be careful unloading when it is wet

well tuesday morning we loaded up the 312 to go clean out a pond. it had rained the night before, we haul it on a 20 ton tilt top hudson trailer. the machine went right up on the trailer no problem. but when we got to the site i was unloading on the hard sholder of the highway. well i started off the trailer and when it tilted the machine slid of the side of the trailer and turned up side down on me. i am ok, but it crushed the cab. i stayed in the cab but it smashed the cab pretty bad. i was able to climb out, the only thing that it really did to me was cut me up a little from all the broken glass, i guess i am pretty lucky. just wanted everyone to remeber this kind of thing allways happenes when you don'y expect it

I have gone off the side of a trailer with one of my bobcats when it was icy, and unloading at a slight side angle. only dammage was my pride.

Glade to hear you did not get hurt.

Dwan

Sorry about your machine. The important thing was no one was hurt bad. These little accidents have to potencial to turn out so different.

The worst I have seen was when a friend in his Bobcat working near a canal turned and ended up in the water. He got out fine, but I helped get the Bobcat out. I examined the site, and there was a cut off fence post in the grass. He made the turn, and the front right tire pushed against the post, and once on the slope, the Bobcat went over. we had a heck of a time getting it out of the 10 foot deep canal. I was worried that the track loader would be the next iron soaking in murky water.

You did the right thing staying in the cab and not jumping out.

I imagine your trailer has wood decking ?

It is surprising how slippery steel tracks can be on wet wood its just like steel on steel. It happens so fast there is nothing you can do but hope for the best.

Glad that you are ok and didn't get hurt. I was side-loading a 315 in the middle of winter. It was about 10 degrees out and I slipped off. Gotta be real careful in these situations.

I've seen two machines, 120 size, unloaded recently from the same type of trailer, with wood decking, under very dry dusty conditions, and they both took nasty slides, stopped o.k, one really pitched to the side as it went, but leveled out as the first track hit the ground. The other basically went straight. High pucker factor if you ask me.

Just glad to hear you're o.k.

I've been close a few times in our 490 when it's wet. Thats a terrible feeling, glad you made it out OK!

Float slips.

Hi, Folks.
First time I've seen this thread - some interesting stories - and I'd guess some 'toothmarks' on some seats. Pleased to hear that all concerned so far have got out relatively unscathed.

Both timber and un-barred steel are not too bad when dry and FLAT. Both can be dangerous when wet, sloping, or both. For tracked machines, I personally like a steel deck with about 3/4" diameter bars SOLIDLY welded to deck and ramps to help catch a sliding machine but even that doesn't do a lot of good with something like a track-mounted mobile crane, dragline or cable face shovel that has completely smooth plates. It doesn't help 3-pointer rolllers much either. Old rubber tyres for the cranes, etc., and flat conveyor belt rubber for the rollers are the best answers I've been able to come up with but I have also never had to load or unload in icy conditions.

Self-propelled sheepsfoot compactors, on steel decks particularly, are another trap for the unwary. It is preferable to have the float dead flat both ways when loading these as they can get away in the blink of an eye. Again, old rubber tyres sometimes help.

Do it safely.

For years now I have been screwing down rubber conveyor belting on my trailer decks. It works great in wet weather, but doesn't do squat when it is icy. It also does a great job of protecting the decking. On my old trailer, the decking looked like brand new when I replaced the rubber belt after about 3 years of daily use. I get the belt free from a local pit. There are different thickness of belt and I have found the 3/8 inch to be just fine without adding too much weight. It usually lasts about 3-4 years before it has to be replaced.

Glad to hear you're O.K., other than having to discard a good pair of Fruit 'O The Looms...:jawdrop

Everybody here has probably taken a toboggan ride or two off of a trailer over the years, including yours truly. Being off level usually gets the best of 'em every time.

2 winters ago we had an unusual amount of snow, and the banks were high from the town plowing it. A guy I was working with at that time, (big boy...6' 7", 300 lbs., and kind of a know-it-all,) borrowed another guy's little JD 350 skid shovel. He was loading it onto a little tag-a-long pulled behind his F-350 on the side of a dirt road to return it to it's rightful owner. It was severly leaning into the ditch side, but Big Boy again, knows more than most people (at 30 yrs. old,) I guess.

It was cold and slippery as he crawled up onto the trailer when it broke loose, slid off the ditch side, and rolled over with him still in the seat, and pushed him down into the snowbank so badly he couldn't move. 3 guys frantically dug him out with their hands, and the big dummy crawled out of the wreckage totally unharmed. Had the snow been frozen or hardened, he'd have been killed.

Still didn't change the Big Dummy's attitude much, he was just as cocky the next day as ever. He was the brunt of the joke for a few days afterwards, though. His boss renamed him the "Crash Test Dummy", and I think that was very appropriate for him.

I have this "old-school rule" that I abide by when it gets questionable loading/unloading machines. Dozers I usually back up onto the deck so I have a fighting chance to correct a problem with the blade, and have many times. I'd rather be headed down frontwards with a blade to stick somewhere rather than backwards.

