EXCITING roller operating
Hi, Dozerdewees.
Firstly, welcome to the forum. I normally agree with your comments about rollers. However, here is the story of one rather interesting roller ride.
On one job that I was on, I was operating a self-propelled vibrating smooth-drum roller and filling in wherever else I was needed. This particular machine had what is known as a hydrostatic drive – that is drive was achieved through hydraulic pumps driving hydrostatic motors that supply drive to the propulsion wheels or tracks. One lever controls both speed and direction and is also the parking control. When the lever is in neutral, the drive motors are locked hydraulically.
With such systems, travel speed is infinitely variable within the range of the hydraulic pumps and motors. In earlier machines and systems, this range was somewhat limited, so this machine had a 4-speed, manual shift mechanical gear range box between the drive motor and the rear wheels. This range box was a little worn and had a habit of occasionally jumping out of gear, especially when lightly loaded.
One evening, I was doing my last run of the day up a hill and back down again before making my way to the re-fuelling tanks to re-fuel and park up for the night. Just before I got to the top of the hill, a grader came over the top and headed down toward the fuel tanks. I got to the top of the hill seconds later and moved the control lever from forward to reverse to begin the trip back down. At this point, the range box neutralised itself and the machine started rolling backwards, leaving me with no connection between the drive motor and the rear drive wheels, NO chance of getting it back into gear - - - and NO brakes. All I could do was to try to steer the machine as best I could as it raced back down the hill - - backwards.
This machine had its engine at the rear, behind the driver’s seat and above the rear wheels. This configuration made it actually steer better backwards than forwards, a fact that made it fairly easy to steer the roller in the above situation. It didn’t take long at all to realise that there was really no need to worry as the roadway was fairly wide at this point and I could easily keep it in a more or less straight line to follow the roadway and there was another hill to slow it down so that I could regain control of it.
On the way down, I overtook the grader that had passed me earlier on its way to the fuel tanks. The grader operator was an owner/operator. He had a look on his face that was worth bottling as I went past him, backwards and waving happily to him on the way past. I beat him back to the fuel tanks which were on a levelled area part-way up the next hill.
When he got back to the fuel tanks, he wanted to know what had happened that I had overtaken him in such a fashion. He was still shaking his head after I had explained it all to him.
So I guess you could say that even operating rollers can have its moments.
ointhead
