Colt Case Ingersoll Garden Tractors

Hi guys, yeah I know green should be in the "other" section but that is not my bitch here!

My frustration is more to about the federal guidelines about safety switches on our GT's. I must admit that I disable some of mine when I buy a new Case/Ingersoll GT . Why? because frankly I find them stupid and above all dangerous! Things like engine cut when reversing unless you push an override button (that really distracts you from anything else) and helps?, moving about on the seat and the engine cuts?, etc.. For me that's the worst. Just as well our 3 digit machines don't have these issues but the 4 digit do. What are your pet peeves...

Oh, the seat switches drive me batty. All the various machines in PA have them removed. The ground is rough enough that machines just shut down from bouncing down the hills. Probably a fine idea on a golf course, or perfect suburban lawn...

Totally agree!!! For me I have obstacles in my yard (read treas, etc) Having to find the over ride push button stupid!!! What are we trying to protect?

Those are there because somewhere some idiot backup over a kid with the mower on and another idiot got of and stuck there foot under . Those were put there to remove natural selection out of the equation . I keep some of those things on my machines so this idiot or or does not hurt themself .
I do agree some of the "safeties " on some stuff are more dangerous than with out them.

My wife always teased me about my ingersoll. When I was mowing the lawn, she was outside one day and could hear the engine cutting out several times. I had stopped for some reason and she had commented on for as much time and money I put into the tractor that it still doesn't run correctly. I told her that the seat switch was the issue. I had already tried adjusting and spare and then replaced with a new. Still gave me fits. Bypassed it and haven't looked back. I'm the only operator. I guess my a$$ isn't heavy enough for ingersoll's seat switch?

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So I guess guys I am just being "British" and yeah I am "old " too. My take is we all have a brain (at least that's what I was bought up believing). Yeah you Canadians or us Americans (BTW I am an American and proud of it) have that same brain too. So why when we cut5 grass should it be treated differently than say driving a car? I don't have an override button to puss before I can reverse - do you? There comes a point when common sense prevails here.. I must admit though a couple of year ago a neighbor frightened me when I was mowing my yard and came up and taped me on the shoulder while mowing my yard.. No way would any safety switch have worked - the guy was a jerk!!~!~

I guess this is more of an observation. I seems to me if you look at the older equipment the common thought was that the operator was the safety and it was just expected that who ever was driving would use common sense.
I do wish it was still that way, but to Dave’s point I’ll never forget seeing an older fella running an 8N Ford with a mower on the back cutting grass, with two little kids riding on the fenders. I had to walk away, I guess I should have said something. the thought of one of those kids falling off the back with that mower running just drove me nuts.
I understand why they started adding safety stuff.
I guess it’s just more motivation for those us that understand the old stuff to keep it alive and working!

ras101 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 5:55 pm So I guess guys I am just being "British" and yeah I am "old " too. My take is we all have a brain (at least that's what I was bought up believing). Yeah you Canadians or us Americans (BTW I am an American and proud of it) have that same brain too. So why when we cut5 grass should it be treated differently than say driving a car? I don't have an override button to puss before I can reverse - do you? There comes a point when common sense prevails here.. I must admit though a couple of year ago a neighbor frightened me when I was mowing my yard and came up and taped me on the shoulder while mowing my yard.. No way would any safety switch have worked - the guy was a jerk!!~!~

One employer had these stickers on every piece of equipment.
Yah that guy is a jerk. In construction we have constant safety meetings, one thing that is always repeated is to get the operators attention before approaching any piece of equipment. Still a few die every year because they don't follow this rule.


Gordy

I can remember as a kid going to a farm down the street and help the farmer and his kids do work. We were always riding on fenders or hanging on the back of a tractor with our feet in the draw bar. I guess I was lucky not to get hurt. Harry

Yes, I think "Older" generations might have been a bit more "lucky" to have survived and be around to tell the stories of a youth lived on the edge... Being in a big city I'm almost constantly reminded of the "heads down" lifestyle we have evolved into. It seems everyone is staring at their phone while walking in traffic - what ever happened to "Stop and look both ways before crossing the street"?

Well, I've had my morning now, time to get off the soapbox and stop my mini rant - Just remember every safety switch exists because of an accident, serious injury or lawsuit

Harry wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 9:50 am I can remember as a kid going to a farm down the street and help the farmer and his kids do work. We were always riding on fenders or hanging on the back of a tractor with our feet in the draw bar. I guess I was lucky not to get hurt. Harry

I learned to operate old tractors by rinding on the drawbar or holding on to the fender when I was a kid with my dad too.
But it was alway when we were moving a wagon, or taking the tractor from here to there. I wasn’t allowed on the tractor when the PTO was engaged or a plow was in the ground. If you slipped it was going to be bad. These were all open station tractors, we never had anything with a cab on it!

