Confession time. Just wondering how many people have done it.
I've never hit any part of the machine with the bucket, partly because the machine is setup right so that it can't happen ointhead But I have pulled a few small tree onto the cab. Can I blame that on the buckets fault?
only thing i have ever done was snag the track with a tooth before...no big deal...but Volvos can't hit the cab
Never hit the cab, but I've caught a tooth on the blade of the mini ex, samething with the track..
yeah I do that too, with the 36" pad and most the time they are under the mud and hard to see. That corner tooth can snag the crap out of the track in a heart beat. Usually happens when your not really paying the most attention bailing dirt.
Also not possible to make contact with the cab on my CAT 330L.
Ran a kobelco with a thumb on it that was able to hit the cab. It was a rental when we needed a second machine and some one had the metal all beat in and the weather stripping around the front and right side window leaked in the rain. My worst exc booboo was carring a 75+ ft long debranched tree and it snagged a root ball of a smaller tree and flung it right into the side of the cab. It bent the vertical handrail on the front of the 160 deere but thats all. Scared me for a second cause i never saw a tree coming at me so fast ever befor.
I haven't hit the cab, but have come close many times. Remember, the machine as it is specced out by the manufacturer should not hit, but adding aftermarket items makes it a possibility. I learned on a PC-650 that had a 6.5CY bucket only 48" wide. It was taaaaall and deeeeep. It would come over a foot into the cab if you did not stop. Made you really pay attention. Also adding a coupler will sometimes cause interference, and a coupler with a high capacity bucket is really bad for clearance. I seen a guy with a thumb on a PC-300 and the thumb would hit the boom if it was in the stored position and you crowded the stick all the way in. He did it so many times that the boom bottom plate was pushed in about 6" and the sides started to curve inward because of the bend in the bottom. I bet that boom did not last long.
Haven't hit anything yet, most of the hoes I've run weren't able to. Most of the Cat hoes I ran had wedge lock couplers, so even though the coupler was there, the bucket was more or less in the same position relative to its pin as it would be without the coupler, never had a problem hitting a cab. I actually tried it out one day to make sure in my dad's 312, there was no way to hit it. I ran a couple PC400's with Esco pin grabbers and 72" buckets. The buckets weren't terribly deep, but had a decent heel and were tipped with twin tigers. Came close with a fresh set of teeth, but I found out through observation in my off time that it I couldn't munch the cab. I saw a Hitachi ZX450 once that had a nice cab guard on it and a PSM pin grabber. Took a look in the cab and there was a big sticker that said "Warning! Bucket will hit cab guard!" pasted on the cab glass right above the guage display unit. Didn't see any mangled steel on the cab guard, gotta assume the sticker did it's job. :drinkup
In my first days of runnin bigger machines (ie a 330), I tapped the trackes once or twice when I was still getting adjusted to the machine, etc. I think the closest I've ever come to hitting the cab was one time when a rock rolled off the bucket as I was curling and lifting out of the ground and it rolled down and tapped the bottom of the cab. Felt pretty stupid for that. I have to agree that a lot of it is just paying attention to what you're doing... but sometimes fluke things can happen:beatsme
I've hit the tracks on the Hitachi's a few times. Partly because our company modifies the teeth and the buckets. No Harm Done to the machine.
Yep, have hit the tracks with the corner tooth a few times for sure. Attachments like a Kent hammer, you better be carefull when wrapping it under the boom.Cat rubber tired machines I believe have a resting post at the bottom of the crescent boom to place a hammer point as to not let it drag on the ground when traveling I presume.
wow! i am in the presense of greatness. i have had a few boo-boo's. it happens.
came close with a long reach a while ago. Stock
Ran a Drott 50 for 1.5 years the bucket would hit the cab, but I never had, that is the difference between running a machine and operating a machine. Danhoe
i played around on a john deere excavator simulator today at the local 150 training center. i tried to hit the cab, but couldn't. so i hit the adt cab. game over!
you crack me up q-ball!!:drinkup
i know for a fact that wurmkiller has bonked his 225 and 320 cabs.lololol
nope never hit the cab with the bucket, but i have broken the windows on a few machines:Banghead
well with the offset boom or spastic arm u can get the bucket in front of u and get a big scratch on ur head it will hurt
yeah its scary just watching the bucket get close knowing you could put it right through the cab if you have a brain fart
I finally broke down and fessed up. As alluded to in the other thread, it was just the weatherstripping that was damaged, and I was paying attention. It's just that at that moment, it was something else I was paying attention to. I also think it's kind of arrogant to think it can never happen to you. But to those who believe that, I hope you're right. (I also think there'd be a lot more "yes" votes if it was an anonymous poll.)
