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Driver injured in Cass Co. tractor crash, fire

Geo-TH,In

Geo-TH,In

Well-known Member
The tractor driver is lucky to be alive.

I have 2 old tractors. 1950 farmall and 1953 ford.

We may want to remind ourselves these old tractors can be death machines. NO ROP NO SEAT BELTS.
Farmall flipped.
 
> Martin says the tractor gained speed coming down a hill approaching a sharp curve.

You don't suppose he popped it out of gear to pick up some speed coming down the hill? And of course, using brakes at speed on most tractors is risky, as one side is likely to grab before the other.
 
Mark.
If I push in on the clutch when going down a small downhill into the gravel pit, gravity will greatly increase my speed.

You may be right, the engine would limit your speed.

My point for posting this is to remind everyone, yesterday's tractors can be death machines, be careful.

It seems too many times on our local news, an old fart gets killed using his antique tractor...

Have a safe and happy new year y'all(s)
 
Good reminder. Just friday a fellow wrecked his really nice drag strip car IN A FUNERAL PROCESSION. (Several nice hot rods in this procession honoring a local car guy) Got on it a bit hard around a corner and smacked a big tree hard. Id say about 6-8k worth of damage, fromt end was toast. But yes i bet these old tractors can get dangerous quick.


(quoted from post at 07:19:17 12/26/21) Mark.
If I push in on the clutch when going down a small downhill into the gravel pit, gravity will greatly increase my speed.

You may be right, the engine would limit your speed.

My point for posting this is to remind everyone, yesterday's tractors can be death machines, be careful.

It seems too many times on our local news, an old fart gets killed using his antique tractor...

Have a safe and happy new year y'all(s)
Click to expand...
 
We may want to remind ourselves these old tractors can be death machines. NO ROP NO SEAT BELTS.

George when I was a used tractor dealer I found many that had major safety problems which I tried my best to repair before putting them on the market MANY OF WHICH WERE FAULTY BRAKES which could often be repaired and/or adjusted quite easily.

Good reminder

Best wishes good neighbor

John T
 

I was talking to a friend last night he has a friend that is going to skid logs with a Farmall 140 SHOCK its a death machine for that job...
 
> If I push in on the clutch when going down a small downhill into the gravel pit, gravity will greatly increase my speed.

And when you re-engage the clutch, one or both rear wheels can slip, causing a skid.

In road gear, most older tractors won't go much over 20 mph unloaded, even downhill. But out of gear, they can fly. It takes a pretty sharp curve to lose control at 25 mph. Get that tractor up to 35 mph, though, and it becomes much more difficult to control.

> My point for posting this is to remind everyone, yesterday's tractors can be death machines, be careful.

That operator was pretty lucky. A rollover in a non-ROPS tractor is usually bad news.
 
My old tractors are lucky to go over 12 mph ford, 10 mph farmall. The engine will limit top speed.
Just be CAREFUL. Have a safe and happy New Year.
 
Or, as that tractor is an IH almost certainly equipped with a TA, maybe the TA was in low or he was unfamiliar with it and shifted it to low going down the hill?
 
> Or, as that tractor is an IH almost certainly equipped with a TA, maybe the TA was in low or he was unfamiliar with it and shifted it to low going down the hill?

I'm not familiar with the Torque Amplifier feature on IH tractors. What would be the consequence of trying to downshift on a downhill grade?
 
Mark, on the older TAs like MTA, 340-560-656, the TA free wheels downhill when pulled back to lo. In high, no problem. It wasn't until the 706-806, 56 series, and newer, that the TA would hold back in Lo.
 
I had a friend 74 years old lived on the same farm for ever, he got killed a year and half ago, 10 miles from home, on a steep hill too,i checked the tractor out, not sure what happened to this day, but his, had a hand clutch, so he might of put that in neutral [a 170 Allis] but the 4 speed was still in gear, but he got crushed, less chance to jump free!
 
Bill when I was 15 I was hauling a wagon load of square bales to the barn. Headed down hill in 5th gear when the steering wheel all of a sudden went round and round. Only had one good brake on the left side front wheels just a wobbling. The half moon key sheared on the U joint just under the hood. What a ride! Lol
 
I can't remember if it was high or low but my Farmall 504 would free wheel going down hill, it had a torque amplifier on it. Maybe what happened.
 
Those older AC tractors are known for jumping out of gears after many hours of use when going down hill. Gears grinders to start with and that has to contribute to the issue of popping out of gear.
 
When I think back I can come up with nine tractor rollovers that I know of that happened in my area in my lifetime. All of them on flat land. Three of the drivers did not make it out alive. One that did not make it was a classmate and friend of mine. Another was a neighbor a mile and a half away. I was involved with helping pull the driver out from under one of those tractors. I was fifteen at the time and scared so bad I had to sit down. The driver was alive at the time but passed away that night. All of these tractors except for one had a narrow front. Two had loaders. The wide front tractor that rolled had tie rod ends so badly worn the owner tied them up with baling wire. The baling wire let go on one tie rod and it dropped out while he was going down the road in high gear. He lived but had a bunch of broken ribs.

