Ok fellow members, I'm probably asking for it! I need pics and a story to go with the pics, of Scrapers (Pans) that have rolled over. We have a scraper operator who won't listen, and continues to nose dive. I need this for our weekly safety meetings.
Happy to say I can't help ya, hope it stays that way.:thumbsup
Can't help you there, grandpa has but it on its side a few times and once up side down but never took pics, just the aftermath with the stack off and a few bent lines. Had the steering wheel come right out of the shaft one time and went of of "horseshoe bend" and got tossed about 40 feet. Walked away each time. Trbo
Alan? ALAN? CALLING ALAN627b where are you? He'll have some for you:roll:lmao
Here is a sample of my work, but I didn't turn uphill to do it, or it would have been worse! It's hard to explain the physics of running something that bends in the middle to somone who's only driven stiff frame vehicles before, and some people never get it. The only way turnig uphill might work is to use the rear engine to push you sraight up and down a slope, then back down off of it. Still not recommended. On a single engine, paddlewheel or water wagon, it's a good way to commit suicide as far as I'm concerned! Turn downhill, stay off the rear and floor the front, and drive out from under the tip! I'd rather be stuck with my nose in the dirt than lying on my back anytime. Alan
More pics of the wreck. Score 1 bent stack, 1 rear muffler, 1 front air cleaner assembly, a used spill rack for the bowl, and replace a pin in the hitch that fell out when it rolled. Happened Friday afternoon at 3:30, back to work by 10 am Monday. What caused it? Me trying too hard to strip the whole slope, A slope that steepened from a 3:1 to a 2:1, but covered in 3 feet of weeds so you couldn't see it, baked as hard as a brick, and not scouting the terrain in an unknown area, That's whayt I learned from this. Look first! Take a walk first, no one will mind. I almost made it off of this slope, but just as I thought I'd saved it, the downhill rear wheel fell into a washout and that was enough to tip the balance too far. Something else non scraper guys don't know...the attitude of the rear wheels (fixed, non oscillating) determine how the scraper will cut. Put one rear tire in a hole, and it will cut down on that side. It's all about Geometry. Wish I'd been better at that in high school! Hope this helps, Alan
The other thing I learned was, if it has a ROPS, wear your seat belt. If it doesn't have one, make up your own mind. I didn't get a scratch or bruise from this.
More of the series. The happy face should face UP! You can see by the bottom of the bowl that this scraper cut a little crooked. (Shiny area) Might have had a bad trunnion ball or tweaked draft arm. Right along the westbound side of Interstae 80 so everybody could admire it!
Last of the pictures. Hope you learned something form my mistake! Alan
Pardon my crappy writing with the Paint program, it's like writing with an etch-a-sketch....
Thanks Alan.
Glad to be of help! There might be more pics coming from other sources, I put the word out.... Alan
See, See, I told you he'd have something for you.
Great pics! Now weres the picmaster pull pan at? Id bet hes got a few to add!
I guess what I learned was- If your gonna roll something over, dont do it next to a busy freeway! Im sure that woke you up! Good to hear you didnt get hurt. Sometimes a bruised pride takes longer to heal than a broken arm. Good pictures, thanks for sharing. Jason
Alan .. try something for me. Go to "Paint" ... choose from the "toolbox" ..the square with the big letter "A" in it ... this will let you make a box in your picture that you can now type in ... also in any color you choose from the "Colors" box. Try it & see. Play around with it .. make different size boxes ... different size fonts ... different style fonts. Let me know if ya need any help with it. Sorry for being off topic ... but good captions will add a little flare for yer great pictures . BTW .. thanks for the pix ! Glad yer OK ! ~Glenn
That is defineitly a good way to go to the emer room and protologist waiting for them to lay you on the tale face down so that he can perform a seaterectomy ( laymans terms ) your butt done suck the seat up where the sun does not shine . Glad that you are ok Pride will heal but most of time worse that a real injury
"Because I Was Inverted" revisited This actually happened several years ago. That line about crapping your pants? Bull. In a situation like this, every fibre of your body is trying to get as far inside itself as it can get! I doubt a sewing needle could have gotten in "back there! A passing motorist came running down the embankment to see it I was ok, all I could think to say at the time was (I quote) Whoo! What a Ride! Honest. Once I discovered I was ok and my arms and legs were still working, I had both engines shut off in under 2 minutes. Didn't hurt them a bit, the mechanic just pulled the injectors and cycled the engine to blow the oil out. It really only rolled about half a turn, as it was on the slope and rolled onto the brush pile at the toe. One oil change later and it was back to work. The incident occured about 3:30 on Friday afternoon, we rolled it back over on Saturday morning, and it was hauling dirt by 10 am Monday. I'd just as soon never do that again, I've been upside down twice in my life, and that's enough. alan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlHZV0OP0p8&feature=related
glad your ok alan from a fellow NEBRASKAN!
