Don't like steep hills

I received a call from a tree company I do work for when they have a mowing job. They wanted me to pull their chipper up a fairly steep hill with my crawler. The hill was fairly steep until the top then it got really steep. I politely told them I couldn't do the job. Sometimes you just have to say no. Stan

Good move

I saw two fellas way up at the top of a highway slope beside the road between two ledge outcroppings on state-oned Kubotas with rear mowers. I could see that the slope was too steep for them, so I pulled over to watch and be ready to call for help. As I watched they both started down and pretty soon they were both sliding because their tires broke traction. The kept them both headed downhill though, and got them back under control near the bottom. Not much grass got cut.

Years ago I had a neighbor down by the river valley wanted me to combine some beans on a field on top the bluff. Long steep ravine road to go up and at top had a berm built across road to keep from washing. I didn't like the steepness of the road let alone the berm. I thought gioing up might be ok but I could not envision coming down over that berm. I told him no.

Wow, that must have been an excitement pucker moment to remember. Been
there because the bars on the tire are now backwards. I would guess
you lose better than 1/2 your tractive effort. That is when you open
the throttle and hope you can keep control.

Will not mow anything more than a 1 to 1 slope but this thing is made to mow side of slopes. Long as it is dry and not any hidden holes 1 to 1 is not bad but turning at the end can get crazy.

Being on steep grades with a dozer doesn't bother me much. They have a low center of gravity compared to a wheel tractor. I have a lot of stick time on dozers grading steep slopes, so a little slipping and sliding sideways doesn't pull my pucker string too tight.
Loren

In West Virginia they dug pipelines with wheel backhoes while we had the dozer winchline hooked to the 'hoe. Hoe operator needed to have his seatbelt on to stay in the seat. We never had an accident but we never relaxed either.

Loren, you have to remember that Stan's machine is an older unit, with no rollbar.

steep hills ah yep BTDT . Back i 1970 a buddy and i took a contrat to mow four tennaco main lines like 94 miles of them . First day one the job we made on round on one line between two back township roads and shut down to regroup and rethink . We had a Case 310G dozer with three point and PTO and a 8 foot brush hog on it with the power angle blade , going up the hills we only had two to three pads on each side on the ground , The rented 430 Case wheel tractor had the same brush hog on it and four slab weights on the ft. and you could not go up the hills . We needed more frt weight like a lot . For the dozer we made two brackets up and welded them on top of the blade and hung a ton of I H suite case weight on the two brackets . For the 430 we had to go to three Case dealers to find more slabes and ended up with 14 of them on the nose . ON the steep hills you had to lean over the steering wheel to keep the ft on the ground . One hill that we mowed was so steep the only way we could mow it was down the hill and barely had enough power to climb the hill with the brush hog off . We mowed hills so steep that the young guys we hired to do around the fences and stand pipes could not get up them with there dirt bikes . Learned that it is vary wise to not try and mow after a rain storm , When a dozer slides off the hill with the track locked and goes airborn over the tarrecs with the brush hog bouncing in the air looking like the propeller of and air boat ya knew it was to wet . I had just slid off that hill with the 430 with one wheel going 900 MPH in one directio and the other doing it in the opposite direction , there was no stopping it all you could do was try and keep it straight and hang on and ride it out . My buddy was setting at the top taking this all in and busten a gut laughing , then he started down the hill and as he crossed the one terrace he go a little sideways and grabbed the steering brake and everything went down hill from there . After that the hills we farm on are flat land now .

Stan,

I built and graded the local motorcycle hill climb , 105 ft up the hill

as steep as dirt will stay there . Case 1000 dozer and a case 450 .

Graded a road bank that I needed a crawler at the top to let me

down and pull me up with a cable .

george