Lock valves on loader plumbing

Regarding an older tractor-mounted loader:
No lock valves.
All new two-wire hoses & no cast fittings.
Would you use your loader as a man-lift?

Absolutely, We use ours for a work platform whenever we need one. When I was young on the farm we had a Farmall M with a loader and it had a vulnerable fitting that got broke off once, but that was only for the bucket. It was a malleable street L, probably one of the weakest fittings made! I 50 years of occasional use I have never seen one fall so I am not going to start worrying about it now!

yes I used all of my loaders as man lifts from time to time this is my High Reach unit

Not the safest thing a person can do but I have done it many many times over the years when I built some of my buildings. Most of my buildings are made from scrap mobile home frames and they are welded so yep had to have a way to be up high and something big enough to move around a little bit

Nope, not over about 8 ft I won't. Watched a check valve fail on a forklift mast once. We were unloading the forks on the second floor of a warehouse when she let go and dropped 12 feet in near free fall.

Done it many times but with modern loaders. I would say its safer than a ladder.

If you want OSHA's thinking then NO, absolutely not. Remember though, OSHA is also the outfit that wants you to put on a fall prevention device if your over a certain height off the ground. Funny thing is in order to tie off the device properly you need to climb higher than you need to be, untethered, in order to hook up the device that's supposed to be keeping you safe. In other words you need to do something they consider unsafe in order to make yourself safe.....Too they have, for years, fussed about tying off in a scissor lift. Only thing about that is if you fall over the rail on one of those, the force applied to the lift to stop you from hitting the ground will also cause the lift to tip over...Then not only do you hit the ground but you also have the lift land on top of you........Go figure it all out.....I know I can't.

That all said I'd personally have no problem getting up in a loader bucket, lock valve or not. Alot of people fail to understand that if the lock valve isn't plumbed hard to the base of the cylinder than it's basically worthless anyway. Even then there is always the possibility of the valve letting go. Personally I had it happen on the crane on my service truck with a 7000 lb load hanging and the load just started trying to come down. I had to counter it by booming up until I could get the load set down where it wouldn't damage anything. In that case ther valve block was welded to the cylinder and the lock valve was a cartridge style valve, and it just went bad internally. So, regardless of the typoe of valve, all it takes is an Oring blowing out, etc, etc, and the fact that there is a 'lock valve' present means nothing. And,like I said, if it's not hard plumbed then the line between the lock and the cylinder can blow and the load is gonna come down even though the lock valve hasn't released. In this case there's absolutely no difference in a machine with a valve and one without when it comes to the situation we're talking about here.

In the end working out of the bucket is gonna be safer than working off of a ladder, in my opinion anyway. Either way if something happens and the object your standing on falls, your just along for the ride. The only big difference is the bucket will hurt alot more if it lands on you than the ladder will....but either way the ground is gonna hurt the same when you hit it...

I do, usually with a 9 year old at the controls. If I'm feeling safety conscious I'll put the 12 year old at the controls.

dam,..if you go up in that thing you have the right handle "NUTTY"

FWIW
I should've said " JD 48" instead of "older."

Not sure if the 48 is older or modern.
Sure is tough though.
Self-leveling bucket & faster on/off would be nice.

Just spent most of the afternoon on a 16' schaffold chained to a Westendorf WL26 loader. Been doing it for a long time only before the schaffold it was a feed bunk chained to the loader. If a loader hose would blow it would go down in a bit of a hurry but if a bucket hose would blow I'd have to sprout wings fast. Jim

when the company safety personal started requiring us to use harnesses and lanyards years ago ,they said any time we were working with a fall potential of over 4ft we were required to use a harness an lanyard, one draw back was the standard lanyard was 6ft, next was i asked for a demo of of the harness that has 2 straps run between your legs they couldn't explain the lanyard and wouldn't demo the harness,of coarse for what the intended designed was for they did and still do serve that purpose well,just have to deal with the dumb&dumber syndrome is what makes it tough sometimes

I use my loader that way, is it a good idea probably not. There are warnings all over the loader to protect the manufacturer from liability.

We do it all the time. Don't think it will hurt anybody worse falling from a loader bucket than riding a ladder down.

Just don't get out of bed in the morning. You've probably got the same chance of the ceiling falling in on you----

(quoted from post at 23:41:28 02/09/12) We do it all the time. Don't think it will hurt anybody worse falling from a loader bucket than riding a ladder down.

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The last time a rode a ladder down it resulted in a severely dislocated shoulder and a shattered elbow. Three surgeries and 20 months of recuperation and I was back almost as good as before.

I do use my loader as a work platform but I have a couple of angle irons that go over the extended cylinder rams so there is no load on the boom hydraulics. With the bucket rolled back it is over-centered on the pivots so there is no load on the bucket hydraulics either.