Its always fun working on demo sites. Some times you have a bolt or something else try to join you in the cab. One of my jobs was prepping non ferrous metals. One morning I picked up a piece of buss bar and had a bolt join me in the cab. It went through the bottom windshield, and hit the seat.
Not me, but my brother rented a 330 for recycling about 200 vehicles on a 2 acre peice of land. When united rentals (I think it was) took it off the low boy they asked my brother "ever use one of these before?" neither one of us had. we said so. so the driver hoped up quickly showed my brother the joy sticks, got out, loaded the low boy back on his truck, & he left us scratching our heads on how NOT to kill ourselves with this thing. I got looking at the cab, & noticed a big tooth mark, & cracked glass. I showed my brother, so he was carefull NOT to copy the mistake. So, he does his thing with it, moving, squishing cars, & stacking em for the recyler. When the rental place shows up they start getting exited over the damage that was there when they dropped it off! We both told them it was there when we recieved it. put up a huge stink, tried to force my brother into signing a release. My brother refused, so I grabbed my vid cam, took video of it, & they took the excavator. Ended up suing my brother (& the land owner) THEY GOT $75,000 in mediation, because my bro is pretty much broke like I am, & couldn't afford an attorney to take it to court. End of a long story, wide bucket on the 330 we rented could hit. I think the thumb could hit the boom too, but didn't try.
my operator hit the top of the cab and screening with the grapple on my 160. i could not figure out how he did it with the grapple closed all the way up it does not hit the only way to hit is to have the grapple open all the way and pull it in to the cab which i have no idea why you wold do that. Luckly it only scaped the side of the cab and screen. He still denies he did it but he and I are the only ones to use tha machine, If I did it I would not ask him.
This is all I need to see
hell, i hit the cab of a northwest crane with the boom, but that's for another thread....
You're not supposed to wrap the ball and cable around the boom :drinkup
that would have been real helpful to know before i got in the seat. i checked the manual. nary a word about it.:drinkup
I thought I made it anonymous poll. ether it did not work or I did something wrong.
No it is not, if you click on the totals in the poll you can see who voted in each category.
Wow, I hate to be one of the few that will admit it... We had a New Holland (kobelco?) 160 on loan that I was using in a tight wooded area. Yep,was watching the trees and just put a little ding in the cab.. Nothing major, but it did happen.. Since we use Volvo's it's never happened on our own machines.
I used to operate a case 921 and a volvo L150E and both loaders I never hit the cab or lights with the bucket. But I was running the volvo and snagged the head pulley of a conveyor belt coming off of a screening plant and I started to pull the conveyor over onto its side. But hey everyone makes mistakes right?
I can hit the tracks but not the cab. My tip of my thumb comes about an inch away from hitting the inside of my boom when curled though
Dont know how I missed this Aw come on Q, aint you going to enlighten us 1.5 yrs WOW! a true expert I am humbled :notworthy AMEN! to that You better believe it :drinkup OK! If the bucket isnt connected to the machine, does it still count ? I've already confessed to trying to clean the winscreen on a Poclain 75 with the bucket and getting showered in glass as the window was above my head. But in my defence it was the first exc I had operated and didnt realise the manufacturers were so stupid that they could not work out that if you design a cab that has a windscreen longer than the cab is deep then the thing will stick out in front of the cab when open :beatsme
We had a 345 BL that broke the piston off the stick cylinder letting the bucket teeth hit the cab. The stick just free wheeled into it nothing to stop it because the end of the stick cylinder and piston could not bottom out. It scared the crap out of the operator.
