slopes and side hill in a HG-42....limits are ???

[choppa]

I will be binging my Oliver HG-42 to our cabin in the hilly section of south eastern OK....very soon after I get all I want done to her here in Texas at my home shop.

when up there this week, I got to thinking how useful the machine would be to drag out of these ravines all the downed timber I want to move out and cut up for firewood.

the land at the cabin is rocky and steep in sections I wish to use this on. not anything over 35-40 degrees for sure ANYWHERE.

my questions to you guys who really use your machines for work: What degree of slope would you feel comfortable running a HG-42 on?

I know this may be hard to answer, not knowing the exact landscape I am refering to.. I can easily walk the slopes I am talking about..rocks can be loose. steel tracks on rock surface? slippage?

I have off roaded for years in jeeps, so i know a wheeled vehicles limitations on side hills. A crawler is something I have no real experience working with. My guess is that the crawler has a much lower center of gravity to allow hill work.

If I approached a hill straight on, no side slope, what degree of angle would you all say would be a safe angle? At about what kind of angles would I expect to climb without fear of a turn over backwards?.what about opertaing on a side slope? Are they stable enough for a good degree of side slope or no?

in most cases, I would drag logs upward in a straight path avoiding as much side slope as possible. I am sure it must feel pretty weird in that small seat with the engine up and higher than the operator!!

anyone got a good picture of themselves on their machines running a good hill, either up /down or on a side slope?

Did Oliver ever publish these limitations in any user manuals?

any advice surely appreciated.. pictures of working one even better!

 

[TomA in CA]

I farmed steep sidehills years ago. I used a HG 42 for light work mowing, raking, harrowing etc. It handled the sidehills really well. I never had an issue with the HG or a Cat wanting to go over backwards climbing a hill. I guess the weight is far enough forward.

One thing to take into account is all Cletracs had heavy forged track frames, much heavier than Cat track frames. This puts a lot of weight right where you need it for stability.

You do need to watch out for rocks. I use a 8C Cat 20 for gulching out wood. We have a lot of granite rocks and sometimes they are hiding under leaves and dirt.

 

[JDemaris]

Unless you've got the optional aux. trans. speed will be your main problem. 1st gear is way too fast for climbing very steep hills. Traction and stability is fine.

I used my HG42 this summer on slopes so steep a person had to crawl on all four, rather then walk on two legs. My Deere 1010 crawler wouldn't make it, but that's because it has flat street-pads on the tracks, and lacked traction.

I'm talking about up and down, not running on angled sidehills.

The only problem I had was - I made the mistake of having the gas tank almost full. Bad idea when going up. When things are real steep, gas dribbles out of the tank-vent and travels backwards. It made me pretty nervous. Down was no problem , but later I only went up with no more then a half-filled tank of gas. By the way, my Deere 1010 was even worse in that regard. 1010 has a steel vent line that leaks like crazy when things get steep going frontwards.

If your HG42 does NOT have the optional aux. trans, it's probably geared too high for steep climbs. Without the aux. 1st gear is way too fast.

HG with the engine revved up goes 2 MPH in 1st. If it has the aux trans. it only goes 1/2 MPH in 1st.

My 1010 Deere goes 3/4 MPH in 1st, which also works fine.

I use my HG in the woods a lot. It's handy, does little damage, fits into tight places, and is easy to truck. Much handier then my big crawlers for small jobs.

 

[choppa]

Thanks TomA on that response.

Yea, on one part of the property we got lots of loose, crumbly granite stone, and I suspect it can be slippery, or peices may break away under weight or pressure.. So that is a really big concern. Other parts of the property have a heavy amount of decomposed leaves, fallen branches, etc, no doubt covering some rock too.. I think I may get my expereince with the tractor in the leaves and decomposed areas,trying small slopes first and gradually moving up.

I am sure the "pucker factor" as its been called will kick in on steeper slopes.

Its my goal to keep most pulls on inclines striaght up, with as little or no side slopping as possible.

I guess I was concerned about even negotiating an incline with NO side slopes, but a direct run at an incline and what sort of angle would be safely negotiated. I think (as you wrote) given the heavier track frames down low, stability is increased.

still, I can see that front end rising and me getting lower in the seat...!! It must be weird at first..

 

[choppa]

thanks John.

WOW!! you run it UP and DOWN hills THAT STEEP!???

Wow.. I cant say that I have anything near that bad to negotiate on my place.. I suspect the worst hill I got is easily Walked up and down..

I will keep the advice of a 1/2 tank full of gas in mind.,., Yea, I could see that happening! nothing like a crotch full of gasoline to wake you up!

As far as the AUX tranny goes, as you know, I am working on that... I hope to purchase one as soon as possible. Hopefully soooner than later so I can install BEFORE I bring to my cabin for work.

I got a good lead, and the seller tells me he will probably sell one of his to me once he determines if the other in his newly aquired machine is in good shape.

Otherwise, if he dont sell, I am still going to find one somewhere, some day...

 

[TomA in CA]

It has been many years since I sold my HG, I always wish I had kept it. The issue of the fast first gear seems to always come up, I don't remember it being a problem. It never ran out of power and I used to do a lot of dozing with it. It was a fast little crawler though. I recall it would go as fast as you want in 3rd. I never did let it out all the way. It was my ATV before ATV's, Just jump on it, push the button, start up and away you go. I strung a lot of miles of fence off a spooler on the drawbar.

Just be careful you will get a feel for it, the seat of you pants will tell you if you go too far.

