I was talking to my dad tonight, who is an old school grader man, and told me that he learned to run a grader standing up..... and still to this day runs there 1970 something champion grader standing up. I took him into our equipment yard the other day and showed him one of our new 14M graders... lol he was completely lost when he sat in the seat! lol i was wondering if any of you guys learned to grade standing up? or still do it..... I tryed to do it the other day with my mini grader but it wont move unless your sitting in the seat!
that's how i learned,on an old 16,the guy that taught me said you run it like a captain of a ship.
My uncle drove the old Cat 12E's for many years grading country roads for the local council and he always stood up and I remember a lot of the operators of that era stood up while grading. I had an old Allis Chalmers mechanical grader and I used to stand up operating that some of the time, but not with the newer graders, why stand up when you can sit down. Rn'R.
I agree with the whole "why stand up when you can sit down" theory. but my old man still does the stand up thing.... he actualy told me that he cant run one sitting down!
I agree, I don't get the oportunity to run a grader much anymore. But on the rare occasion that i do I stand up. That is the way I learned . I screw things up enough standing up in one, but when I sit down.O my it gets nasty!!!!!!!
I learned standing up on an old Adams towed grader, then a "newer" model with a Detroit engine. Did the same on Huber-Warco, Awful-Western, Galion, and Allis Chalmers. Never ran a sit-down machine till the mid-seventies and that was the first proto-type 16G. As late as 1997 I still would stand up in a 16 for a while. I hear from a number of operators that the new M-series is very difficult for older operators to learn. Job I was on last year got one for a while to try out, but the lead blade hand didn't like it and it was sent back within a couple of weeks after the other hands gave it a try. I did not operate it myself, just took a look and went back to my D9R.
When I was kid, my Town had a lot of dirt roads that were maaintained with an old Cat 12 grader. I used to chase the road crew around on my bicycle to watch and the grader operator there always stood while operating, but sat to transport between jobs.
I would think that standing up would be a lot easier to move your body around to get better vision a lot of the time.
Before we had tilt colums and good seats sittin down wasn't all that comfy.We had an old Cat 12 8T ser #1110 where I grew up working and we used to stand most of the time. I have a 12G now with a tall cab but rarely stand everybody else that runs it sits also
We have an old Gallion grader for farm work, you have to stand up to see what you are doing. If sitting down your visibility of the blade is blocked by the control valves, hoses, instrument panel, and there are not any lower windows in front of you because of this. On the modern graders the visibility enables you to see what you are doing when sitting, and for someone of my height, the cabins are not high enough to stand in anyway. If you are working for a large company that has a seat belt policy, you cannot stand up ever while operating.
I watched my papaw and dad run their old graders the same way. You had to stand up or you couldn't see where the corners of the blade were. Could have been one of the reasons why they decided to get into the manufacturing business. They never stood again after creating a platform that would allow you to see what you were grading from the seat. If you look way back to the old horse drawn graders you will notice that the operator didn't have a seat at all. So he was always standing. Maybe the evolution of the grader was done around the guy still standing which would explain the poor visibility for many years to come. If you really stop and think about it, it hasn't been that long ago since manufacturers started using the word ergonomics. And nothing against you veteran operators, but what you tell us manufacturers is the gospel. So if you said make it so I can stand up then by god we did it. Even CAT's joysticks would be waist high today if not for the fear of lawsuits. Let’s face it, we had no choice but to put the operator in the seat strapped in by the seat belt.
Standing up on Motor Grader Being that I am over 40, I can recall seeing many cat 12E's,12F's,14E's with the operator standing & grading a long haul road. The comapnay I worked for in the 80's use to rent an old operated 12E from a guy named "Jonsey". The owner was good his good friend & some days he ride along on the old bench seat,that is something I always get a chuckle when I mention that to someone (And Jonsey allways had the old steel hard hat on)
Contrary Old Buzzard!!!!!!!!!! Or Smarr Tarss???????? Hi. Folks. I dunno. Maybe I'm just a contrary old buzzard or maybe a 'smar tarse' but I think I've been around graders since before most of you and run a few that most of you have never run and I have never felt the need to stand up while operating one. Control boxes, blade lift gears and hydraulic valve banks not withstanding, I operated 'em all sitting down. Cats, Galions, Austin-Westerns, Clarks, Aveling-Barfords, Adams, O&K, Allis Chalmers, Fiat Allis, Mitsubishi, John Deere, Goodwin, and maybe a couple of others that I have forgotten and I operated 'em all sitting down. I do take my hat off to the real early grader operators who had to contend with not being in charge of where the grader actually steered 'cos it was drawn by a tractor operated by another person and the controls were mostly wind-em-up-or-down-by-hand. There were VERY few of these early drawn graders that had any seating for the operator, mostly 'cos you couldn't get enough force or range of movement to work the various controls from a seated position. You HAD to be standing up to get enough weight behind the controls to operate them and to have the range of movement or reach to be able to get to all of them freely, because they were so widely scattered about the machine. And NO, I DON'T remember those days - before any of you ask. LOL. Now I've gotta take my weary old bones off for a nanna nap. Please be quiet for a while. PLEASE! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!
