In the early days we didn’t have the best equipment to work with. We didn’t expect anything to start without jumper cables or pulling or pushing it to start it.

We had an old HD 5 Allis Chalmers Track Loader that we’d been using to clean out a stock tank down on our place. When we stopped for the day, on the before we parked it beside the road so we could reach it with a pair of jumper cables. There was a road cut with the bank about four feet tall that the loader was sitting up on. When we attempted to jump it off, it was wanting to start, so Cec told Kenny to pull the dump truck he was driving down in front of it on the road. We hooked a chain on to it and with me on the loader, a short tug and it would fire right off. We’d done it many times before.

Rather than pull straight ahead, Kenny angled out . I’m not sure why he did it, but it jerked the loader off of the 4’ tall bank. Since it was at an angle, the loader ended up on its side down on the roadway, with me skidding right out across the gravel. I wasn’t really hurt other than a little hide skinned off of me.

Within minutes we moved the truck up top and jerked the loader over onto it tracks, filled it back up with oil that it had lost while laying on its side. We hooked back up to it and pulled it to give it a start. Then we were on our way as if nothing had happened. Just another day.

This is a machine like the one in this story.

This video shows what running one of those machines was like.