Anybody got a spare 420 crawler I can borrow?

[Ray III]

So I can pull this one out.



I posted the whole story over here:

http://forums.corral.net/forums/showthr ... ?t=1216224

As you can tell, those guys are a lively bunch.

[JD440ICD2006]

We used to get tractors stuck thinking that they would overcome about any situation.
I have never tried this on a crawler, but, we would chain wooden poles (green) across the rear tires. The operator must have a very sensitive clutch foot because one slip and it gets dangerous in a hurry.
I am thinking that you could try that with the crawler. The poles are going to be wider than the tracks and give some traction all the way across instead of just on the grousers. It will look like cross ties on the railroad. It would work better in reverse, if you can back it up.
When the first pole gets to the front, just take it off and add it to the rear.

With lots of care it may be worth a try.

[Lavoy]

Not that it helps you situation any, but been there done that one a couple times, not as much water, but we did it with an 82-40 Terex. If you think a 420 is a boat anchor, try 70,000lbs sitting deeper than you are there.
So, few different things to try. If the dozer will lift the front end of the crawler up, you need the get the belly off the mud and break the suction. Get planks, boards, logs, rocks or whatever you have available. Lift the front of the crawler up with the blade, and start putting the aforementioned pieces under the tracks. Let the front end down, it will push the stuff down in the mud. Lift the front end up and do it all over again. Lift and repeat, lift and repeat until you at least get the old girl up out of the mud.
Your chain idea is a good one, but be careful, buddy of mine blew a final and all the internals all to hell doing that. He was in a situation as bad as you with a scraper hooked on to boot. He did not get the belly off the mud and break the suction, but he did break the final and everything associated with it.
Chuck's idea is a great old catskinner trick. It is slow, and a total pain in the ass, but might be your only option unless you have another crawler handy. I would still get the old girl up out of the mud slightly. Get a good, not rotten, 6 X 6 or log, whatever you have. Start at that back of the crawler by the drawbar. Lay the beam across the back of the tracks and find a way to tie it to the pads on both sides. You might be able to wrap a chain around the beam and loop it so it chokers and you can hook one hook to a track pad on each side. If necessary, you might have to put a binder in the middle to tension it. Another one that works, probably better, but slower to do is a couple short sections of cable one on each end of the beam. Wrap the cable around the beam and a pad, and clamp it. Put the crawler in reverse, and you will be able to back up about 8'. Remove the beam, move it to the rear, same song, second verse. It sucks, will be slow, and a pain in the ass, but you need to get it out of the mud somehow.
Good luck.
Lavoy

[pop pop]

YEEEEDOGGIE!!! what was ya doing , taking the shortcut to the mailbox?
find some scabby old car tires and slip the edges right into the spaces on the pads,, the rubber gives when it has too and if you tear one off, stick on another,,, you'll have the best paddle-wheeler in the county... don't forget to invite all your friends and neighbors,, bring some beer, have a cook-out,,, somebody's liable to come up with the stupidest idea you've ever heard and then you can post it to us ..... good luck ray.

[gus]

Any chance there's a big backhoe or, better yet, excavator around?? Removal of some of that slop would make life easier and may be give a tug too??

I had an excavator put a 40 with a light blade (dead one, one track off) on and off of a trailor for me and put it where I wanted it. Man did that take the work out of it.

[Lu47Dan]

Ray
+1 on the long poles, we got a Allis HD-5 bucket loader out with poles, when the owners 100Hp New Holland would not budge it.
We could not get anything to stay under the bucket to get the front end up on the poles, so we started working on get the poles under the rear end. Once we got the first pole under the tracks, then the second one went in easier. It took two days and thirty small maple trees to get it out of the mud hole. This mud hole was in the middle of a recently cleared field.
Not fun, but it had to be done.
Good Luck getting it out.
Dan.

[stmftr395]

Great post Ray. More than one way to skin a cat! Mark

[Rex]

Ray

Is it time to consider explosives yet? A littlle would break the suction A lot would drain the field!
Just my 2 cents

Rex

[JD440ICD2006]

With a lot of explosives, just need a good strong net set up to catch the 420C as she comes back down to Earth.

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

One farm I worked on as a teenager had a pair of 3010 crawlers that they used only to unstick tractors, combines and semi grain trucks when they got stuck. The farm was 15,000 acres of corn and raised Angus and was in the flatland between two ridges, so there was plenty of opportunity to get things stuck both in the Spring and the Fall.