standing I'm not arguing with Deas 'cause I consider him an expert. With that said, I learned on an old Cat 12. No one taught me to operate it, I just learned as I went. I always stood. Couldn't see anything productive sitting. And the controls were too high and too far from the seat to be anything close to comfortable while sitting. I sat to transport. Stood to operate. Didn't like it but couldn't "see" anyway around it. After we traded our old Cat for a Deere with the short cab an old operator nearby looked at it and said he'd never run a grader that you couldn't stand up in. I told him he just needed to run a newer grader. Nope, ain't happening. Well a few years later his township traded their old Champion for a newer Deere with short cab. After he had ran it for a couple months I asked him if he missed standing up?? He said "why the hell would I want to stand up"??
Please??????????????????????? Hi, Ovrszd. I thort I asked you to PLEASE be quiet 'cos I was gonna take a nanna nap. You 'young-uns' just won't listen. LOL. I'm NOT an 'expert'. An 'ex' is either a has-been or an unknown quantity and a 'spurt' is a drip under pressure. I don't consider myself to be any of those things, let alone any or all of them together. That last question that your older grader operator asked you after he had been operating the new Deere for a couple of months, "Why the hell would I want to stand up?", is the same question that I asked myself the first time I sat in a grader, a Cat 12 9K series, ex-U.S. Army engineers and I think it had been somewhere during WW2, which had a perfectly good bench seat in it. Does that make me smarter 'cos I asked it a lot earlier in my career? Or just lazier?
slow learner Fortunately I only had to run that old grader a year before getting into a hydraulic machine. So my period of suffering was short. I don't know why I stood, just didn't think I could run it any other way. After a twelve hour day my hips and lower back hurt like the dickens. I was 37 years young and thought I was tougher than nails. But at the end of the day I would limp away from that machine beaten and exhausted. Any time I looked back I always thought I saw a smile on it's face. Deas, as for your "expert" status, I'll change that to "experienced". That doesn't imply anything toward your talent, simply indicates you have history. That's worth more than everything else anyway. :notworthy
Operators position ? The old Pull Graders dictated that operators stand up. No seats furnished except for the horse drawn ones. Had a seat for the teamster, and a platform stand for the operator ! The Motor Graders dictated that operators be seated to operate ever since the 1930's !
Dictation???????????? Hi, Northart. Based upon some reasonable amount of observation carried out many years ago, I would hazard a guess that many early motor grader operators didn't take kindly to being dictated to. LOL. Either that or they hadn't read Northart. LOL.
Dictation ?? Hello Deas Plant, I'm not the literary genius that you are . LOL So what other word would you use ?? Maybe I ought to consult my Gov. Sarah , or the prez elect ? ?? They are pretty good at dictation.
Literaray 'Genie-zass???????????????????? Hi, Northart. Well, I suppose somebody had to recognise the fact sooner or later, no matter how well I tried to disguise it. LOL. Dictated is probably the right word for the old drawn graders since there was no seat, although I suppose that if one objected to being dictated to sufficiently, one could always have put their own seat on it. For the self-propelled graders which mostly came complete with a seat, I would probably have said that the option to sit was there, although few of the early operators were smart enough - or lazy enough - to choose that option. LOL. So maybe old habits were doing the dictating in this case. Do you know ANY operators who really LIKE being dictated to?
Dictation ? Hello Deas Plant, There are some real Dictators in cons't mangement. They make no bones about it ! No debate, no questioning, even when you know a better way. PK is one of them. When you finish a task, they want you to do nothing ! Just sit there .Till someone tells them what to do next ! Don't you dare try do something obvious on your own, that is strictly a no, no ! There are other companies that operate similarly , so the operators that work for them, are there as economic hostages, or there, because they like to be told, what to do, step by step ! Or as some say, they were hired , from the neck down. LOL
Northart, are you referring to Keter Piewit & Sons?