I think @RoamingGnome is absolutely right. The way my dad taught me was still dangerous and as you said Harry, I think a lot of us that did that “back in the day” probably did get lucky a time or two!

I’m try to teach my son how to use this old stuff too. Every time he gets on a tractor with me we go over safety. Where to stand, where to hold on, what to watch for, etc. That’s one reason I love our Case GTs. They’re the perfect size for him to learn on. The bigger tractors are still intimidating to him.

Here is a quick story from my past.
If you read a manual for a tractor or PTO driven equipment it will have words to the effect; “always stay clear of the PTO when engaged”, and “ never where loose clothing near PTO”.

When I was a teenager 4 of us were helping a neighbor put up his corn crop. The tractor was running unattended with the PTO engaged turning an auger that transferred the corn from the wagon to the grain bin. This was standard practice at the time. One of my friends was wearing a flannel shirt untucked like a jacket. He got to close to the PTO and his shirt tail whipped up and the that PTO started pulling him in. Thankfully we were all young and strong. The 3 of us grabbed him by the arms and around the waist. That PTO literally ripped the shirt from his back and it wrapped around it. He ended up about 6 inches away from being killed. That PTO dragged all 4 of us toward it and the tractor never even grunted. It ran like it didn’t even have a load on it.

As you can imagine it was quite a sobering moment. Thank god no one was hurt. It is a lesson I will never forget.
That tractor should not have been unattended, the PTO should have been protected better, he should not have been that close to the PTO, he should have tucked his dang shirt in.

The old stuff can be operated and enjoyed without any trouble, we just have to keep safety on our mind.

Well that’s a heck of a ramble for a Thursday morning! Hope you don’t mind me being long winded!

Good ramble @JSinMO! Your story brought back one that happened when first started working as a 20 year old, in a large factory that made bearings, out of quite a few accidents I've know to happen then. A young guy working on a large lathe, the type with 2 feet diameter chuck, and many feet length, reached for a wrench on the other side of the lathe under the chuck. You can imagine the rest. The image of the bloody lathe and crumpled clothing.. The steel that we use is moving with huge force, and sometimes at high speed. Respectful distance is a must.

I suppose I'm "lucky" all my tractors are so old they didn't come equipped with many safety switches in the first place. Moreover, if they had any, like I found some on the 644, they were simply cut off and bypassed by someone before me. I had two serious work related accidents when I was young, one was a co-worker not paying attention, the other was I not knowing better when working on a router and ending up in emergency and a shorter finger. I'd like to think this has taught me to be really careful, yet I still made the odd stupid mistake. When doing anything with tractors I try to be "in the moment" and aware of what I'm about to do, which for myself factors into safety a lot, as my temperament tends to go on auto-pilot and that pilot inside seems like a really dumba** sometimes.

Me ramble too

Dad told the story, he was 14 riding in the truck with Grandpa, they were passing a neighbors field and saw the tractor stopped and beloring away. Gramps cranked the wheel and drove threw the ditch out to the tractor. They found the neighbor DOA wrapped so tightly around the PTO shaft the slip clutch let go and smoking hot.

A factory I worked in, an old timer was teaching a 18yo kid how to run a lath. I stopped them and grabbed the kids hand and shoved the long sleeve all the way up, and and warned him what would happen if the machine caught the sleeve, the old timer said "thanks I should have caught that". Two or three more times I had to ask the kid "What did I tell you about long sleeves and running these machines. WELL one day I heard HELP HELP. He was running a huge radial arm drill press, with a 2 inch x 20 inch core drill. Yep he was wearing a long sleeved shirt and tangled up in the drill. The side of the bit against the small of his back, I took a step as I tossed my running grinder to the corner, at that instant the drill tore the shirt off. OH and the shirt was not a regular sweatshirt, it was one of those extra tough football jerseys. he had all sorts of rope burns and bruises at the kidneys. Sore as hell for a week but OK. AND never wore a long sleeved shirt to work again


Gordy

When I was in the second grade we rented a farm house on an active farm. I used to ride around in and on the tractors with the hired hands. Until the day that I was standing behind the driver's seat of a Versatile articulated tractor as it was pulling a disc harrow. And I apparently leaned backwards too hard and the rear window feel out. I almost went with it, but I caught my balance at the last second.

That disc would have cut me to bits instantly.

No more tractor rides after that.

And I still shudder to think about it.

But I wasn't wearing long sleeves, so I got that working for me.

