Took me 3 hours to level a 50 ton crawler because I forgot one step

Last week I was setting up for a big lift at a job site near Pueblo. Got the crawler on site, started leveling the tracks, and everything was off by almost 2 degrees. Kept adjusting jacks, moving pads, sweating in the sun for like 90 minutes. Foreman walks over and just points at the ground - I had parked on a soft patch and the tracks had sunk uneven while I was messing with the outriggers. Had to move it 20 feet, re-set the whole thing, and it leveled in 20 minutes flat. Has anyone else had a dumb setup detail eat up way more time than the actual lift?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_karen2d ago

Check the operator's manual before you even start leveling.

willow_garcia2d agoTop Commenter

My buddy once spent three hours trying to level his washing machine before he realized the floor was just that crooked. Man was fighting a losing battle from the start. He kept checking the manual over and over but nothing in there said "your 1920s foundation is the actual problem." Sometimes you gotta look at the bigger picture instead of just following steps step by step. A manual can't tell you every weird little thing that's going to go wrong.