Well Rob, that was the time spent on that machine, not total operating time. The truth is I have never hit the cab. I was on equipment before Cat started making excavators, my first machine I ran was a 595 American, 75A Michigan & HD11 Allis Chalmers, then we got a 797 American. The list goes on. My dad taught me how to pay attention. I have hit a traffic light moving a K - 48 Linkbelt down the road, had 70' of boom on it and when we went around the corner didn't swing fast enough and hit the light, but that was not the question in the poll being taken. I have been around people that wreck everything - my brother, me I am not that way. If you were going to question people you should have got after some of the kids that said they ran all the equipment they did on a previous post. A company I worked for bought a 550 Hiatchi hoe,we were looking for a operator for it, ran a add in the paper. We set up on a Saturday a demo day ,show me what you can do, out of 50 people we found 3. I guess if you don't put up a bunch of posts on this site you are not accepted to your word, I do alot of looking along with some other people on here and don't say much, looks like I will go back to that and keep my 30 years plus to my self. Junior Member Dan
:beatsme Quite a while ago another member here living on another lump of rock on this planet basically said to me, its ok Rob, but be careful, the Yanks dont have the same sense of humour as some of us. The response I half expected from you was a " Yer ok but you know what I meant" :notworthy. But you have taken offence for which I apologise. The fact that I have made more posts than you probably only means I can spout more BS or ***** or have more time to, :beatsme. :drinkup
Yea, Danhoe is real easy on equipment. You think thats bad, you should have seen the poor fence post. All kidding aside, Dan is one of the best hoe operators I have ever been around. He is one of the few I actually trust when working in the ditch. I just have to give the boss man a hard time when ever I get the chance.
Dan Feel free to let your years of experience show. I am sure Rob meant no harm. I have followed many of your posts on DHS site, and find you have some great info. Please do share with us here as well. You said the truest thing I have heard yet in this thread. "Pay Attention" If more young people were taught how to do it, they would not tear up nearly as much stuff as they go through life. Just like the topic of this thread, have you ever hit the cab? One of the first things I do when I get on a different hoe is slowly move the boom, bucket, and stick through the full range of motion to see if it is going to hit anywhere, and if so, pay extra attention so I do not hit the cab. Have a great day
never had a problem
I have popped the track once when I had been operating to long, but never the cab. Didnt damage anything, just a lucky wake up call.
Clipped the Box of a Haul truck with a BIG bucket once while trying to play big digger driver Only a Very minor clip, You cannot Damage a Box that's already Damaged. (That's what I told the boss and he ate it up ) Done all kind's of Damage to equipment and Damage to other thing's .. but never hit a Cab (Yet )
You didn't "clip the box" you were merely checking to make sure the driver was awake:thumbsup That's something that tends to happen alot, with rock trucks anyway, where as you said, the boxes get pretty beat anyways. An "on road truck" would be a different matter:ban
Ha Ha Ha No need to tap the box ... When you drop the first 100+ ton in there .. it wake's the guy right up .. Yes sir! Hitting say an Aluminium Box on a high-way truck is a different matter, Could do some real damage.
I admite I have , all I did was break the light housing off a 315C L . no other damage God ,never should have happened but it did
I'll admit it. I did the same on a 130 New Holland. Just poked the light out swinging around in a real tight spot and trying to pay attention to too many things at once.
Thats how it was for me , we were doing work in a small river .I was tryin to swing in a tight spot , and try not to hit any trees with the machine, needed to have the boom, stick and bucket as close to the cab as I could , just not that close
As a gung-ho newbie, I went from a Cat 320c that couldn't hit (no coupler) to a 330 that could while I was learning. Scratched the paint and scared the carp outa me!
Trees are no big deal to me. Try working at night, in a chemical plant, with live electric and chemical lines above and below, with only inches to spare when swinging with the bucket tucked right up againts the machine.
I could only imagine what a blast that could be :spaz
all I'm going to say is watch out for cat 235s not only will they smash their own cabs, but the stick sucks in pretty quick on those bad boys.
