kshansen
Senior Member
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2012
- Messages
- 11,251
- Location
- Central New York, USA
- Occupation
- Retired Mechanic in Stone Quarry
I know I probably posted this some where on this forum before but Junkyard's story reminded me of one from way back.
Company was just starting to get serious oil sampling and they decided to have one person go to each plant and draw samples from everything to be sure they were all taken right. This day I was to hit two or three quarries/gravel bed around this part of the state. The last place for the day was a small gravel bed with a couple front end loaders and small Cat scraper a old 619. Got there a bit before quitting time and was almost done taking the samples. Boss asked if I needed help, "Nah, just pulling two more and I'll be gone!" He said "Swing gate shut and lock it when you leave." Got the last sample from the 619 and jumped in truck to leave, pulled around next to the stock pile and that's when I learned that nice smooth round gravel stone can be as bad as sloppy mud. Truck sank right in to rear axle. No problem right? Loaders and the scraper there to pull it out! Well two problems, they lock keys in office at night and at that time I did not have any Cat keys in the truck! Oh, and this was long before there were cell phones and this place was remote enough it probably would not have had a signal anyhow. After looking over the situation a bit I saw that the disconnect switch in the 619 was right near the seat of the machine, could reach it with no problem. I then shorted out the two terminals with an old bolt and was able to also reach the heat/start switch at the same time. Just needed to run the 619 around facing the front of the truck and hooked up a chain, yea at least I had that much, back it up and popped the truck up on to solid footing and I was free to go.
Company was just starting to get serious oil sampling and they decided to have one person go to each plant and draw samples from everything to be sure they were all taken right. This day I was to hit two or three quarries/gravel bed around this part of the state. The last place for the day was a small gravel bed with a couple front end loaders and small Cat scraper a old 619. Got there a bit before quitting time and was almost done taking the samples. Boss asked if I needed help, "Nah, just pulling two more and I'll be gone!" He said "Swing gate shut and lock it when you leave." Got the last sample from the 619 and jumped in truck to leave, pulled around next to the stock pile and that's when I learned that nice smooth round gravel stone can be as bad as sloppy mud. Truck sank right in to rear axle. No problem right? Loaders and the scraper there to pull it out! Well two problems, they lock keys in office at night and at that time I did not have any Cat keys in the truck! Oh, and this was long before there were cell phones and this place was remote enough it probably would not have had a signal anyhow. After looking over the situation a bit I saw that the disconnect switch in the 619 was right near the seat of the machine, could reach it with no problem. I then shorted out the two terminals with an old bolt and was able to also reach the heat/start switch at the same time. Just needed to run the 619 around facing the front of the truck and hooked up a chain, yea at least I had that much, back it up and popped the truck up on to solid footing and I was free to go.