djnels123
New member
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2023
- Messages
- 1
Hi all,
Hoping you can give some tips or possibly relief to a paranoid newbie. We are currently building a pool house which has a walkout basement shop - between living on 10 acres and seemingly needing to lift heavy things constantly, I've always wished I had a skid loader because they're so ridiculously handy
I recently got a 3,000 hour Bobcat 553 that appears in good condition for its age - it lived in a barn its whole life and appears to have been greased etc.
After I got it, I started reading about skid loader fires and it frankly scared the crap out of me -- particularly because this will be stored beneath our pool house.
From what I can surmise, many (but not all) of these fires come from accumulated debris. Seeing as how my loader was previously on a farm, there was no shortage of this and I got it cleaned up both in the engine compartment and belly pan as much as possible.
With that said -- is there anything else I should be doing? It has no leaks, but I'm terrified that one day I'll start it up and it'll burst into flames inside my shop, with no way to get it out quick enough if hydraulics failed.
Worse yet, I've heard of a few fires that supposedly started while parked and not in use -- which makes me think about installing a quick disconnect on the battery to lessen the chances of electrical fire.
Are my concerns unfounded? What other tips do you have? Is it actually a reasonable fear to have? Of course, I'll get a fire extinguisher before we store it inside -- but I worry that may not be enough if something happened.
Thanks in advance!
Hoping you can give some tips or possibly relief to a paranoid newbie. We are currently building a pool house which has a walkout basement shop - between living on 10 acres and seemingly needing to lift heavy things constantly, I've always wished I had a skid loader because they're so ridiculously handy
I recently got a 3,000 hour Bobcat 553 that appears in good condition for its age - it lived in a barn its whole life and appears to have been greased etc.
After I got it, I started reading about skid loader fires and it frankly scared the crap out of me -- particularly because this will be stored beneath our pool house.
From what I can surmise, many (but not all) of these fires come from accumulated debris. Seeing as how my loader was previously on a farm, there was no shortage of this and I got it cleaned up both in the engine compartment and belly pan as much as possible.
With that said -- is there anything else I should be doing? It has no leaks, but I'm terrified that one day I'll start it up and it'll burst into flames inside my shop, with no way to get it out quick enough if hydraulics failed.
Worse yet, I've heard of a few fires that supposedly started while parked and not in use -- which makes me think about installing a quick disconnect on the battery to lessen the chances of electrical fire.
Are my concerns unfounded? What other tips do you have? Is it actually a reasonable fear to have? Of course, I'll get a fire extinguisher before we store it inside -- but I worry that may not be enough if something happened.
Thanks in advance!