I was the only teenager in the whole motley crew of hired teenagers that was allowed to operate a crawler. Probably because I was the son of the local machinist and the nephew of the guy that owned the Deere dealership. In other words, the only farm kid around that had been taught the ins and outs of running a crawler.

They would easily unstick much larger stuck wheel tractors, of course. We used long chains to keep the tracks out of the soft stuff and usually managed to pull out the tractors with their implements still attached.

My personal mantra is that to unstick a stuck crawler, one needs a bigger crawler!

So, in this case, I think you need to find a spare 350, not a spare 420!

later!

Stan

[pop pop]

yaa, thats it!!
get that guy from the red-green show,
edgar montrose,,

'with a couple of well-placed sticks of dynamite,,"
i'll bet he could put it back in your shed ,,,,,,,

[Tiny Crawler]

I bet that was an interesting dinner conversation that night,

Wife, What yuns been doing?
Stuck, Oh Just mucking out that side pasture
Wife, why you sitten at the table looken like you lost a your first born? there's still a lot of day light?
Stuck,well
Wife, WELL WHAT!!
Stuck, you know I really enjoy that crawler and
Wife, and WHAT!!

I think we all get the lecture more than we realize it

Boy that brought back memories, I buried a D3 once upon a time on a job site among other adventures, as soon as it started sinking we started putting logs under the tracks to get it out and it kept going down and it was a small patch wet stuff, you know how you keep telling yourself "I can get it out of here" and it just doesn't happen, you keep trying thinking you will out smart it,, finally turned tail and got the 977 to pull it out.

Earned a lot of new nick names that summer.

Keep them crawlin,

tiny.

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

When I was a kid, and the family still had that Deere dealership, we had a very good customer.

He dug ponds. Used a JD450 most of the time. Actually, he used four of them.

Two were on the job site, one was back at his shop and, usually, one was at our shop being cleaned out.

His usual method was to wait for the dry season and start digging with one 450. The second was on on-site spare, but was there mostly to pull the first one out when it got stuck.

He always had chains attached to the drawbars, so when #1 started going down, he'd get off and pull the chain behind him. Then, he could get #2 and drive it part way and hook the chains together and pull #1 back out.

If he was lucky, #1 wouldn't sink too far and he could go back to using it once it was out of the soft stuff. If he was unlucky, #1 would sink to the top of the hood in water that welled up as the machine went down. That's when he'd haul #1 to our place, then go to his place and get #3.

If he managed to time this right, we'd have #4 done and in the yard waiting for #1 to show up. Then, he could pull #4 to the jobsite and skip going home for #3.

One time, he had two in the shop in quick succession, then brought in #3 before we had #1 ready. He gave up trying to dig that particular pond at that time. Heck, he only had one machine left, and it surely would be sunk since he'd already done the first three.

Better wait on that one for a while!

I always thought he should have had some other pond digging scheme, like a trackhoe and not a dozer, but we all know you work with what you have.

He was a good customer, although I never understood how he made any money digging those ponds when his machines kept having to come into the shop to get the water out of where the oil should be.....

later!

Stan

[Ray III]

Chaining logs across the tracks was a good idea. It was a good thing there was a tree nearby capable of pulling the thing or things would have been a bit more unpleasant.

I got the idea thinking about one trick mentioned here, where if you get hung up on a tree stump you can put a chain across the tracks to pull the machine off. Obviously that wouldn't work in the muck, but if you tied the chains remotely to a tree/stump, it's the same idea.

Of course I was careful to think about each movement and engage the clutch very slowly.

Putting planks or something the belly can slide on underneath was something else that might have worked if I gave up before it sank too far... I did lift the front and was thinking about poking rocks under the tracks. Getting materials out there was half the problem though.

The ironic thing is, I pulled a 4440 with a full lime spreader out of the mud with the thing a week before. Usually we fetch the 4240 or 4000, but my uncle was just walking back as I came along to do some dirt work on a field road, so since it was out there I gave it a try. Chained up and started pulling in 1st, it was rather unhappy with the load but did not slip at all. I looked behind me and the dual wheels of the 4440 sank a foot into the ground where I had just been...

I didn't know they made a 3010 crawler. That must have been a big bastard.

[cinok]

May I suggest
http://www.tttowing.com/
One more think you can try it work it a few times for me. If you can break suction by lifting the front with the blade anf you have a something to chain to a heavy chains is to hook the chain to the inside of the track one on each side and use the track as winch spool. as you move the tracks forward you will be pulled backwards.