OK, good pictures Alan. Those and the description you gave show how this could have been easily prevented, while still stripping the entire slope with your 27. The walk-a-bout is a must when looking at new work covered by brush and vegetation. Look at it from all angles from the ground, also from the seat. First off, ALWAYS carry your bowl LOW. Just high enough on the haul road to keep from bouncing into the roadway. Keep apron closed. In a hilly cut, keep bowl very low till you clear the slope. That way if the down hill wheel hits a hole, the scraper comes down on the cutting edge and frame with not enough room to tuck under and roll. That's what happened here looks like. ONLY exception to rule is when crossing rail road tracks. Then you want to be two-blocked! Start the cut at the top lengthwise to the slope if you are able, then start sloughing off at an angle towards the bottom as the slope steepens. Keep working from the top o' slope as it steepens till you are actually just headed straight downhill. Impossible to roll a scraper if it's going straight downhill with bowl in dirt you know. Good looking dirt there to work with too. Nice project. I've already mentioned that you don't normally turn uphill with an overhung scraper, especially one converted to a water wagon, which should never be off the flattest piece of real estate you can find for it. BUT, Cat and other manufacturers put a special piece of valving in their hydraulic systems called a quick drop valve. If you keep your right hand on the bowl lever at all times, you can have the bowl on the ground lickity-split and avoid potential disaster. Wabco's and electric drive LeTourneau's did not have this feature with the motors and winches. They tried a quick-acting switch, but they never worked very well and in fact, I don't recall I ever saw one that worked. They were usually busted anyway and by-passed. It's one of the major reason they switched to hydraulics for the bowl up and down. The old cable scrapers could have the bowl on the ground so fast your head would spin. They usually did this when you were hi-balling down the haul road in top gear, fat and happy. More than one operator got ran over when he got pitched over the windscreen onto the roadway and then got dead-centered when the bowl bounced back up. I ran out a couple miles one time in an old twenty-wagon when the bowl bounced on me and the hoist cable got caught under the bowl hoist linkage. I couldn't get the bowl down, I couldn't down shift, no brakes of course. Jeremy, If you can ever get your hands on a copy of the original Cat "Shake Hands With Danger" movie, it is an excellent primer on running scrapers. Every event was taken from an actual situation. I knew many of the factory people that produced that film. Try not to get a pirated version or one of the later editions if you can, They are not bad, but nowhere near as good as the original. Show that to your young cowboy and strongly suggest he take a hint. I can't tell for sure if this 27 was salvaged by rolling it completely over downhill onto it's wheels. The one picture of the damage to the top of the tree does suggest it. It should have been pulled back uphill, less collateral damage that way, eh? Generally speaking, rolled over equipment should always be pulled back upright in the direction they came from. Ah well, we all live and learn.
i can relate the the brown staines there are none you can't go for a week i don't have pics of my upside down ride on a dozer but the super over the job can rember it like yesterday i was in helen ,ga around 6 yrs. ago i fliped a dozer over backwards off a rock it got real quit then i seen car tires my backside was so drawed up the brown stain was'nt to be found my knees went ti bumpin when i stood on the white line and looked where i just came from i'm still crazy on a dozer and the only place that i would even worry about is the high wall in a quarry or mine but would do that in a heart beat but i aint scared after all you can't live forever
surfer-joe, are you old school enough to remember three fingered Joe too? :drinkup I'll echo what surfer-joe said though, check out the video "Shake Hands With Danger." Go to SAFETY.CAT.COM. Since I was introduced to the site at Conexpo '08, it's been one of the best online construction resources I've found. On there you can find the video "Shake Hands With Danger," in DVD format, as well as numerous other safety and training videos and resources. There are pre-made daily equipment write-up sheets tailored to each specific machine CAT's ever made. There are instructional training videos you can watch in low-res quality on the website, or direct links to purchase the videos. I strongly recommend anyone putting any new operator in a machine, make them watch the applicable video on SAFETY.CAT.COM. It starts with an introduction to the machine, walk-around procedure, operation and operating tips, etc. It's a valuable resource. Here's a link to watch "Shake Hands With Danger" http://safety.cat.com/cda/components/fullArticle?m=130061&x=7&id=627187
Mass X is write, that web site is one of the best sources of info you are likely to come across and the bonus of three finger joe aswell. I can remember seeing shake hands with danger as an apprentice and for months after all of us would blurt out that tune whenever we walked past one another during work. I am surprised roll of the drums is not on there but there are some other oldies on there and 1 in particular where a D9G barrell roles down the hill about 20 times, what a waste!!!
