Re: (ET) Tractor down!

[Christopher Zach <czach computer org>]

Bob:

Ouch.

Ok, that's out of my system. That said, I think that part of the problem 
 here is the lifting the tractor with the lift and blade. If the blade 
mounts like the blower, then the weight is supposed to be shared between 
the front stabs , the lift assembly, and the arm pins.

When you push down and lift the tractor, you're lifting a lot more than 
the blower weight, and you're putting all of the force on the pins. As 
well as the torque from the lift arm at the nost of the tractor. Very 
little is going onto the stabs. Thus it overloaded the pins and snapped 
the weakest part in half.

I'd say don't do that again. The Elec-trak is a great device but it's 
not invulnerable. I've also heard reports of them breaking with the 
front end loaders full of stuff.

Side note: If you do use a lift arm to lift the tractor, NEVER go under 
it. If the frame brakes it will squish your head like a grape. I always 
use a pair of jackstands, even when I run the front up on a ramp.

Chris


Kleinbrahm, Bob wrote:
> A major mishap happened to my E20 this last weekend when out using my 
> dozer blade to do some weed removal work.  I was using the blade to 
> remove patches of Star Thistle weed by forcing blade into the ground and 
> then digging it out.  This worked just fine until I noticed the front 
> wheels were behaving funny, they seemed not to respond to turns and were 
> almost touching frame of tractor.  I jumped off and looked under front 
> steering unit and discovered that I had lost the bolt that holds the 
> steering arm to the undercarriage of the tractor.  This allowed the 
> front wheel assembly to work loose and detach from the mount.  I use a 
> 18” satellite actuator arm attached to the front of the tractor to raise 
> and lower the blade assembly.  I raised the front of tractor off the 
> ground using the blade to push down into the earth to lift it up.  I 
> have done this on many occasions and found it to be easy to do when a 
> need presented itself.  However, this time it literally broke the 
> tractor frame on both sides just behind the arm attachment pins.  The 
> break(s) came as a complete surprise to me with the front battery 
> compartment being the only thing holding the unit together.  I managed 
> to gingerly move the tractor back to the garage without further damage.  
> I now am faced with a weld job to put frame back in one piece and really 
> am at a loss as to why this happened.  Only thing I can think of is that 
> frame must have been welded in the past and the sudden loss of steering 
> caused fractures to happen.  Has anyone had a similar experience with 
> these tractors?  Mine was a real work tractor that has dug, tilled & 
> mowed flawlessly for years.
>
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> Bob
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> //Bob Kleinbrahm//
>
> //Senior Network Engineer//
>
> //First Republic Bank//
>
> //San Francisco////, CA. 94111//
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> //415 288-1478//
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> rkleinbrahm firstrepublic com <mailto:rkleinbrahm firstrepublic com>
>
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