not often you see this
rule no1; sometimes it pays to stop digging :beatsme rule no2; if you dig a hole in a swamp it WILL fill up with water rule no3; water and electrics do not mix water will short out starter, and you will not be able to start digger to help in the extraction process
But 'the yellow fellow' will save the day
Then lo and behold; same people do it again, this time to a roller !! :beatsme
yellow and her dad will save the day :drinkup
Yair . . . Oh dear! Cheers.
Great photos
Great pics, I hope that didn't all happen in the same day.. I can sorta understand the excavators but how in the hell did he run the roller off that road?
A little too much forward..... Good thing he had some trees to catch him. Still better than flopping it on the side.
LOL! Yep that'll do it.:tong
Guessing the roller man got confused on the hydrostat control and pushed all ahead full instead of Whoa Nellie
yep you,ve got it Dan; go instead of whoa while turning around. And went nose first into gully, only a 10 metre drop. He was very lucky; was probably the only place on that gravel road you would want to fall over; anywhere else it would be goodbye man and machine, be 300 metre drop offs on that road. personally is reason in my terrain why I refuse to wear seat belts, when I decide its time to abandon ship on anything, I want to jump there and then. No use going on a one way roller coaster ride. The diggers; komatsu pc120 was a farmer digging drains, pulled himself sideways into swamp. Calls for the sk135 kobelco for help. He gets stuck in swamp on way in. thrashes around in the mud farrr too long. Calls for a zx120 hitachi to help him, but he can,t budge him and just creates a bigger grave. I showed up next day, by then grave is full of water and kobelco is a 'dead' pull. So decided to winch out komatsu first. Only real angle I could pull from was ontop of hill. Told digger steerer to try and lift and swing digger as I yanked sideways on its nose, but this din,t quite register Anyhow I wrenched him out sideways and in doing so tore the buried track right off it !! Ahh well one out, but its no help with the second one. Stick on the kobelco was hard up against bank where he had tried to pull himself out, so first had to disconnect stick ram hoses so it could fold in as I pulled. Bladed myself a level hole to anchor myself in; dug her in, and slowly opened her up. Torque converter is absolute magic for winch work compared to direct drive where often its all or nothing. Was up around the 3/4 + throttle mark she started to move and managed to slither it out from its grave :notworthy then tidy my anchor holes up and head for home. Roller salvage was about a month later for same guy who owned the kobelco. Was quite a big roller, about 15 tonne and to start with I couldn,t move it with the rollers brakes locked on. Winch would just pulled me up over backwards due to the torque reaction. So got roller running to release hyd brakes, owner hanged onto side of roller and I managed to winch it back up onto road. Needed digger to hold roller while I changed winch position, for a second minor pull, as wasn,t enough room for me and roller on road with a direct pull. Then home.
Nice little set up you have there, wish I had similar here! Great stories and photos, reminds me of my buds around the farm as they tend to drive way too far in and get hung up way too solid for any help from me. Very good friend decided to clean up a old dried up pond, found out pretty quick was still wet under the dry crust and set his 555G down to the pans, ended up calling a wrecker service to come winch it out.
Been there, done that although not with a 555G though..
Nice work on the recovery job's D6 Merv :thumbsup Good example of what an experienced operator can do with an older D 6 Cat & winch .
great pictures mate