No, make that ten tractors. Number ten was a Deere 4640 with a cab. The driver blacked out and the tractor ended up in the ditch. He was bruised up from rattling around in the cab when the tractor went over.
 
BTDT Old tractors weren't designed for high speed or highway travel. They bounce and wobble too much. I was following a tractor with a front end loader several weeks ago. Anytime he got over 15 mph his front end was bouncing so bad he couldn't hold it. I stayed back because he kept trying and I knew that rops wouldn't save him.
 
I am aware of that, but when the tractor was delivered, back, to his farm, i spoke the the wrecker guy and i asked him did u mess with the tranny he said no,and it was in gear yet, so like i said i am not sure what happened,i guess we will never know, he was pulling a IHC scout,which maybe weighed 4,000.lbs, so if that pushed him but that ended in the south ditch wheels down, and the 170, landed wheels up, in the north ditch!
 
Good evening, all: Interesting thread; I have a Ford 9N that (of course) has a wide front, so should be fairly stable. However, it has a Sherman overdrive, so it can go faster than Ford intended. Using normal high gear, the tractor is ok on blacktop road near me; BUT using high gear in overdrive, full throttle is way too fast for me!!

BTW, in my youth, I drove/rode a friend's Vincent Black Shadow motor cycle well over 100 mph, doing that did not scare me. A few years ago, my 9N DID Scare me!!

Just my own humble opinion...

Dennis M in W. Tenn.

This post was edited by DMartin9N-2N on 12/26/2021 at 04:36 pm.
 
Almost all of the tractors out there were safe when the steering was new and tight. It doesn't take long for the tight steering to loosen up though. A couple years ago I had a NAA with the Sherman overdrive in the shop. The steering was way loose. I didn't drive it with the loose steering but the owner said it was wild. After replacing a bearing and doing some other tightening up I got the steering back to what it was new. Then I took it for a test ride. It drove real nice on gravel at 25+ MPH but those Fords have quick steering anyway so even with tight steering it took good concentration to keep from going astray in a hurry.
 
The old tractors are so much heavier than the tractors made today. I think it would be difficult to make ROPES for the old tractors that would hold.
 
(quoted from post at 06:10:35 12/27/21) > The old tractors are so much heavier than the tractors made today. I think it would be difficult to make ROPES for the old tractors that would hold.

That must be why they never put ROPS on a D9 Cat. Oh, wait...
D9 comes with ROPS as standard equipment
Click to expand...

Yep, they also have roll over cabs that have it built in. When we would get a new 992D or 992G loader in to assemble on the field, the rops was one of parts we had to install. My service truck had a 10,000 lb. capacity crane, and at the height and angle of the boom, it was all it could handle to lift it up and set it in place. Those loaders weighed 210,000 lbs.
 
(quoted from post at 08:10:35 12/27/21) > The old tractors are so much heavier than the tractors made today. I think it would be difficult to make ROPES for the old tractors that would hold.

That must be why they never put ROPS on a D9 Cat. Oh, wait...
D9 comes with ROPS as standard equipment
Click to expand...

There is an enormous difference between a design like that Cat that is engineered from day one to have an effective ROPS and the home made or even after market ROPS we see out there. Bolting a hunk of 3/16" 2x3 rectangular tubing to an axle is more of a suggestion of a ROPS than an actual ROPS.

As with so many other things these days, I think we put far too much faith in safety gear and no where near enough in thinking ahead.
 
> There is an enormous difference between a design like that Cat that is engineered from day one to have an effective ROPS and the home made or even after market ROPS we see out there. Bolting a hunk of 3/16 2x3 rectangular tubing to an axle is more of a suggestion of a ROPS than an actual ROPS.
As with so many other things these days, I think we put far too much faith in safety gear and no where near enough in thinking ahead.

Yes, Bret, I agree. But the claim was that it isn't feasible to put a ROPS on an old tractor because they are 'much heavier' than modern tractors. It's not even true that new tractors are lighter than older ones, and even if it was true that wouldn't prevent you from designing a functional ROPS. Yes, bolting onto structures such as axle housings that were never intended to support a ROPS is problematic, but it doesn't mean you can't have ROPS on an old tractor.
 
(quoted from post at 18:32:15 12/27/21) Those are quite the bulldozers! I wonder how many axles the lowboy has that they haul them on?
Click to expand...

We hauled our D9N's and D8L's on a 5 axle lowboy, but you can haul them on a 4 axle if the 5th wheel on the pull tractor can be moved to the right spot.
 
Just thinning the herd. Darwin is at it again. Some fools will never learn. I only know of one rollover of a tractor in the area and it was dad's WC with a loader moving trusses for the new polebarn at that time. Going slow one front wheel went over a wood chuck hole. We just set it up and going again. Went over easy and slow since he was going slow with it. I don't worry to much about rollovers here but drive accordingly.
 


Google "National ROPS rebate program". Help to retrofit your antique with tested, certified, insurance approved ROPS.
 
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