Bob

So, I see everyone's comments here and still wonder why? Let me say at the outset that I will always support the side of safety but some of the solutions just don't make sense and yet we are forced to live with them. For me, if I am cutting the grass NO ONE I repeat NO ONE is allowed on my yard, period. If that is not possible, just like a car I look behind me before reversing! That should, in my opinion be the SAFETY solution not a push button that detracts the operator from managing the grass cutter and takes one hand totally off the steering wheel but when I have a cab I have a mirror . First thing I disable when I get a new GT. As for the seat switch, well I guess if I I am mowing along a sharp incline where I might turn the GT over and pin myself that might be appropriate but doing that just would tell me I am an idiot! or the second argument that it stops dismounting with the grass blades running and getting my foot trapped under the deck. Well guess what that might be an issue! but stopping the engine - no way - just disable the PTO and stop the blade. I never, and nor would anyone I have spoken too, mow that way either. My point "Why are we being forced to accept these so called "safety devices" that actually make our GT's more dangerous rather than less to fix some perceived event that might occur rather than something that does occur often.

I no longer remember the year, but the event is still vivid. In the mid 60's Dad purchased a sears riding mower that came factory fresh with no safety switches. Like most decks it has a brace across the bottom of the discharge throat. Grass clippings would catch and hang on the brace at the attachment point to the deck. Even when mowing light grass the tag would continue to grow until the discharge throat would plug. Being an observant young lad of about 10 years old, I would watch and learn from how dad removed small tags of grass. When a tag would develop, Dad, with out stopping or disengaging the mower, would lean over, reach down, and pull the tag out of the deck discharge opening. We were both old enough to read the stay clear decals, if the even existed at the time.

Mom, my siblings, and myself were at a neighbours doing yard work. I was delegated to mowing. After making a few rounds the grass clippings bunched up on the brace. Like father, like son they say, I preformed the same manoeuvre that I had watched dad do. My knowledge of how close to the discharge the blade comes was non existent.

That my friends is short story of how I changed the length of a finger.

At the age of 10 a seat switch would have saved the finger, but thinking back, when did I had learned to put a weight in the seat to bypass a switch.

JSinMO wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 8:11 pm I guess this is more of an observation. I seems to me if you look at the older equipment the common thought was that the operator was the safety and it was just expected that who ever was driving would use common sense.
I do wish it was still that way, but to Dave’s point I’ll never forget seeing an older fella running an 8N Ford with a mower on the back cutting grass, with two little kids riding on the fenders. I had to walk away, I guess I should have said something. the thought of one of those kids falling off the back with that mower running just drove me nuts.
I understand why they started adding safety stuff.
I guess it’s just more motivation for those us that understand the old stuff to keep it alive and working!

So #JSinMO are you saying that we need to add "fender" safety switches too? . Perhaps we should add a couple of switches that the operator hold down while mowing and require someone else, perhaps a second driver to operate the steering wheel ? how about a third to operate the brake May be we just let the grass grow?

All I am saying guys is, especially in the States, we don't want to use our brain and when something goes wrong, we just want to blame someone else. Yeah lets just walk behind a car backing out of a parking space, does not matter that we came out of nowhere and we are on their blind side, after all it can't be us, it's their fault if they hit me, right?

ras101 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 10, 2023 1:18 pm

JSinMO wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 8:11 pm I guess this is more of an observation. I seems to me if you look at the older equipment the common thought was that the operator was the safety and it was just expected that who ever was driving would use common sense.
I do wish it was still that way, but to Dave’s point I’ll never forget seeing an older fella running an 8N Ford with a mower on the back cutting grass, with two little kids riding on the fenders. I had to walk away, I guess I should have said something. the thought of one of those kids falling off the back with that mower running just drove me nuts.
I understand why they started adding safety stuff.
I guess it’s just more motivation for those us that understand the old stuff to keep it alive and working!

So #JSinMO are you saying that we need to add "fender" safety switches too? . Perhaps we should add a couple of switches that the operator hold down while mowing and require someone else, perhaps a second driver to operate the steering wheel ? how about a third to operate the brake May be we just let the grass grow?

All I am saying guys is, especially in the States, we don't want to use our brain and when something goes wrong, we just want to blame someone else. Yeah lets just walk behind a car backing out of a parking space, does not matter that we came out of nowhere and we are on their blind side, after all it can't be us, it's their fault if they hit me, right?

I wasn’t saying anything remotely like that. Actually my thought was quite the opposite, and I was agreeing with you!

My point was that it used to be common that the operator was in charge of safe operation of equipment, not the “safety devices” that are on today’s machines. I don’t like them either, but as long as we have inexperienced people with no one to teach them how to use power equipment, or morons that dang well should know how but disregard how to safely use power equipment, or people in general that refuse to take personal responsibility for they’re actions, then these “safety devices” are here to stay. You have no choice, you cannot opt out of them. Your only recourse is to disable the “safety devices” you don’t like once you have taken ownership of the machine.

I wish it wasn’t this way, but it is. If you find away around it please share!