Tom

 

[DonBC]

I am not totally familiar with all models of Oliver and Cletrac crawlers but I think that they all used a planetary differential for steering and that is the next best thing to hydrostatic drives for controlling crawler equipment on hills because you have power and control of both tracks at all times. When climbing a steep slope with a conventional crawler when you release the clutch on one track to steer you immediately lose half your traction and the powered track can spin out and a similar problem occurs when coming down a steep hill. I use to have a small ski area and I had an Allis H3 crawler loader/backhoe that I used for installing and maintaining the snowmaking system piping. I also used it on a mower for mowing the ski runs so I pushed it to the limit up, down and sideways. When I had the hoe on I would often swing it to the uphill side when on a steep side slope as a counterweight. You will slide sideways on a steep side hill before you would roll but if you happen to slide sideways onto a steeper slope it might be time to bail. Your tracks should be in good condition or you can throw a track on a side hill. I also had an older Bombardier snow cat with planetary differential steering and it was a ball to drive on the hills. If it started to slip sideways you would just swing it slightly uphill to stop the slide or put it into controlled sideways drift. When the ground froze the crawler was almost useless on the hills and if I needed it I would have to pull it up hills withe snow cat or hold it back with the snow cat when going down.

 

[NIK O.]

will eng oil press stay up on steep? be blessed & be thankful, nik rd4 4g

 

[JDemaris]

No problem with the Hercules IXB-3. Oil pressure is fine, no matter how steep.

 

[JDemaris]

HG was geared for row-crop farm work, not pushing dirt. The pushing dirt and dozer idea was an afterthought. You'd have to run an HG at 700 RPM to make it move as slow as a Deere 420 with its engine revved to 1800 RPM.

HG and OC3 is geared similar to a Ford 600 or 800 with the four speed trans (if that rings a bell with anybody). Too fast to doing any slow and steady hard work in 1st IF you have the engine at a useful speed.

That's why Oliver offered the aux. option - especially intended for people with Anderson dozer-blades doing dirt work - instead of farm-field work.

When the OC4 came out, it was made for dirt pushing.

HG and OC3 with no aux goes 2 MPH in 1st with the engine at a useful speed to make power.

OC4 was available two ways.

With the slo-lo - it went .8 MPH in 1st

With the travel-reverser - it went 1.5 MPH in 1st.

What many wind up doing with an standard HG or OC3 is . . . either slipping the clutch, or lugging the engine at low RPMs. That does work to a degree, but not very well and usually ends up with a bad clutch or bad engine.

To make a standard HG or OC3 run the same speed as a Deere 420 at full throttle - you have to run the HG or OC3 with the engine at low-idle speed.

HG and OC3 runs 2 MPH at 1700 RPM.
HG and OC3 runs .87 MPH at 740 RPM.
Deere 420 runs .87 MPH at 1800 RPM

HG with aux runs .6 MPH at 1700 RPM
OC4 in low-range runs .8 MPH at 1700 RPM

 

[captain_crunch]

Biggest Concern climbing a slope is looseing traction on one track and becomeing sideways. Keep blade as close to ground as possible because it is your saftey rope all else fails get Blade Down. Going down hill use blade to keep clean ground under tracks But shale rock has NO mercy Just be darn carefull and when in doubt DONT. I ran logging cat and we worked ground that was nerve racking. The smaller the cat the worse incline can become a problem. Do you have any oldtimers to learn from close to you ?

 

[choppa]

no old timers near me I can talk with, unfortunately.... I will for sure take all your advise. I will be most apprehensive at first anyway.. Just want to know APPROX machines limitations.

seems that it will/can do easily what I think would be the very worst hills.. reading you- all's experiences, it seems that my hills are nothing in comparision to what you have run.

still, being cautiuos will be the order of the day on my part!

sure wish someone had a photo, or better yet, a video of to send me of them working their HG or OC3 on a slope!!

Dave

 

[JDemaris]

I didn't take any photos of my HG recently when I was working on some extremely steep hills. I did take a few photos of my Deere 1010 when it got as far as it could and the tracks started spinning. I used the rear-ripper as a parking-brake. I wound up pulling the 1010 up the hill with my Cletrac HG. The 1010 just needed a little assistance, and having the HG hooked to it made the difference.

Also note that the Deere has steering clutchs, so when you steer, they disconnect and can start to freewheel. HG has no clutches which is nice on steep hills.

Note that the HG didn't even spin a track, going up or down. Main problem was going up with gasoline leaking and running towards me. I didn't dare stop in the middle of climbing that hill.

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[dave Austin]

are those last photos along the power lines your destination? did you run up/down this trail with the HG?

If so, to me, thats pretty steep, with a pretty good side slope to it.

I dont think Ill attempt anything like this.. But, if you did this in your HG, than I know I can negotiate just about all I need to at my place.

 

[JDemaris]

I went up and down the power-line road many times, but it's not near as steep as the road in the woods I mentioned. That's the one where a person can barely walk on two legs. I didn't take any photos of that.

 

[Case450]

In good soil I"ve run my case 450C up and down hills so steep i need to use my feet and the dash to keep from falling out of the seat and i"ve never had a problem BUT........when i tried running it up a hill with exposed rock (limestone to be exact) it felt like dull blades on fresh ice. It was scary and the first and last time i will ever go up an incline with exposed rock.
Be careful man. You and i have both did the right thing before working in these types of situations, we asked someone else first!