In my line of work, forestry mulching, I'm often stranded in remote locations if/when major break downs occur. It's not as easy to get to the machine as working a large grade job or road job where you can normally drive a service truck to the machine for repair work. I was kicking myself in the butt for not doing a better job of keeping my access trail cleaner as a priority over making progress on the land reclamation for the customer. Live and learn - keep a good access built as a priority when the work location is remote. On this job, I am reclaiming portions of a golf course that was closed down years ago and allowed to grow wild. My common rail fuel injection system had been somewhat noisy for a while on the QSC 8.3. I had the injectors checked and all 6 were good. I've been nervous about the sounds coming from the FI system but the engine has still been running good. I've already lost nearly 1.5 months of workable time this fall due to bushing & pin repairs as well as main frame crack repairs, cutterhead bearings and some other miscellaneous aggravation repairs so I was pressed to get back to work. After I had finished all of those repairs, about 30 minutes into the next job, the engine stops dead in its tracks, literally. I'm nearly 1/4 mile from road access and I can't get my service truck any closer. There is nearly 120' of elevation drop to get to the location as well. THIS SUCKS! I'm winded just getting back to the truck, let alone humping it with a quantity of parts and tools. Fortunately, I already crossed over the wettest part of the swamp where my feet were sinking out of sight when walking through. The Cummins died about 1-2 foot higher so the ground was not super soft and no worry about sinking the machine over a period of time. That was the brighter side of the picture. I was only making rough in passes when the fuel injection system failed. The ground cover was extremely rough and dangerous to walk over without tripping over debris. Hand surgery, due to a fall on a creek bank years ago, has taught me to be super careful walking through areas like this. It's more dangerous than you might think. A loss of small parts in these conditions is also difficult, if not near impossible, to recover. I can't move the machine and I can't even tow it if I wanted to unless I could remove the track motors. That's not going to happen. Time to change out my main fuel injection pump and lift pump here in the field. I'm thankful that I finally purchased a buggy earlier in the year. Time to put the RZR to work. I could have been in a tighter location when the engine quit. I feel fortunate that I did not have to saw down a bunch of crap to access my engine bay doors or need to use my emergency exit to get out of the cab. Many things could have been worse. I can even drive the RZR over the small brush to get very close to the machine. Those extra skid plate covers are worth the money in situations like this to protect the drive line on the buggy. I'm glad I bought a used buggy so scratching it up does not hurt so much! Changing out the fuel lift pump and the main injection pump was pretty straight forward after reading Cummins' directions but did require some extra parts to be removed. NEVER work a job like this without a magnet to reclaim dropped parts and a magnetic parts pan was a big help keeping bolts and tools from rolling away. Like hydraulics, I take extra precautions to keep parts extremely clean when working on this stuff. It's much tougher in the field than in a shop setting. Just keeping dust from dropping off of the machine was near impossible so I gave the work area a good soak down with water and detergent from a pump up sprayer prior to repairs - that helped immensely. I still don't know, or care, if it was the lift pump or the main fuel injection pump that went out. The lines were clean and no evidence of metal so with a change out, I was good to go. The lift pump was less than $100 and the main pump was $1,200+. It was cheaper for me to replace everything and get on with it rather than lose time over testing and questioning exactly what the problem was. I doubt that I could have had the main pump rebuilt much cheaper than that anyways. The labor to get to one part was nearly the same as to do both and the repair solved the problem. I'm now back up and running. Running allows me to pay those parts bills and get on with it until the next "Oh Schiff!" moment happens.
View of my machine from the tee box. It's the red blob under the arrow. Once I got back to running, I cleaned up the mess. Another tee box before and after I really wish that I had time to have taken before and after shots with the drone. Maybe on the next section. My customer will rework this tighter with his flail mower and have it back in shape in a short order of time.
I feel for you. I blew a track motor on a Fecon FTX140 several years ago. It was about a mile from the entrance road , down in an overgrown creek. I got the machine out of the swampy creek before it ran out of hydraulic fluid.. The ranch foreman brought in an all wheel drive JD tractor and tried to tow me closer to the road. That did not work. Dumped about 10 gallons of hydraulic fluid in it so one track would at least turn. Then used tractor to pull machine up onto a little hill where it was dry, and by then all the oil had pumped out. did I mention that this was during an ice/snow storm? When the rental company's mechanic showed up, we had to tow his truck out to the machine with the tractor. He spend two muddy, cold days under the track/rear sprocket of that machine.
