Close call...,

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bluedog333

Well-Known Member
Posts
5,442
Location
Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire
Everything's starting to get a bit sore now after this afternoon's near-squashed experience... To cut a long story short - I was working at a small farm today, parked up in the 110 with a converted Rice horse box trailer on the back, the drive was one-way, uphill, with the farmhouse to my left and an old brick building behind. So I jumped in and got ready to reverse down the drive, popped her in low box and then the back door popped open ( not due to t/box selection! ), handbrake on I jumped out to close the door, as I am slamming it shut the fookin Landy starts to roll towards me! I quickly start panicking, a good 3t of Landy and trailer are now rolling down the narrow drive, veering towards the house. I'm a bit stuck between the trailer and Landy and I'm sh*tting myself, all I was thinking was I'm going to smash through the side of the house! Attention quickly turned to the fact I was stuck between the Landy, the jack-knifing trailer and a bit brick barn. Within what seemed like milliseconds the Landy had me up against the brickwork and, like a scene from a film, suddenly stopped! The trailer had jack-knifed and thank f*ck halted the 110 in her tracks. I quickly jumped in and pulled her forward ( all I was concerned about was the embarrassment if someone saw me! ). It soon became apparent that both me and my Landy had suffered, my foot and shin were bleeding as was my forearm, hurt like buggery now, fortunately, the poor old girl only suffered a gash to the rear wing and a knackered foot plate.
The cause of the roll-back? T/box popping out of gear into neutral. I always double-engage when changing the t-box, this time I was distracted by the open rear door, so low box was not properly engaged. I learnt a very big lesson today, a lesson I won't forget in a hurry!
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Bloody Nora! That really is a close shave... Thank God it wasn't worse! Did your limbs get squashed at all?
Only me foot/lower leg and forearm. I've never had a accident before, it's weird, everything happens really slowly and really quickly at the same time. I was more worried about ploughing through the building than anything else! I feel sorry for the Landy, I'm trying to get her smart again and then I do that!
 
:eek::eek: it's frightening how fast things can go seriously pear shaped.

Hope you're not feeling 'run down' by the experience :p;)

Seriously ....hope you're OK mate
Not run down, but I feel like I've been stuck between a rock and a hard place recently.
I'm ok, thanks, just some cuts and bruises I think. When I've seen or heard of people having accidents I've always thought that if it was me I'd do something to save the situation... it doesn't work like that!
 
Everything's starting to get a bit sore now after this afternoon's near-squashed experience... To cut a long story short - I was working at a small farm today, parked up in the 110 with a converted Rice horse box trailer on the back, the drive was one-way, uphill, with the farmhouse to my left and an old brick building behind. So I jumped in and got ready to reverse down the drive, popped her in low box and then the back door popped open ( not due to t/box selection! ), handbrake on I jumped out to close the door, as I am slamming it shut the fookin Landy starts to roll towards me! I quickly start panicking, a good 3t of Landy and trailer are now rolling down the narrow drive, veering towards the house. I'm a bit stuck between the trailer and Landy and I'm sh*tting myself, all I was thinking was I'm going to smash through the side of the house! Attention quickly turned to the fact I was stuck between the Landy, the jack-knifing trailer and a bit brick barn. Within what seemed like milliseconds the Landy had me up against the brickwork and, like a scene from a film, suddenly stopped! The trailer had jack-knifed and thank f*ck halted the 110 in her tracks. I quickly jumped in and pulled her forward ( all I was concerned about was the embarrassment if someone saw me! ). It soon became apparent that both me and my Landy had suffered, my foot and shin were bleeding as was my forearm, hurt like buggery now, fortunately, the poor old girl only suffered a gash to the rear wing and a knackered foot plate.
The cause of the roll-back? T/box popping out of gear into neutral. I always double-engage when changing the t-box, this time I was distracted by the open rear door, so low box was not properly engaged. I learnt a very big lesson today, a lesson I won't forget in a hurry!

Lucky!! Glad you are OK and the Landy can be fixed.