Trackhoes, I use the bucket every time just about, it's a "sled" when things get hairy. If I'm tilted to the gutter, I have the bucket a foot or so off the ground, off to the low side of the land to help catch my slide. I've corrected a countless amount of close calls that way also.

Sometimes I take a 3/8" chain and put it across the ramps side to side, just for something to "grab" when the situation warrants it.The pads will catch the chain and it'll help a lot.

It's always a gamble when putting the steel to steel, so there's no guarantees, but it helps to have a plan in place, and a bucket/blade as well.
Hope that tidbit will help out the younger, newer crowd so no one gets hurt.:scool

keep it slow and steady. ive loaded/unloaded in some bad places and havent gone over yet.

I am glad you didn't got hurt. And i hope you get over the "mind" part of it. Many get so scared, that they have problems doing the loading later.

And i agree with most of you guy's on the tips.

I have found that the smart things is:
- Low rpm/idle on the machine.
- Low speed on tracks.(turtle)
- Clean trailer and tracks.
- Pull the air empty knob when parking.(breakes on all wheels goes on, not only on the ones with parking brake)
- Directions by a assistant.
- Use the bucket on the exc to stop, when you go over the edge. Also when loading on to the trailer. Just keep the bucket just above the dekking so the fall is short, and just move the stick to you in same speed as you move.
- Use trackguiders if they are there.(we got both on the edge down and on the flat dekking.)
- Use the bucket down on the ground/side if you unload in a slope sideways.
- Use the seat belt and the door closed.

I have slided off a couple of times, but not when i follow the the tips above.

But there is one thing a hate, and thats the tracked crusher.
Point of mass is high so its difficult to climb up, and when you go over the edge the crusher axelerates forward.
And you got nothing to stop the machinery, it tipps forward fast, if you are not correctly on the trailer, you got problems.
The track guides have saved me more than once.
I am very happy with the radiocontroll on those ones.

And our trailers is 1,1m, ap 3,75 feet high.(6 axled)
The white one pictured here is 1,4m, ap 4,75 feet high.

Whats that behind the trailer....:cool2

Slow and steady.

Hi, MKTEF.
I agree 100% with the exception that most hydrostatic drive machines need to be at full working revs to give their best controllability. However, all these types of machines have a separate speed control that is infinitely variable from stopped to full speed anyway so if an operator just happens to be going too fast with a hydrostatic drive machine, guess whose fault it is. But then the same applies to pretty much any machine - the owner of the butt in the seat is usually in charge of how fast the seat travels.

I have loaded and unloaded a fair few D8's and D9's on non-widening floats in days gone by and have yet to experience free-fall. (They call it free-fall 'cos nobody wants to pay for it.) I have seen an Allis Chalmers HD41 being loaded onto a widening float after it had slipped and ended up with one track over the side and one track very expensively wedged in the gap between the two halves of the float. The engine was bellied on the half of the float that the machine was straddling. The track that was wedged between the two halves had bent the rear widening beam AND the widening ram inside it and torn up several tyres - the float was a 4-rows-of-8 widening rig and the inside tyres got chewed up a trifle. The worst part of it was that I didn't have a camera. C'est la vie.

Here are some images that some people would rather not have had posted on the 'net. The 3rd photo, of the D6R logger, resulted in the death of the driver who was unloading it. I'm not sure whether it was being loaded without proper ramps and reared over backwards or if it was being unloaded without proper ramps and just kept on going over backwards when it went over the hump. The driver was trapped underneath and crushed. Sad, but it is an example of what can happen if due care is not taken.

Some folks hereabouts may recognise some of the pics posted by Deas above.

The following is a link discussing the posting of pictures which may show the more graphic details of equipment accidents:

https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=2420

Behind the trailer

Like it CB?
Here is some pictures of it on another tread:
https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=2887

Its our Armoured Engineer Vehicle.
Leo 1 chassis, 830Ps, 1000l excavator bucket, 3,6m wide doserblade, double capstan winches, welding equip, recovery equip, diving capasity ++.
Swiss knife type equipment in the engineer units. (supports the main battle tank)
47tonns, ap 94 000lbs.
Put the blade down, when in 2 gear, and watch dirt fly trough the air. It's got a mean puching power, when you use the speed.

MKTEF said:

Like it CB?
Here is some pictures of it on another tread:
https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=2887

Click to expand...

Ok, I thought it kinda looked familiar. ointhead

You got any more.....:drinkup

Fiat-Hitachi EX335 Slip!!

Well Spookily after reading this thread last week we had a little low loader slip off incident at the job I am currently working on.

A Fiat-Hitachi EX335 2002 model which by the looks of it has had a bit of a hard life was being delivered to site, it was a very wet machine with numerous hydraulic oil & fuel leaks and as such the low loader bed looked soaked, then as the driver tracked off the machine just slipped off!
Could of been a lot worse though, thats a lot of machine to go over!!

Our steel triple growser pads are trerrible for slippin' & slidin'. I made a heluva mess of the side of a poor beaver tail designed, Rainbow trailer. The machine started slidin' I dropped the head, stopped slide, lifted head- slide continued. Turned uphill, and started spinin' so drove off ripping the chain rail, channel iron and required some winching to rectify.:drinkup