old-iron-habit
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2012
- Messages
- 4,233
- Location
- Moose Lake, MN
- Occupation
- Retired Cons't. Supt./Hospitals
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.