[farmershort]

As per subject...


I am lucky enough to be able to borrow a tractor from a neighbour. He's a gentleman farmer now, but the big sheep farmer of the area also uses this tractor, and he bought the loader and other bits of kit. So a very shared affair.

Having waited since about October to do a tractor job which coincided with frozen ground, a weekend, and us being available... I promptly borrowed the tractor and grab on Saturday . About 2 hours in, the hydraulics had gone, and I was flummoxed. A bit of looking around, and eventually (about an hour later) I notice the black lake which has formed under the cab... all of the hydraulic fluid!!! The big main hose from the back axle to the loader plumbing block had failed at the crimp joint.

So... tail between legs... let the sheep farmer chap know. He very generously insisted that he'd get it fixed on Monday,  as I'd only recently had to fork out for a brand new front tyre for this tractor, having driven over some buried angle iron.

So.. tractor is up and working again today, so I thought I would grab it after a cheeky early finish at work... an hour of buggering around later, I give up! I just couldn't get the 2nd grab hose attached to the coupler on the loader. I stopped the engine, I wiggled the stick to take the pressure out... and I then resorted to hitting it with a giant spanner... nothing. Tractor is now back in the shed, and I have wasted the last daylight hours before the rain starts again...


Urgh.


I hate tractors.

I think it's a MF 4245 if anyone wanted to know.

[waterbuffalofarmer]

This is why it's best to get a tractor yourself. We had to get a newish one 2 yrs ago, ok it's 12 yrs old so not exactly new lol. We borrowed from the bank and are paying it back gradually. Might it not be possible to do that? Ours is a case, I think? Not sure. I do agree though tractors can be rather annoying... That's why I get my brother's to do it for me  

[farmershort]

This is why it's best to get a tractor yourself. We had to get a newish one 2 yrs ago, ok it's 12 yrs old so not exactly new lol. We borrowed from the bank and are paying it back gradually. Might it not be possible to do that? Ours is a case, I think? Not sure. I do agree though tractors can be rather annoying... That's why I get my brother's to do it for me  

We will get our own eventually, but it's pretty low down the list. We only really need a tractor for correcting errors, or substituting for human effort. We stupidly bailed the whole of our land the day after we moved in (got a contractor lined up at exchange). This meant we ended up with about 500 bales which we just couldn't bring in a store... we were broken. They needed picking up with a silage grab before the growing season gets going. Soooooo... without that daft initial mistake, we wouldn't have needed it for this job.

There were a few sticks to collect up too, from hedge clearing.

[lars64]

Too late to help you, but the hose was probably under pressure. It happens sometimes, usually when you're messing about with hoses and a piston somewhere gets compressed. If it's a quick connect, get something like a drip tray and bang the end of the quick connector down into that (obviously on a hard surface). That triggers the valve and out will spurt some fluid. That will ease off the pressure and you can connect the hose back up again.