Has anyone else seen this happen?

I've seen stuff like this. Mostly cause the operator was swinging into a tree like is was a wrecking ball. Even saw the inside of a arm pealed up like a banana with the thumb hanging off to the side. This looks like too much side draft.

this operator has about 10 years of experience. Caterpillar did end up warrantying it. We have had this set of clams for 30 years and we first had them on a couple of old linkbelts (which are the same size as a 320 cat), then a Cat 320L, an old Cat 225LC, then the Komatsu PC200, the Cat 320BL, then these two Cat 320Cs. This is the first time this has ever happened to us and that we have taken down trees that big many times.

The operator has pushed the tree sideways with the slew until it started to lean over to the left and then grabbed the tree from the top of the trunk , as it fell on it's arc it has twisted the stick . I do tree work every day with mine and I can see it in my head what has happened .

I twisted the stick on our mini when it was new trying to move a tree that was leaned over a pile of rocks. When I lifted the end by the stump the top rolled off the rockpile and it twisted the bucket around. Not as bad as that though, but JD warrantied it.

WOW, warranty on a twisted dipper arm, they must love you.
Whatcha tell em, poor welds led to a twist in the arm??????????

Hendrik said:

WOW, warranty on a twisted dipper arm, they must love you.
Whatcha tell em, poor welds led to a twist in the arm??????????

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First off, we didn't tell them anything. They came out and looked at it and they were the ones that decided to take the stick and test the metal. They decided to warranty it. Not us. I would hope they love us because they get A LOT of business from us.

Being a good customer helps when it comes to getting warranty on something like that. If you were just a small time customer, you may not have had such good luck.

I have been on both ends of that, and it seems to always work better for the bigger guy.