Ageing Hymac finds a soft spot on the farm

by Nick Drew | Sun 14 Apr 2013

Ageing Hymac finds a soft spot on the farm

I have received this series of photos from Ian and Dawn Vanstone. They show the farms Hymac in a spot of bother and the rescue attempt to extract the stricken machine.

It’s an all too familiar scene, one minute the machine is working away nicely, then in no time at all the machines undercarriage is buried in deep mud, and once that suction gets hold of a machine you know you are in big trouble. With an old Hymac like this 580D model it’s even worse, as they were never the most powerful machines in the track department. Add to this the fact that Hymac’s used to throw tracks off for sport, it makes this a very worrying situation to be in! hymac-rescue-012

To assist in the extraction of the Hymac another local farmer was called in with his JCB 3CX backhoe loader. He had to tread gently too as he backed in to dig out the build up of sloppy material in front of the 580D. At one point it appeared that the 3CX would be heading for the same fate as the Hymac! hymac-rescue-010

I operated a Hymac 580D from the infamous IBH era for over nine years, and in their original factory fitted state the track levers were located down the side of the seat inside little pods, they were also different to the old 580C levers which could be locked into place leaving your hands free to operate the digging levers to assist in de-bogging. In the 580D you could not lock the levers in making it very difficult to multi-task unless you were a bit of a contortionist! hymac-rescue-011

However this machine appears to have had the optional floor mounted track pedal conversion kit fitted, which certainly makes life a bit easier for the operator. This machine got that sinking feeling on the 8^th April and was rescued from its muddy grave on the 9^th. The extraction took a good 3 hours, involving the 2 diggers, 4 very muddy men, and 2 wire ropes to finally release her! hymac-rescue-014

There are no photos to share of the machine back on terra firma, but I intend to visit this machine in the future to get some shots of what was a firm favourite British built machine back in the day, and one brand that many of us still have a lot of affection for.

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