A little story about my day today…….

I also posted this over at Trafficblognet.com But after this afternoon, one post is enough!

All went well until I was to check out a tractor with no hydraulics. I started the tractor and the loader and lift arms worked fine. Hmmmm, must be the wrong tractor, so I went back in the shop and checked. Yup! The right one! Driving it into the shop I found nothing wrong. I don’t like jobs where I can’t recreate the problem….. pretty hard to fix.

I decided to service the transmission which is where the hydraulic system oil comes from. checking the oil I found it very low, not even on the dipstick, Not a big deal usually because that means it is about 2 gallons low out of 8 or above on most tractor of this size.  There is an internal transmission screen that sometime doesn’t get checked because you have to drain the system to check it. I decided to go there, I figured that would tell me the level of the oil, let me know of other problems if the screen was dirty and give me a head start if I needed to change the oil.

I drained the system by pulling the big pug that holds the screen in place, this flushes out any impurities as I pull the screen. (I kept getting dirt in my eyes every time I moved something under there so I went and put on my safety glasses to hopefully keep at least the big chunks out)

Only 2 gallons! There is my problem! Not enough oil to maintain hydraulic functions if not on level ground. And where the tractor came from I don’t think there is a level spot!

But I saw no major leaks? Where is the oil going? Well, I guess I will have to put the plugs back in  and fill it up so I can run it some more to find the leaks. Not looking forward to having to pull the oil back out if the leak is low in the system, its late in the day and I want to get this job out………..

HA! The transmission case is wet with oil above the screen plug I had removed! There is a vale bolted to the transmission case with o-rings between there. I bet an o-ring blew! I went to removing parts that were in the way or removing this valve, one such item was a quick coupler for the loader, no problem, I uncoupled it and folded the attached hose up over the footrest and laid the coupler there.

Removed the valve and sure enough an o-ring was missing. I replaced both o-rings and climbed under the tractor on my creeper to reinstall the valve.

CRACK!!!!!

The quick couple (female, the biggest one!) connected to the hydraulic hose with a cast iron 90% elbow hit me just below the right eye!

I saw a flash of light and felt a sharp pain in my cheek radiating down through my teeth. I am a mechanic so muttered a few short words, felt for blood (there was none) and went back to work installing the valve. I had the valve on and only one more fitting to attach when I noticed I couldn’t see very well out of my right eye and it felt kinda funny. I reached up and felt the egg under my eye, and yes it was the size of a large chicken egg……. time to stop working you dummy!

I got up….. quickly sat back down…… lol

Fellow workers noticed I was having a problem and came to my rescue. I was ushered over to the break area and sat down. I was offered an ice cold bottle of water to hold on my eye.

The swelling went down to a very puffy eye size and the lightheadedness subsided.

I got the rest of the day off (1/2 an hour lol) stopped at the hospital on the way home (right next to my house) and for some reason still got home early. 

Good news is my eye is OK I will have a nice shiner for a while though.

I am glad I took the time to put on my safety glasses, if the coupler had directly hit my eye with that force it would have exploded……. not a fun thought.

So if everyone doesn’t mind……… this post is all I am doing (besides email) tonight.

You are still welcome to sign up for your free blog and start posting! Yesterday the network got 38,000 hits! I am sure that was a spike but each spike gets higher! 2 years ago I never would have dreamed a site of mine could bring in that many hits!