Refer ? Hi SurferJoe, Yes.
Own intiative not required. Hi, Northart. Job description reads in part: "own initiative not required". Now I know some operators - and others - whom that would suit right down to the ground - 'cos they don't have any. I doubt it would suit this little black duck though.
Standing or sitting ? Hi Deas , I better mention standing or sitting . LOL Anyway, I've observed many different mangement styles over the years. Autocratic , Democratic, Family, Corporate, and all the variations of. Tight reins, loose reins. Sometimes No reins, as the people in charge, don't know nothing about your work. Then you are your own boss. Strong leaders, weak leaders, straw bosses, ghost superintendents, ghost foremen, group or clique leaders. Some are lot of fun and truly enjoyable to work for. You wish life would continue forever, in such a path, but cons't just is not that way. Others just give you migrains and ulcers! You just hope to make enough money to get off the job and never see these people again. Anyway so much for management , and sitting or standing ! Everyone eventually finds a position that suits them. LOL:usa:drinkup
Reader's Digest Version. Hi, Northart. If I had a nutshell, I'd use it to store that Reader's Digest version of management styles - and non-management styles for posterity. One bloke for whom I worked for a rather short period - Friday to Sunday - had a style that I hadn't seen before - shoot-from-the-hip/lip. I've seen it a few times since. I started working for him on a Friday morning, having driven for most of 3 hours to be there for a 7.00AM start. By 10.00AM, Sunday, I had been fired and re-hired twice and offered a job as his travelling rep., prospecting for work. He was an owner/operator with 2 x D6 9U hydraulic dozers which he used mostly for building farm dams. He was very good at his earthworks, not so flash at public relations. Pretty much the same issues that you mentioned apply to machine maintenance within various companies. It's hard to find a company that has struck a happy medium. (A happy medium is a person who tells you your fortune, with a smile.)
Lots of good here.... Being around older graders primarily (Cat 12s, etc.) and having actually piloted one exactly once, trying to sit down on the seat and manipulate the controls with any degree of competence was a big goober. The seats on these things are kind of an afterthought, sort of a place to take a break when your legs get tired of standing up and need a sit, and the wheel/controls are all out of sorts. Hey, I always thought they were built for standing and most of the old pictures I've seen from the 60's back generally show a grader pilot standing so it's no big surprise. The new rigs are designed for sitting and that's okay in my book since it is, like, the 21st Century and all and engineers have figured out the way to put a seat above a blade and give you a view of the operation. Go figure..... Heck, most of the grading with a blade I've done has been from the seat of a farm tractor with my head cranked over my neck so watching the blade from the front is a good thing.
Grading???????????? Hi, JoeinTx. I guess there must be more to be said for being lazy than my parents and teachers would ever let on. I was always just plain too lazy to operate a grader standing up. I have never had the dubious privilege of operating a grader behind a farm tractor and my neck still works pretty good. With all the time I have spent various graders, gear-controlled and hydraulic articulated and rigid-framed, over the last 40-odd years, one of the ones that I enjoyed operating most was a real BEAST of a thing, an O&K G350. It weighed 42 tons, had a Cummins 855 'donk' at 380 hp, was a rigid frame and had a 20 foot blade. Part of what I liked about operating it was its sheer grunt and pushing power - I loaded Cat 660 scrapers with it several times and it did that better than a Cat D8H on the same site - and its ability to EAT work. The other part of what I liked about operating it was that it was the odd-job and fix-it machine for that site. I mostly maintained haul roads, kept scraper fills in shape and ripped the borrow pit for the scrapers. In between times, I could be asked to cut a track to give the water cart access to a new dam for water supplies, cut a pad to sit a 6" water pump on, rescue a bogged 660 scraper or any of a dozen other different tasks. Monotony was NOT an issue. There were only 34 of those O&K G350's ever built. One of them is right here in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Memories, precious memories.
Hi Deas, how long did you operate the O&K grader? Was there any comfort to it at all as far as the seat, controls etc.? Was it loud inside the cab for example engine noise? Did you ever get a chance to find out how fast it would go? I realize that you couldn't take it out on the highway, but just curious if you had a chance to try it else where.
