Now I know. Was adding material to the bank of the pond when I went a few inches too far over and it collapsed under me. That big ole opening on the back of my machine would have looked really great with a winch in it, today.......
Could have been much worse.... it's still on it's feet and above the waterline!
Very true lantraxco. Seeing as it doesn't have a winch, I borrowed a 65,000lb one from a local towing company.
Doesn't look too bad.... I would have just hooked a couple of chains to the track pads and anchored them to a tree.
No significant tree handy unfortunately. A few 6" caliper firs were about all that were available. Even the bigger fir in the picture is only about 8" caliper and unfortunately is at almost a 90 degree angle to the machine.
Yair . . . every body can come up with smartish ideas after the fact (big grin) . . . but there is a good chance that tractor would have responded well to the ten inch log/fence post wired across the tracks. Cheers.
IF one has something to tie to wrap a chain or cable around the bucket so curling the bucket will tighten the chain. been in similar places twice in the last 2 years. lack of money makes one think sometimes.
Like was stated before, at least its still shiny side down and dry... The material your adding looks very wet to be workable? What was the goal?
The goal was to add material. There is no time limit on finishing it, but I need to trench along that bank for conduit for a large solar array. I needed to add material to give my mini excavator a little better chance of staying upright The mini is so light that an extra 10ft of this stuff on the inside of the washed out bank would help prevent the bank sliding out from under it. The material was dug out of the pond last weekend, so it is still very wet. That wasn't why I crashed though, I was on solid ground, but too close to the edge and it gave way under me.
Yeah, hard to tell from the pic, I just figured there were more trees around since you mentioned a winch would have been great. Scrub is right about cross-tying posts about the tracks, I have done this on one of my 2U's and it works great when you don't have anything close to anchor to. Glad you got the machine unstuck and ready to move more dirt
Surprised no one mentioned the other benefit of having a winch on the back.....counterweight! Helps avoid that stuck situation in the first place. Andrew
Probably would have helped me with my earlier posted issue about backing out of the pond while cleaning it out too. Anyone got one for sale? LOL
I know the crawler loaders are supposed to be worse than a dozer, and my dozer sure likes to sink nose first! I can't imagine how fast a crawler loader would sink! I've been thinking of putting some weight on the back end. Steel drums of rocks maybe? Cheap, but I don't know if they'd hold up... Andrew
Yair . . . Andrew_D . I saw a very professional looking counterweight made for an excavator by building a nicely shaped tub from 1/8" sheet (rolled corners and all that) and then they filled it with concrete slurry made with illmenite which is very heavy sand blasting sand. It was mounted with bolts passing through inch and a half pipe that was welded in place to hold the sides from bulging. With a top welded on and a blast and paint it looked the real deal. Cheers.
Having a winch back there sure makes the machine better balanced! I've backed mine up some pretty steep stuff, it always climbed right up there... Thankfully I haven't needed it yet to pull myself out of a situation like yours, perhaps having one back there would have added enough weight for you to walk right outta there...
That would have been great, and certainly entered my mind. 2 problems in acheiving that though. 1. Who the heck is going to have a winch for sale for a 50+ year old machine, and 2. how the hell do you hook it up? Oh, and 3, what ungodly amount of shipping $$ would be required to move what is probably a 2000lb winch... I'm just sadistic enough to do it if I could find one at the right price, but I don't even know if it would fit, with the home made FOPS that has been welded onto my machine. Am I sick in that my next major project for the property is a pole barn big enough to get this 977 into, so that I can restore it? Oh hell, I felt the same way about my Drott 50, but ended up selling it. Hmmm, but if I'd had the building to work on it over winter, I might not have sold it..............d'oh! sick I tell ya! SICK!
I hear ya KMS, I have a old Allis loader a HD7G, keep looking at it and thinking it has to go but then work on it for days to get it functioning again and put it back to work for more $$, hell I even thought of restoring it as far as possible, have looked to buying a winch to fit it or a tool bar for a ripper as have seen them come up. I even considered buying paint to make it look better, did buy a dead spare tractor for parts which I am using up ever so quickly with a better looking FOPS set up that will probably migrate to the runner and more $$ to fix more stuff to make it even better. We are SICKO's but lovin' every minute of it aren't we?