Derailed a track on the dumper with a full load on while passing through that mud hole that was full of hidden, deep ruts. Thankfully, my customer had a mini-ex further up the trail and I've had enough experience doing this stuff to get it back on track within 30 minutes or so. It was nearly 3 miles into the furthest dump point on that project with lots of water holes worse than this one was. This was a little over a mile in and I did not want to waste the load so we were able to retrack with the load still on. Few things are more fun than cold, wet and muddy conditions, right?
More on the job repairs. This time, a new hydraulic hose (about 50 hrs) blows off the crimped end (upper hose in pic) while working on a moderately steep 25+ degree slope. Machine is instantly disabled and can not move at all until repaired. Of course this is close to 3/8 mile from closest point that I can get my service truck so lots of hiking trips with tools and parts. It was a non-stop fight against gravity - I even had to winch the cab back down because it was over the weight center. Did you know cardboard is extremely slippery on these slopes? What other way to stay out of the ants, spiders, ticks and dirt on this snake infested hillside than a sheet of old cardboard? Carpet does not mulch as well as paper products when the job is done.
FOUR ! After pulling my JD 240 skid steer out of the mud twice, I finally equipped it with qty (1) "Rat Tail". and have yet to need it.....jeesh.
Worst one I had was a 420 backhoe dying on top of an ant hill. That sucked.
Nooooppppeeeeee not my problem one of our field guys went out to a skidder and another on the job flipped right on a yellow jacket nest. The operator had to pull out cable from the dozer and attach it to flip it back up while getting lit the ****up by the whole swarm. I’ve NEVER been paid enough for that ****. Not sure anyone could pay me enough
Nope. Nope nope nope.
Nice post, Treemuncher. Sorry about your woes, but the end product looks amazing. I appreciate the pictures.
Had a track come partway off a Cat 215c when it got stuck in a ditch filled with the overflow from several malfunctioning septic tanks in an ultra-low-rent trailer park. The closest you could get a non-tracked vehicle to it was about 200 yds, but I was advised by the owner of the park my service truck would be stripped in 15 minutes if I parked there, so I parked about a 1/4 mile away from the machine, on the other side. Another 215c, 20 yrs later, lost a track completely while 1/2 mile down a dike about a foot narrower than the machine. I forgot to mention, the water was about a foot deep, OVER the dike. I hooked a 750 JD to the carbody to steer, and would reach out beside me, put the bucket it the canal, push down and rotate while walking the remaining track. Then reach out and drag the loose track to me; lather, rinse, repeat. It took all day to walk the machine to semi solid ground.
OMG! , Mitch504. Was it a Florida trailer park? That would be icing on the cake. Holy cow.
Nope. Coastal SC, but just as bad.
Thats NASTY… Hepatitis special!
You're not actually a field mechanic till you've put a track back on in a sewage spill or a manure pit lol
An easy way of moving that machine is to remove the bolts out of the sprockets. It can then be flat towed to a better area for repair. This was a recommended procedure in my Rayco operation manual and was used many times. The big plus is that you're not opening hubs or hydraulic motors in **** conditions.
Thankfully, this time, I did not have to tow it out. Bolt removal would have been considered if needed. It would have been difficult to tow not being able to lift the cutter head and with trees in the way. Much of this could have been worse. I consider myself lucky enough to have been a fairly simple job that could have been so much worse than it was. All of these situations provide food for thought. How do I solve THIS problem when it happens to me?
Don't you just love stuff where the machine has to be positioned just so to access some component that can be reasonably expected to fail and prevent the machine to move. Almost had one yesterday on a car where battery is in the floor second row. Passenger's electric seat was back to far to remove the covers over the dead battery, but I got them wiggled out without jumping the car. Had a different problem earlier on a machine with an electric actuator inside a safety cage. The load on the actuator was shifted to one side, preventing removal of the access cover. 15 minutes of disassembly for a 2 minute changeout.
I have a friend that decided that working in Alaska would be both “fun” & profitable.. I talk to him once a month to see how it’s going.. He always has a story about flying into these remote towns and getting stranded for weeks on end waiting on parts to get “dropped-in”.. On top of that.. he says the Eskimo people HATE white people.. I said they change their toon after the generator that powers the town is up and running, huh?? He says, your DAM RIGHT.!! He must love it cuz he’s been there for 3+ years..
Of last 2 times I had to do it ,1 was when the hydraulic pumps mounting bolts snapped and towed it backwards for a mile so I could load it onto the truck. The last time was when the the sungear shaft failed on a steep hillside and spun the machine around sideways then slid, dam near rolled it. I got my wife in the Ute to pull me out of there to a place flat enough to work on it .