Still confused as to why it rolled down the hill, is the handbrake not great? Regardless of the T-box position the handbrake shoes should still have locked up the rear prop and thus rear axle.
 
Lucky!! Glad you are OK and the Landy can be fixed.

Still confused as to why it rolled down the hill, is the handbrake not great? Regardless of the T-box position the handbrake shoes should still have locked up the rear prop and thus rear axle.
Fair point! Handbrake does need adjusting, it would be fine normally, but obviously not with a big trailer on an incline. I've always parked in gear ( as I believe you're meant to anyway ).
Does the handbrake only lock rear prop? Excuse my ignorance!
 
Only me foot/lower leg and forearm. I've never had a accident before, it's weird, everything happens really slowly and really quickly at the same time. I was more worried about ploughing through the building than anything else! I feel sorry for the Landy, I'm trying to get her smart again and then I do that!

Wouldnt worry about the landy, they are repairable. Sounds like you are lucky to be alive and with all limbs intact.
Have you checked the adjustment of your trailer brakes and coupling lately?

If the trailer has run onto the back of the vehicle down a slope, it should bring the trailer brakes on, so it shouldnt be pushing much on the tow vehicle.
Of course if the tow vehicle moves on its own, it opens the coupling and the trailer brakes come off! :(
 
Wouldnt worry about the landy, they are repairable. Sounds like you are lucky to be alive and with all limbs intact.
Have you checked the adjustment of your trailer brakes and coupling lately?

If the trailer has run onto the back of the vehicle down a slope, it should bring the trailer brakes on, so it shouldnt be pushing much on the tow vehicle.
Of course if the tow vehicle moves on its own, it opens the coupling and the trailer brakes come off! :(
Trailer brakes are good, they'll only engage when moving forward though and it was going backwards! It's quite an old-school set up, to engage the trailers handbrake you need to push a lever towards the trailer and away from the vehicle and then drop a latch down to hold it in place. If it were a pull up handbrake like modern trailers have I may have stood a chance of stopping it.
 
Trailer brakes are good, they'll only engage when moving forward though and it was going backwards! It's quite an old-school set up, to engage the trailers handbrake you need to push a lever towards the trailer and away from the vehicle and then drop a latch down to hold it in place. If it were a pull up handbrake like modern trailers have I may have stood a chance of stopping it.

Didn't realise it was backwards! :)

I used to like the old couplings with a a latch that locked the slide for reversing. Much better than the modern system, the autoreverse always drags a bit, plenty enough to lock the wheels when you are trying to reverse up a greasy slope!
 
[QUOTE

I used to like the old couplings with a a latch that locked the slide for reversing. Much better than the modern system, the autoreverse always drags a bit, plenty enough to lock the wheels when you are trying to reverse up a greasy slope![/QUOTE]
+1
 
Me and my brother were out offroading in our two landys, i pulled up behind to act as an anchor so he could winch somebody out, handbrake wasn't working at the time (shoes worn out no more adjustment), turned it off and put it in gear, had been in and out of low box couple of times in the day, and the detent doesn't do it's job massively well when the linkage is all gummed up with sh*t, it jumped out and rolled forwards 3 feet and touched his.

Didn't think to run round and stand on brake, thought it was friend in passenger seat p*ssing about, so thought he was going to stop it again
 
[QUOTE

I used to like the old couplings with a a latch that locked the slide for reversing. Much better than the modern system, the autoreverse always drags a bit, plenty enough to lock the wheels when you are trying to reverse up a greasy slope!
+1[/QUOTE]

They stopped making them due to user error. Some people used to forget to take it off, so they drove off with no brakes on the trailer.

The sensible user penalised to allow for the idiots, as usual! :rolleyes:
 
Sounds horrendous. Pleased you're ok. Could have been a lot worse! What went through the side of the Landy?
Part of the jockey wheel handle. Had a few remarks about the 'bullet hole' already, I'll be repairing it though. Don't mind the odd dent and scratch, but not a bloody hole in the side, this would compromise the water-tightness of the Landy! :D
 
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