How fast???????????????????????? Hi, Grader4me. Unfortunately, I didn't operate that G350 for as long as I would have liked. It bent a valve pushrod in the 'donk' after I had been on it for about 6 weeks and was side-lined. It's 'replacement' was a Clark 6x6x6 with a front dozer blade and a rear ripper and a 4-71 'Jimmy' that needed a hefty dose of Aeorstart to get it to wake up each morning. Not quite in the same league for grunt. I had to quit push-loading the 660's. LOL. Or retrieving them from bogs. The O&K, while not quite as user-friendly as the 'G' or 'H' series Cats, was still quite a comfortable machine to spend 10 or so hours a day in. There was even room for my lunch box AND for my son, both at the same time. Some of the controls were air-over-hydraulic and some were electric-over-hydraulic - buttons, al la John Deere. The layout was not as ergonomically practical as the Cat set-up but still quite comfortable to work with. Visibility was not as good as the articulated Cats but still quite adequate. I never felt the need to stand up while operating it, even though there was sufficient height in the cab to do so. I never had the feeling of not being able to wait for knock-off time to get off the jigger. How fast would it go? Dunno. It did get around the site pretty well, probably up around the 22-24 mph but I never had a chance to wind it up 'cos the site we were working on was a retention basin for treated effluent to be used for irrigating sugar cane and there was no mile-long runway available. Besides, some splaw-footed idiot had put a number ten on the plastic brake fluid reservoir and it no longer held fluid, any fluid, hence no brakes. I'd happily get on that machine again if it were offered to me and the site was bigger than the average back yard. Eatchyer heart out, M8. LOL.
Wouldn't blame you there. I would have loved to have the opportunity to try something that big I am
Funny thing. Hi, Grader4me. The funy thing about that job was the they had had 3 other operators on that grader before I started on it and none of them could handle it. I actually started for that company on an old Cat 14G on another site. At smoko on my first day - when I had been working for them for 2 1/2 hours - the foreman on the site where I started came over to me and told me to get my favourite rump steak over to the site whereat resided the G350. There was another bloke on it when I got there and they moved him sideways onto the machine I had just left. As he was leaving, he said, "Best of luck with the big mongrel." He didn't even stay to show me the controls or where any service points were or anything else, just walked away. I quickly got to like it. It will never be anything like a modern Cat to operate but it wasn't bad and it could sure lunch well on work. It had a rear-mounted ripper with 4 shanks in it almost as big as a D7E, F or G would carry. It would sink those 4 shanks into that clay and MARCH like it had somewhere else to be. I spent quite a bit of my time ripping the borrow pit floor ahead of the Cat 660's and the 'Kummagutsa' D455A push-dozer, which only had a single-shank ripper.
Old Grader Hands standing or sitting 12M I was at a CAT demo day recently and there was and older Grader guy (63 years old) he had been in Graders since the late E series I think he said, over 45 years ago. He learnt standing up. He told his boss to buy a new 12M because he thought he may be able to go a few more years after spending 1/2 hour or so at not the wheel but the joysticks. Huh go figure !
Deas, what was the power like on the blade circle turn? I've operated some graders that if you had to much load on one side or another the blade wouldn't turn, and you would have to back off a bit to turn the blade. I've also run graders that has loads of power on the circle turn. I've been stuck (dreaded word) and have used the circle turn and pushed myself out. Just curious about O&K as it's so heavy etc. If not the circle turn, did it have any weak points that irritated you a bit?
'Irrigating points' - any tears????????? Hi, Grader4me. The circle turn power was quite adequate as were all other functions. For what it was, a 42-ton rigid-frame haul road grader, I thought it did very well. My one complaint about it would be the utterly stupid Morse control for the transmission control. The lever movement was in a 'U' shape with a 'V' bottom. So far, so good. Now for the stupidities. The open end of the slot was to the front, which meant that you had to pull the lever BACK to get to neutral, al la the John Deere 'B' series 670. Now that's not too bad in itself but, taken with the next one, ............... This Morse control had mechanical detents built into it on the downshift side, a sort of a ratchet mechanism, so that you could not pull it from 3rd straight through 2nd back to 1st. Again, not all that bad, in fact maybe even quite good. How-wevver, the same was also true if you wanted to pull it from 2nd through 1st to neutral - there was a @#^~`6!#@ stupid detent at 1st too, so that you could not go straight through into neutral. To get past the detent, you had to release all pressure on the lever, maybe even move it a tad in the opposite direction, and then move again in the downshift direction. There were no detents on the upshift - you could go straight from neutral to 3rd. That was not quite my favourite transmission control of all time. It might not have been quite such an issue if the machine had had working brakes but, even so, I think it was a slightly less than brilliant design for the purpose. Simple click points in the movement, like Cat, would have been far better IMHO. Hi, Blade Man. Some older folks may get a bit set in their ways but some of us remain pretty adaptable as well. I may be approaching the end of my working life too - more and more, I can see a 4wd pick-up and small trailer home (I'll speak 'American' here for our friends over the puddle.) in my future. IF I wake up in the morning, I'll stick my head out the door and hold a wet finger up to test the wind to see which direction I'll be heading in that day. Some days, I may not even hold the finger up, just not go anywhere, but I'd sure like to get my grubby lunch hooks on a pair of those joysticks for a few hours before I check out completely.
