Posted by JD Seller on March 24, 2013 at 18:14:49 from (208.126.196.144):
On one of the farms my oldest rents there are two grain bins that we do not use. He rents them to a friend of mine. The problem with the bins and the farm is that the only access is on a county grade "B" road. Meaning that it is a low maintenance road. It gets graded maybe twice each year. They never push the snow out of it.
My friend has soybeans stored in the one bin. He has a April contract on the beans. The buyer called him and offered a 25 cent bonus if he could deliver them next week, last week of March. He called me to see if we could haul them for him. I told him no problem. I would just have to go blow out the county road to get back to the bins. We usually like them being snowed shut as it makes for fewer people that can cause trouble back at the farm stead.
The farm is back the road about 1 1/2 miles. At about the 1 mile mark there is a dip/valley where the road goes down a pretty steep incline and crosses a big culvert and goes back up a steep incline on the other side. It is perfectly straight so the trucks have zero trouble pulling the grade even on snow pack up at a fairly good speed.
So right before evening chores I started the snow blower tractor and went over to blow the road out and clean around the bin. It is about six miles over there. So I took all the chains off and just took the rear ones with me. I left the front chains at home. I chained the rear tires after I got to the road. I made the first pass without any issue at all the snow was soft enought that it blew real well. There where deep drifts in places maybe 4-5 feet tall. The only issue is that there is a layer of ice right on the gravel. It is real slick.
I was about half way down the steepest part on the second pass when I had the key way shear off the right rear wheel wedge. The tractor took off free wheeling. I hit the differential lock but then the one rear wheel would not hold the tractor. If I left the snow blower down there was not enough rear weight for the one tire to bite and hold. If I lifted the blower then the left rear tire would hold but the front end was light enough that the tractor wanted to twist around side ways in the road. Remember this happening while the tractor is rolling down hill with a narrow culvert coming up that has pretty steep drop offs on each side. I finally got the tractor straight and just kicked it into neutral an let it roll. I left the blower down to drag and just steered the tractor straight through the culvert. When I got started up the other side then there was enough weight on the front end for the MFWD to help the one tire push the tractor up the hill. When I got to a flat spot I got out to see what had happened. The wedge had sheared the key off smooth. So the axle was just spinning in the wedges.
I called my youngest son and he got a spare wedge I happened to have and brought the tools needed for the repair. I just pulled the tractor to where the broken wedge was on the top. We where able to remove the bolts and broken wedge without even having to jack the tractor up. I finished clearing the road and barn yard. On the way home I stopped and tightened the "new" wedge several times until I was not able to gain anything the last two times.
I have a local guy that will spread some rock chips on the road tomorrow before we take the trucks back the road.
I will admit that my heart was beating pretty fast for a few moments. All I could think of was going down one of those drop offs. It would have been a wild ride!!!!
This makes me wonder about guys I see with 8-10 ft. blowers on smaller tractors. I have a 10 ft Red Devil blower that is a mid range blower. It is not a real light one but it is not as heavy as some I see. I am running it on a JD 4450 MFWD with good tires all the way around and had the rear chains on when this happened. I will make sure and have the front tire chains on before I use it on any more steep roads/drives. Maybe put a few more of the front weights on too. I had ten on but the rack will hold twenty.
Well I guess all is well and it did not take fifteen minutes to fix it. The wife may have a harder time with my laundry than the repair was. LMAO
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