I do remember three-finger Joe. Cat had some real characters back then.
I've got a pic somewhere of what happens when someone like me gets on a 637B and slides off of a super. It was taken Feb of 1989 in Temecula Ca. while I was working for Charlie Gift Const. Only problem is that I can't find the damned thing :Banghead I'll keep looking :bash
Believe it or not, the pan was on the ground when it flipped. I never run with the pan high unless I'm crossing a road or railroad tracks, or buried utlities! And as soon as I'm over, back down goes the can. I had to strip this from the bottom up, the soil was packed and baked so hard that my tires were spinning on the weeds, so I'd strip a little clean so at least one side had some traction, and I'd creep up about half a width at a time. I knew it was getting too steep when the uphill tire under my ass started spinning! So, I did what I was told to do. Shifter in 1st gear. Pan in the dirt. Use the front engine only, and let it drag the rest on down, while slowly turning the tractor downslope and getting off easy. And it was working perfectly, until I hit that damned washout. As I've said before, I always get into trouble when I try too hard. What I really should have done, was to leave that stretch alone until we had gotten some fill in, and then come back to it. We usually didn't have support equipment on this job when we needed it, And I thought I'd be clever, ambititious, whatever, and strip it all myself. I had a boss I really liked, and was trying too hard to do a good job for him. And to his credit, he didn't get upset, mostly he was worried if I was ok. I didn't require anyone else to make me feel stupid that day, believe me... But just keep quoting those operating instructions, guys, I am not so good that I still can't use a good reminder from time to time! Alan627b
I hate it when I spend 20 minutes typing something and the server here screws up...or something loses the post when I clicked "submit".....damn technology! Believe it or not, I had the pan in the dirt when this happened. I usually strip a slope like Joe said, but I had to do this one differently. The shoulder and slope of I-80 was baked hard as a brick and very dry. Middle of summer and no rain, etc. So I had to start down low on this stretch to clear off enough weeds to get some traction, and I'd creep up the hill side about one center bit width at a time. Usually I was only getting about half a load per pass anyway. When the drive tire under my ass started spinning, I figured it was time to get off the slope. So, I did what i was taught. Shifter in 1st. Bowl in the dirt. Let the tractor drag the rest off the slope slow and easy, while gradually turning downslope. Hitch locked down, of course And it almost worked, except for that damned washout! (Pause)
Well, I'll be, the post actually worked! I take it all back.... Joe, believe me, I never high pan unless I'm crossing a roadway or other obstruction. And I lower the bowl as soon as I've cleared it. And you can always spot the idiot, he's the one running around in 8th gear with the lip wide open and the ejector forward...mechanics hate guys like that! Back to my screw-up. I got in trouble here mostly because I was trying too hard to clear the whole slope. I should really have waited until we had put some fill in, and then finished the rest. As far as how they tipped it back over, there wasn't enough room between the scraper and the toe of the slope to tip it over the way it rolled, the hoe would have had it's counterweight on the shoulder of the highway. So, John pulled the brushpile away from the 627, and reached over the bowl and pulled it halfway back over, Then he went around to the other side, cleared the rest of the dirt out of the bowl, and pushed it the rest of the way over. It went over nice and easy, took maybe 15 minutes. Speaking of Cat scraper movies, see also The Roll of Drums The Hazard of Hurry Making the Most with Scrapers. Lots of good tips on what to do and not to do in this one. I still have all 10 fingers...so far! alan627b
Ouch
There's what happens when you turn uphill...thanks to 637Slayer for the post. Alan627b