Lol..I'm with you on this one Deas! Maybe the right person will read this and feel really sorry for us old coots and make our dream come true..you know..fly us out to our own private sand pile..and let us play with them puppies! Ya just never know when it's checkout time :beatsme
grader operation Hey, I think I've said this before but worth repeating. My friend Steve has a 140M and I have a 770D parked not more than 200 yards from each other. You guys get yourselves here and we'll let you play!!! :drinkup
Sooo..would it be to much to ask for a plane ticket out and back? After all it is getting close to Christmas...you know..the time for giving....Ho Ho Ho and all that stuff..
Thanks. Hi, Ovrszd. Nice offer and thank you. There is the small matter of being able leap across wide puddles which I haven't yet figured out how to achieve without applying LOTS of dollars to the problem. Once I get that figured out, keep an eye on your doorstep. LOL.
Bet you two guy's got a big pension fond... Just start using some of it... Joke aside, here around the retired fokes take up loans on their paid house. And using the money on things they couldn't/wouldn't afford before. It's no use in going away and leaving a bunch of money and stuff for the children to fight over. House can be sold to pay the loan when u leave.....
Pension fund??????????? Hi, MKTEF. I've got a big pension fund? With what the current world financial crisis is doing to interest rates??????????????????????
I learned standing up. It was a county job and all the old hands did it. Many a time when third gear grading, standing operators would hit the windshield when the grader came to a sudden halt with the blade high centered on bedrock. Later, with a private contractor, I was asked why I didn't sit down. He encouraged me to sit and feel the road with my butt. Took awhile to make the transition, but glad I did.
i learned on a galion series a grader loud detroit
I learned from a old school bush operator,and he could fine grade to."The reason they have a seat,is to sit" he would tell me.And that's the way I learned to operate graders. R.I.P. Eddy Dominion
There is a hiking trail here in cameron county pa named after Fred Woods,a state forest equipment operator that was killed while running a grader standing up. While grading slow he hit a stump and fell out of the cab.The mold board skipped off of the stump and kept going and ran him right over. He was found dead on the road. Another reason I buckle my *** in the seat on every peice of equipment a run.
I knew of a similar incident. The guy was leaning out the open door to check the rear tires. He managed to role clear, then had to chase after the grader. The first few graders that I ran all had stand up cabs. I always thought it was a welcome change of position to be able to stand for a while, then sit back down.
After running the grader "standin up" for the county, I went to work for a developer putting in gravel roads near Lake City Colorado. He noticed my upstanding style and told me to sit down and feel the results of my road work with my butt. This seemed to work well enough and I continued. I do miss those bench seats as it's hard to invite someone into the cab.
When my Wife and daughter started to blade I told them to feel with your feet ( if standing) or your but (if sitting) and thats the way I.ve always done it. it works great for us. I like the bench seat for that purpose as many times your just kind of half sitting.
Seat height Vision in old 12E's were better standing. I put some 5" channel iron under mine to raise the sitting height when I owned one, much improved but I still stand every now and again to stretch the legs when on a long pass (out in the boony's who's there to see you anyway)
Standing or sitting I learned to grade with a battered old Wabco mechanical beast with the Army. It was the only style grader that could be dropped out the back of a C130 so battered is a bit of an understatement. There was always quite the discussions about standing vs sitting amongst us operators. The compromise seemed to be that when operating we need to be standing but if we were reversing for any reason.. we dam well better be sitting down! When I finally switched over to the Champion hydraulic graders, it still seemed to hold true as we could steer better with the yoke pulled back towards our stomachs, and pay close attention when cleaning out ditches. :canada
It was the same with older cotton pickers, you had to stand up to be able to see. Dt
had to stand when i started running a 16 i couldn't reach pedals or see out the windsheild if i was sitting(11 at the time). dont run them much anymore wish i did i loved to run them.
