OT, but what the heck. Churak, skip to the next one, as this is gonna be an essay. <g>
I was asked what the back-story was on the "stuck" and "bermuda" pictures.
I've got a sizable lake (was beautiful when it was full) on my property. Maybe about 4 or 5 acres. With great inflow (except during droughts like the current one we're having). I had a 4-inch pipe running through the dam that I was planning to use for hydro-electric power generation for my workshop, which is fairly close to the lake, but even with the 4-inch pipe always open, the dam got breached a couple of times last year, so I decided to raise the dam 8 feet and bury much bigger pipe (thinking a pair of 8-inch ones), which would dramatically increase both the volume and surface area of the lake, while also giving me a lot more energy to harness to make electricity.
So I dug out a bit of a trench in the dam then let the water do the rest of the work.
There're still pockets of water and the soil that used to be underwater ("muck") is really solid in most places, but not far below the surface, it's really wet and soft. Think chocolate pudding with a bit of a skin on top.
I'd managed to dig out about 30 feet of 6-foot wide channel down to the rock pretty far back from the dam, but that wasn't working out as a good way to dry out the muck. I was having to back up further and further on each bucket-load and was running out of places to dump it. And the channel was quickly filling with water that the muck was releasing. The water's probably about 4 feet deep now.
So I decided to get over to the dam and work my way back to where the original channel is.
Spent about half a day scraping off weeds so the sun could bake the soil better. Then went to the dam and started slowly scraping there to start digging down.
First bucket-full I got, when I lift it, the front of the machine immediately broke through the dry surface and deeply into the muck.
This kind of stuff happens all the time with these machines and the routine to get them unstuck is pretty standard. Drop the load of dirt, then while slowly backing up, using the front bucket to push yourself back.
This wasn't working. The front bucket couldn't get a grip on solid enough soil to do any good. Like pushing on a rope.
So I resorted to the extreme measure of working the front bucket and the rear one at the same time, pushing and pulling respectively. That wasn't working either.
At this point, the machine still started and ran well as it wasn't buried deep enough for movement to start breaking wires.
I wasn't too far from the rocky hill I often use to get down to the lake, so I figured I'd just rotate the machine 90 degrees and work my way slowly toward the "shore" where I was sure to get good grip. This is also a common maneuver, though there's a lot of pucker-factor to it. You push down onto the ground with the rear bucket until you've lifted the rear tires off the ground, then swing the bucket so the machine basically pivots around using the front tires as the axis.
Since my back tires were already sunk to the axles (the front ones were immediately), it required lifting the machine WAY up, which is scary because when you turn it with the bucket, it feels like the slightest breeze will roll the machine over onto its side.
Anyway, got it turned around 90 degrees and was able to make quite a bit of progress toward the rocky shore, but couldn't quite get on it will enough to back up the hill. Since I was partway up the hill, I figured I'd just put it in second gear and get a running start down the hill and back onto drier soil.
No joy.
The front immediately sunk in so deep that the radiator fan was in the water and flinging the stuff everywhere.
So I decided to turn the machine another 90 degrees because I knew the dam was extremely solid and I could push against it with the rear bucket.
Turned the machine again, reached out to push against the dam, and discovered I was about 2 feet away from reaching it.
Now I was well and truly stuck. The machine was high-centered so much that if I extended the rear bucket, the back of the machine would drop so much that pudding-like mud would pour into the open back window (better that than breaking the windows), and if I retracted the bucket, the machine would tip forward and the radiator fan would fling muddy water all over everything.
When the machine started sinking on its own, I decided maybe that'd be a good time to analyze the situation from OUTSIDE the cab. It's a good thing I had the side windows open because it was buried too deep for the doors to open and even the windows might not have opened at that point. They definitely wouldn't have prior to yesterday.
Over the days, the hole the machine had dug out for itself started filling with water, as did the interior of the machine. I think it was my 2nd or 3rd day of trying to extricate it that most of the wiring down low (connected at the starter) broke. Which made things more challenging because with the batteries and wiring under highly-conductive muck, it didn't take long to drain the batteries, so I've got a marine battery, charger, and generator down there right now and until yesterday had to work blind to connect the jumper cables under about a foot of water. And a few days ago, the in-cab electrical gave up the ghost after being underwater for so long. Most of the water has now been drained (thanks to the excavator), but it's completely unresponsive to the ignition switch.
Had I figured out yesterday, while the excavator was still there, how to get it started, the machine would probably be sitting up by the workshop right now and I'd be out there for hours power-washing it.
The rear boom with its heavy 3-foot bucket was sitting on the ground and making for a lot more work for the excavator when it tried to pull it. Had it been off the ground, I think it would've been comparatively easy. He even tried to lift the bucket and boom into the locked position, but because of all the mud, it refused to lock.
After he left, I finally figured that if I ran a jumper wire to the fuel injector pump and applied juice to the solenoid, it'd start and run, which it did. And I got the bucket into a semi-locked position so it's off the ground and by not being extended, isn't dramatically adding to the effective rear weight of the machine.
The dumptruck is a separate story as is the 963.
I drove the dumptruck own there and found it was staying on top of the dry soil pretty nicely, so hooked up a chain, put the backhoe in gear with the throttle open just enough to turn the tires a bit, then tried to pull it with the dumptruck. The truck couldn't get enough grip, so I drove it back to the house.
Later I decided to try again with the truck, but from a different location. I misjudged while I was backing it up (the mirrors had gotten folded in by the trees I ran it through) and I simply backed it off into an area that was still very wet and it was immediately stuck.
The 963 actually managed to pull the backhoe a foot or so forward, but the owner accidentally killed the engine, and the starter wouldn't work.
He returned Friday with a new starter and got the machine running, and immediately got it stuck. They called their friend with the excavator and after quite a bit of work, got that machine out, then he pushing on the rear gate of the dumptruck and got it out. Actually, he started pushing while I was still waiting for the air pressure to come up enough to release the brakes, and he was moving it like it was a little Tonka toy. Impressive machine!
Once we got the 963 and dumptruck out (the 963 ended up having to push the dumptruck up the last half of the hill leaving the lake), he spent hours digging out the mud around the backhoe and trying to move it, then dug a big ramp down toward it and found solid rock, but apparently the rock dropped off pretty dramatically and he was stuck for a while but managed to get unstuck.
So now I'm just having to sit on my hands until the local equipment rental companies approves my credit and arranges a truck to deliver the excavator I'll be renting for a month. It's a bit bigger than the one that was here yesterday and the owner told me that the one I'm renting shouldn't have much trouble yanking my backhoe out, running or not.