You have all the fun . . . Pix?
Id love to have pictures of that experience. Unfortunately, chemical plants and oil facilities have a lot of rules about cameras. Mostly you better have NONE. In fact, I had to dig out an old phone for the project, as they wouldnt let me take my regular phone in, it has a camera. Try finding a phone these days without a camera though. It was not a fun job to say the least. You had to spin 180degs to dump your spoils in the truck. The truck drove out of the alley, to the other side of the cut, and dumped the spoils back in. We were only able to work at night. We had to make sure everything looked like we were never there by the next morning. The whole project was in wet sand, and we had to make the same cut 4 different times. Wet ground is bad to begin with, try digging through it 3 to 4 times, each time it gets worse. Top that off, the owner was wanting everything done yesterday. He left close to 600,000 on the table when he bid it.
Once. Five yeras ago I was in a basement under cuttin with a 315c, spoiling behind me. The Sub-division owner had just chewed the soil engineer and I out for the bad ground that had been around for the last 50 basements. Igot back on the machine, the developer went to the back yard toward his office and the soils guy went to his truck. I went back to digging and swinging when the developer,on my boom side, changes his mind and starts to come back to yell at me some more. I grab a bucket full ,hoist all the way to clear the bank and start to swing see the fatman outta the corner of my eye in the bucket path, check swing and stick in. Came within 3 feet of taking his head off. He yells at me to ignore the soilman and start stoning the bottom. Yea ya gotta watch for stuff, but when someone walks away after a discussion, sometimes your not ready when they come back right away. Cabs can be repaired, I can be more careful but some people never know they are careless.
Hardhat He sounds like an idiot in many respects, and if you hit him, of course it would have been your fault no doubt. Was he wearing a hard hat, by the way. I bet I know the answer too.
never hit the cab with the bucket but i have hit the catwalk of a 330 with a log. holding it with a jewell clamshell bucket rotating it around to put it in a log deck i mis judged its length. a 30 inch douglas fir two feet away from your seat wakes you up in a hurry!
When our old 235 came from the factory it had a front shovel on it. It was later converted to a hoe. The cab had a guard on it that hung way out in front. I bumped it one night trying to swing under some power lines and then around a concrete bunker. Just watching to clearance in the wrong place I guess. When I got a chance I took it off. Never had a problem after that. Woke up the 345 last week after a couple months. Thought about this thread. Pin Grabber with a 12 1/2' stick. Close but no Cigar!
Gents, I used to run the CASE 1075C (BADGER 1075) wheeled before....I know its not tracked...for the Marine Corps. That sucker could smack the cab like its cool. Well, long story short, I was digging a flat bottom ditch in Iraq in early 2004. All of the sudden, during a cycle, I came under mortar fire, my hands still was operating!!!!!! LOL, two round, completely missed me by a mile....lol....but I wasnt watching the bucket....Stuck the teeth straight through the lower window of the cab, just below the aux pedals for the extanda-hoe and wrist-o-twist. Man, I never heard such a butt chewing from my gunny..... Kind Regards, Sgt G
Running a Hitachi 3600 Shovel, I caught the track with a piece of wear iron on the back of the clam bowl. It jarred the machine pretty good and gave a heck of a light show with the sparks.( It was on a night shift.) It didn't cause any damage to the machine but it sure made me sit up and pay attention. Tracksoup71
I have caught the tracks a few times , happens when you are highballin and not paying attention . As far as hitting the cab i would have to say no . I did watch another operator put an out rigger on a butt'n'top log loader through the bottom window on a 330 though . We were working on opposite sides of the road and had just fired up in the morning , after letting the engine warm for about 30 minutes we went to work , slowly going through all the functions and movements to get things warmed up a little( it was -20 or so ) Well sometimes when it was cold valves would be a little sticky on the hydraulics , you could let go of the joystick and things would keep moving! Watched the other fella ( who shall remain nameless LOL )rotate his grapple , pull in his stick and raise the boom at about half throttle and sure ehough, sticky valves!! The grapple kept spinning and the stick crowded in as the boom come up and spun the outrigger right betweem the window gaurd and through the bottom window !! It's actually very amazing how fast a man can jump up and curl himself into a ball in the corner of the cab! He was very lucky it didnt take his legs off at the knees. He walked away which is the main thing , and was much more cautious after that . I guess the lesson would be , know your machine and dont take it for granted that everything is going to work like it should all the time .
