unit.

 

[RZucker]

I knew one of these guys... Because he could afford to buy it he figured that made him a qualified operator. I fixed a few stupid's for him. Then when he would do the same stuff over and over and blame me for his repeated failures... we parted ways. Then he found another guy to do his work, 'til that guy went to jail and got deported. Anyways Mr. super operator had "the other guy" install a "NEW" radiator core in his D-8K at the cost of $4K. When it started leaking a month later he called me begging to fix it for him. Hah, that rad core had more solder and rotten tubes than you could count. None of the side and bottom supports had been reinstalled so the core just broke off the top header. $4.5K later he had a real new core and all the proper core supports. It's funny though... he thought I was going to warrantee the other guys work? My Lawyer kinda straightened him out on how that works.

 

[digger242j]

A year ago a neighbor buried his 200 class Komatsu excavator. I can't find the post now to add to it, but he had the counterweight sunk so deep it would not build oil pressure. .

This one?

https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/showthread.php?47373-Stuck-yet&highlight=

 

[old-iron-habit]

This one?

https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/showthread.php?47373-Stuck-yet&highlight=

Thats the one. It had sunk a lot more before they got it out. I wish I could have got the photos in my hand but his friend would not send them to me.

He typically gets his tracked skid steer and his articulate 4 wheel drive JD tractor stuck a few times a year. He has the means to pull them out easily. He is determined to turn a swamp into farmable country. Why I don't know. Can't complain though, while he quit hunting years ago he has supplied the local deer herd with some great habitat while trying to clear this ground.

 

[Tarhe Driver]

Turning "swamp into farmable country?" If he's In the U.S., he'd darn sure need to know that he's not impacting regulatory wetlands, for if he is without the extremely-hard-to-obtain permit, he could be headed to federal prison, courtesy of the U.S. EPA..

 

[gwhammy]

I know a guy that's been in the same lake several times, also almost tore his house down with a big excavator trying to dig a basement beside it. Lucky he has a lot of money.

 

[old-iron-habit]

Turning "swamp into farmable country?" If he's In the U.S., he'd darn sure need to know that he's not impacting regulatory wetlands, for if he is without the extremely-hard-to-obtain permit, he could be headed to federal prison, courtesy of the U.S. EPA..

He got fined $40,000 a few years ago for making a 30 acre pond without a permit. Another fellow had drawing designed by a wetlands engineer to dig a 7 acre lake and the DNR wanted $33,000 for the permit to go 12 foot deep. By going 8 ft deep he was told he did not need a permit. A local agent had gave the D6N owner a notice to drain the ditch. Thats why he was there. A year ago he was gave a notice that he had to hold the water. They swamp police are so messed up here its not funny. For years we could not harm cattails. Now the DNR wants them gone because they don't let the water flow naturally or so they say. Saving wetlands are fine in some areas but we have more wetlands then not. Regulations seem to be catch all instead of using common sense. If folks got locked up here for working in a swamp the whole damn north half of the state would be locked up.

 

[Tarhe Driver]

Our house overlooks "innumerable acres," as cited in many deeds, of wetlands. Impact wetlands without a permit, and you will be in deep kimshi. Ask your lawyer.

 

[DMiller]

Same in MO as MN. See a patch of swampy soil next to a plowed field it all becomes wetlands until all dries up then the claim goes away. Have a pond that fills with mud and it becomes wetlands even as manmade. Soil conservators of our DNR see it differently each time they look. Not supposed to allow livestock into runoff streams but is blind eyed most of the time unless someone pisses them off then they are like flies to fresh manure.

 

[gwhammy]

Certain soils are considered wetlands even if they aren't. Saw some trees removed in a field and the guy had to replant a couple hundred to satisfy them. Best to stay clear out of sight of these overzealous gov. agents.

 

[Buckethead]

Sounds like he just needs to step away from operating anything or he's going to end up seriously injuring or killing himself. Some people just aren't fit to operate equipment. What he did in his business is irrelevant. He had to be too close to the edge to slide in. Money don't buy brains or common sense but can buy you a casket.

Yeah, don't you just love people who think there's nothing to running a machine, and that anyone could do it?

 

[old-iron-habit]

The owner of the D6N was in the coffee shop this morning. He told us that he got one citation on Monday and another yesterday. The first one from the Soils and Water Commission. It said the corrective action was to plug the drainage ditch and remove the sand from the bog. A different person from the same office was the one that made him drain it in the first place. There is no sand in the bog. The other came from the Ag Commission said he has to clean the growing matter from the ditch and maintain the drainage ditch going forward. Both offices are in the local courthouse. He is going there today. Stay tuned for the fireworks show. Goverment intervention at its finest.

 

[old-iron-habit]

I had coffee with the fellow that owns this D6 this morning. Its actually a D6M LGP, not a N as I stated previously. He had a bout with cancer and was out of commission for a while. I asked him what happened with his citations. He said he requested a meeting with all the parties that he was getting crap from. He said it resulted in a big constrained pi**ing match (which he enjoyed immensely) between the different departments, ending with them telling him to go home and they would send him the findings when they get it sorted out. He has never heard another peep from them to date.

Now for the current problem. He has put about 200 hours on the D6M since then, playing on his property. Serial number is 4JN2041. It is a 2001 D6M LGP. Recently it has had issues with it going forward. Reverse works fine. It had all compartment fluids and filters changed after its bath. No water was found in the transmission. The oil still looks like new. The problem started with forward not engaging occasionally. By hitting neutral and then back into forward it would shift and push like it always did with no slippage. He could hear what he described as a mild noise like something trying to engage when it did not work. As of a few days ago it stopped moving forward at all while reverse still works perfectly. A Cat field service rep came out to check it over. He said that he checked the solenoids and all are OK and the transmission needs a rebuild. The Cat dealer quoted the rebuild at a cost of $35,000. Does this make sense or is it possibly something else that is causing it not to engage?

 

[Junkyard]

Any pressures taken? I would want a lot more digging before I felt like that was a reliable diagnosis.