nora54•25d ago

Took me 6 hours to swap out a winch cable that should have been a 45 minute job

I was swapping out a frayed winch cable on a Grove RT at the yard in Tulsa, and I couldn't get the old cable to unwind off the drum without birdcaging no matter what I tried. Turns out I had the drum brake set too tight and didn't notice until I called my old foreman to come look at it. Have any of you ever fought a simple job for way longer than it should have taken because of one overlooked setting?

2 comments

2 Comments

lunashah24d ago

Oh man, I feel you on that "should have been 45 minutes" part. I spent like four hours once trying to figure out why a skid steer wouldn't lift right. Had the whole hydraulic system torn apart looking for a blown seal or a valve stuck. Turned out I just had the quick couplers hooked up backwards from when I swapped attachments the day before. The machine worked, just backwards. My buddy came over, looked at it for ten seconds, and just pointed at the hoses. Felt like a total idiot. Now I always double check the simple stuff first before I start pulling things apart. Sometimes you just get tunnel vision on the big problem and miss the little thing staring you right in the face.

rayc8924d ago

Huh, I see what you're saying but I gotta disagree a little bit. I think sometimes you do need to tear into the bigger stuff first, especially if you've already checked the simple things and they seemed fine. I mean, if you're that deep into a hydraulic system and the hoses are hooked up right, something else has to be wrong. That skid steer story sounds like a classic case of not being thorough on the initial inspection, not tunnel vision. I've had times where I spent a half hour staring at a carburetor only to find a loose ground wire, and other times where that ground wire was the last thing I'd have thought to look at. It's not always about "start simple" it's about "check everything methodically" even if that means taking apart the big stuff first.