My dad taught me to stand while grading. Tried to sit on many occasions but always found myself standing up again. I could see much much better and found that I could "feel" what I was doing a lot more. I slammed myself toward the windshield many times and sometimes it hurt..lol, but never felt as though I could be propelled out of the grader. Even while pregnant and my belly so big that I would almost have to stand real funny in order to stand it was still my preference. Everyone has their way. Mine will always be standing.
Hi Suomi, first of all welcome to the forum. Hats off to you for taking an interest in the world of graders. I'm sure you are proving to be a top notch operator, and from reading your dads posts, you had a great teacher. I've made lots of comments in this thread, and the thread before this concerning standing or sitting. A few good examples were given of operators that were killed getting thrown from the machine while standing. With the doors open, and standing while operating, although a person doesn't feel as though they would get propelled out of a grader..the risk is still there. Terrible accidents happen every day and alot of those accidents are preventable. If you have a "feel" for the machine while standing then obviously it wouldn't take much for you to get the "feel" sitting down. Really to be completely safe in a grader a person should be sitting down with a seat belt on. Now..I also gave a previous comment that I'm slack with the seat belt thing..just being honest..but..I should buckle up and I have at times but not enough to be completely safe. Having said all of that, the decision of course is yours, as it is with anyone here that prefers standing. Just my 02 cents worth...
The 740A that soumi was running had a safety chain that you hooked across the door. It was originaly a Yukon Territory machine. I guess maybe it is the regulations there for safety when standing. Maybe they lost someone out the door.
I've made lots of comments in this thread, and the thread before this concerning standing or sitting. A few good examples were given of operators that were killed getting thrown from the machine while standing. With the doors open, and standing while operating, although a person doesn't feel as though they would get propelled out of a grader..the risk is still there. Terrible accidents happen every day and alot of those accidents are preventable. [/QUOTE] Grader4me, I didn't mean to sound disrespectful in my prior post. I do realize that there is a certain amount of risk in operating any kind of equipment without using the seatbelt and I'm sure nobody "feels" as though they will be thrown out of the machine. I was just stating that I prefer to and felt comfortable standing and found that way to be my way. Not in any way saying that it is the "only or right" way. Sorry for any confusion.
Oh heck..I didn't think you sounded disrespectful at all Suomi. There is also no confusion in your post. You was just stating what you prefer and that's what this thread is all about. Everyone has a opinion and everyone does what works for them. Because we have different opinions it makes for interesting discussions. I apologize if I came off the wrong way....I'm a safety nut..can't help it either..lol
Standing give a much better view of the work!
I guess if your hauling butt down the road I can see where you would go out the front if you hit something.
I hope I have my 3 post probationary now!!
I'm no grader operator but I will jump in the old champion the company has to do the haul road or anything like that and you can stand or sit. I stand for technical parts, but when your in the middle of the straight with little blade movement you don't really need to stand. It sure is a lot easier to look backwards standing up though. In the new graders you don't have the choice to stand or sit, but you have mirrors, and the cab is nearly a glass box.
God gave me a backside and Caterpillar gave me a seat. I use both!
Years ago, when I used to do repair work on older graders, with older operators on them. Most would stand up at least part of the time. Partly for visibility, partly because their arms got tired reaching for the controls. When they got a new grader, they always wanted a stand up cab. It took awhile for the LoPro cabs to catch on. The other thing I noticed was that when the older operator got a new air conditioned machine, they would run it with the left door open, even on the hottest days. OC
Your right on with that.
I agee with tripper 174. I have always sat when operating a grader, even back to Cat 12E series. When you are finishing road you get a feel for the grade by the way the ass feels in the seat. In my opinion the operators that use the GPS systems come to rely on it to much, If you take it away they do not have the feel for the machine. So what I am saying is to learn by feel and then use the GPS when you have to.
When I operated the wing for my dad we always had the left door open it didn't matter if it was 20 below fahrenheit. With the old Austin Western you warmed up after 10 - 15 miles. I remember the snow used to melt on the grader frame after awhile. I could never understand why. I guess it was the fatigue in the metal that would warm up.:beatsme
You bought the seat and I won't get into the other one.
lol
...lol...good line ledsel..graderman.. I want to buy you a drink. Truer words were never spoken.
Cheers! or Dai borgia , I don't think I got that one right :drinkup
pretty funny about that blade kickin-butt on you and smiling!!! It seems like I remember hitting the windshield a few times when standing up while ripping and saying "when will I learn never to stand while operating this"
I learned on an old Cat #12 grader and I learned how to run it standing up. It's just easier to see whats going on as the visibility isn't the greatest. I'll try to run it sitting down every now and then, but find it easier to stand.