|
Southeast Florida | Well we had a Mexican operator driving a 9300 pulling a Reynolds scraper and all of our laser equipment was in the cab. The gungion bearing's center section was just replaced, lowboyed to the field. There the tractor sat for a couple of weeks. Went down hooked it to the scraper, drove it down the road about 1 1/2 miles when the through shaft on the gungion bearing went out again slinging the driveshaft out and from here it's all speculation but this is what I think happened. The driveshaft being slung ripped the hydraulic fitting from the steering cylinder; hot oil mist on hot bearings reached the flash point and ignited. The steering wheel holder got the tractor off of the road and avoided putting it into the canal. (The canal had a slop going into it about 50' wide and 10' deep; this looked to me like a good place for a burning tractor) Well this is where it really got stupid, he's got the tractor parked on the side of the road avoiding the canal and he get's his lunch box and water cooler out of the cab along with the 5 lbs used fire extinguisher and left $25K in laser leveling equipment in the cab to go up in smoke. Now if all of this isn't bad enough this happened 1 week to the day bonus check came out. I was at the shop 13 miles away when the saddle tanks of diesel let loose and my only comment was there goes our bonus checks up in smoke.
This is the real bad part since the company had their own shop and didn't want to pay the dealership to do the work we were responsible for it and since the Mexican mechanic (parts swapper) couldn't read or speak English to do the proper procedures the insurance company wouldn't pay for the loss. Me and another supervisor arrived on the scene to find the fire dept was just getting there and it was so hot with them 710/70X38 duals burning the asphalt was on fire 20' away just from the heat coming off.
The only thing salvageable was the driveshaft that slung causing the fire, it's still at the shop today as a trophey of that event.
| |
|
Deere Haters weiner roast.