You will find this more of a problem with the 7 ton Short Radius machines and a long arm. You will note on MANY of them two pin positions for the arm on top. One for transport due to shipping costing more if the arm is higher..a LOT more and one for operation. Additionally ANY SR machine is designed so that the boom will come much higher than normal for short FRONT swing radius. Even if they clear the cab normally, you really better watch and check clearance with a long bucket or coupler. OK OK..done it on above conditons!!! BUSTED!!
:notworthy :dizzy :lmao :thumbsup
Atlas Rob 10 Points!!! Ha Ha
Never hit the cab, but knocked the track clean off a Cat 205. Early days. Got hit by the cab of a 206 once, I'd got the window folded up into the roof and it fell out of the frame and broke across my head. Only time I wished I'd kept my hard hat on inside the cab.
i haven't hit the cab, but i have busted the little plastic piece on the cab lights of a cat with the bucket, i had a new set of teeth on my 315, and it will hit that plastic piece with new teeth if you curl the stick all the way in and lift the bucket high enough and rolled out just right, i did it....scared the s@*t outta me...
Once caught an stabilizer on a 580sk from the bottom and bent the pad. The project owner insisted that I could have turned over from lifting! that stabilizer if he hadn't hollered and stopped me!!!!???
i got my tracktor stuck in the mud
any sugestions on getting it out?
its a big problem,im stuck allmost on its side and coverd with mud
TNT......Dynamite..
with out photographs it didn't happen.......
hitting cab with bucket Its funny you guys bring this up now because just last thursday while on a 312c with a long stick and a wide bucket with a smooth cutting edge(very rare) I took a chunk out of the cab by the windshield wiper arm. ointhead And everybody on here knows how I certainly have no lack of confidence in my abilities so it should please some to know my ego was moderately fractured for an hour or so. But have no fears guys, I am totally back to my obnoxious self.:beatsme Scotty
I knocked the grab handle off the cab of our little hyundai 55. Had the boom all the way up and stick all the way in, had to pivot the boom all the way left and with the wide cleanout bucket it hit the hand rail. Other than that nothing, I run breakers a lot and that can hit the boom but not the cab.
I have never hit the machine, but i was working the a guy who was an animal on them no respect at all. I was on a heap and he was below me tracking around with a massive rock in the bucket he had the front window open it was summer time and we were clearing river silt dirty sticky black stuff as he passed around the heap i was on his machine dipped a track into a hidden hole and he lost the rock into the silt which splashed straight through the front window turning him and the inside of the cab jet black he looked like a giant panda covered in stinking crap i laughed so hard i was in tears
I personally havnt hit a machine but our low loader driver whilst unloading a doosan 320 lifted the dipper up and not knowing the quick hitch wasn't locked dropped the bucket on the cab!!! Also my boss whilst trying to remove a seal ring from a wheeled excavator tyre using the bucket against the blade managed to shoot the ring thru the front window and narrowly avoided some serious injury!
Yep did it once. I was mucking out a settlement pond with a 235 cat and oversized bucket. I told both truck drivers to wait until I spun around and had the bucket up before backing in. As I had to mix it up and find enough dry to make tailgates so it did not run out everywhere. This one idiot kept backing in before I was ready. I was mad spun around to make sure he was not going to back into me. I didn't realize I was pulling the stick in too and ran a tooth through the front window and eye level Billy
For those who are saying it's not possible to hit the cab with the bucket. Would be right to an extent. I have a 2001 hitachi ex120 with a Manual quick coupler. When u have bucket curled home and boom all the way back. U curl bucket down u indeed will hit the cab pillar with tooth. I believe the quick couple is the problem. As it moves bucket forward toward machine. I had to hit pillar out when I got it so I could shut window. Then I wasn't paying attention and really messed it up myself. Smh.