Thread: An interesting afternoon!

Originally Posted by vnx205

Some of the soil around Yass was something like that. The surface was reasonably firm, but under that it was the consistency of porridge.
Years ago I pulled off the side of the road with the Series III with a light box trailer behind to load a bit of firewood. As I drove forward, the surface was barely marked. I backed up a bit to make it easier to avoid a small sapling and once again, the tyres barely left a wheel rut.
As I drove forward, I was crossing some tyre tracks for the third time. I went through the top layer and immediately sank to the diffs. A small tractor was all that was needed to solve the problem.

I saw a similar soil profile on my property on the Boorowa Road. There had been some rain so for a couple of weeks an earth moving contractor tested the soil to see if he could bring his machinery in. He used a length of steel rod which he forced down into the dirt. The first one or two hundred mm took quite a bit of effort, but below that he could push the rod down with no effort at all.

Some soil looks boggy and easily leaves footprints. That soil offered no clue to what would happen if you broke through the surface.

Re some of the soil around Yass, reminds me of a Victorian harvesting contractor I knew who was one of those who used to travel a fair bit chasing the wheat harvest. Also in late autumn and sometimes into winter did a fair bit of rice in southern NSW. There was one wheat harvest in the 1980's when after finishing elsewhere, he took on a job of something like 1,000 acres of wheat in Yass area that others had not had much success at trying to harvest. Apparently even headers with dual wheels on the front and hydrostatic drive on steering wheels on the back. They would regularly break through the dry hard surface crust into the slop underneath. He was successful using tracks instead of the normal front wheels. The pressure exerted on the ground by tracks is relatively light and spread fairly evenly over a much larger area than any tyre, which has the problem of weight largely being just under the axle. Gather was not a very pleasant job for operators driving header on tracks for long periods on hard ground with no cushioning effect that tyres have and also vibration. Normally tracks are only used on headers when they cannot keep going in very wet conditions with the usual rice tyres. These have lugs like tractor tyres but much longer and further apart. Will still work in conditions worse than where normal tractor treads clog with mud and spin, but rough and high wear rates on hard ground and especially on roads.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

My Landy is not there - I didn't get bogged in it, only in the tractor.

Getting an excavator or similar in would be expensive and likely to cause even more damage - it is about 20km from the bitumen, and the unsealed road is certainly not suitable for anything heavier than a light four wheel drive at the moment.

Oh! And to top the day off, as the sun set, a dust storm arrived!

The locusts won't be far behind then

Regards,
Tote

Sticky situation.
How about a load of gravel in the wheel ruts?
Otherwise, might be waiting for a drought.

Reminds me of the time a power company got it's line maintenance truck bogged in the BIL's front paddock near Lismore, which is that sticky black pug, like rubber.
So they brought in a 2nd truck to pull it out, but it also got bogged.
Then they hired a local bulldozer to come to the rescue, but that meant demolishing a section of the BIL's goat-proof front fence.
So, the front paddock looked a real mess by the time they finished. He got a new section of fence though.

We went up to the Southern Highlands today, stuck in a paddock south of Goulburn was a Ford 5000 down to its axles. The Patrol was still in the middle of the paddock heading in to Canberra on Friday as well.
It's still very wet out at the farm, we had another 30mm in the last week

Regards,
Tote

Originally Posted by Gordie

seems like a good thread to show off our tractors! Before and afters of my recent refurb.....

Is the Dog's name Blue?

Originally Posted by 4bee

Is the Dog's name Blue?

Wanted to call him Henry, but the mrs wouldn't have it.

Originally Posted by Gordie

Wanted to call him Henry, but the mrs wouldn't have it.

If the dog was on her not to have list, why should she want to be called Henry?


http://Related names: Heinrich, Heinz, Hinrich, Hinn... Meaning: Home ruler; Ruler of (the) home; Ruler


It is not like you didn't have options.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Sticky situation.
How about a load of gravel in the wheel ruts?
Otherwise, might be waiting for a drought.

Reminds me of the time a power company got it's line maintenance truck bogged in the BIL's front paddock near Lismore, which is that sticky black pug, like rubber.
So they brought in a 2nd truck to pull it out, but it also got bogged.
Then they hired a local bulldozer to come to the rescue, but that meant demolishing a section of the BIL's goat-proof front fence.
So, the front paddock looked a real mess by the time they finished. He got a new section of fence though.

Best recovery I've seen was in Darwin, a D9 bulldozer was almost buried on a beach out of town [ can't remember the name] the RAEME WO2 " Spike " took the wrecker down and after a lot of effort was able to get this 'dozer out. They called him 'Spike " because he carried a steel spike which he dropped into the ground , and by how far into the ground it went, determined the method of recovery. He was a bit of a legend .