The day the suction line ate a car tire in the Willamette

We were working a channel near Portland, pulling up gravel with a standard 10-inch cutter head. The pump started making a sound like it was chewing rocks, and the pressure gauge spiked hard. Shut everything down and pulled the line, found a whole shredded radial tire wrapped around the impeller. Took three of us with pry bars and a sawzall to cut it out, lost about four hours. Anyone ever have a bigger piece of trash jam up a dredge?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_logan29d ago

Car tires are the worst... always carry bolt cutters.

bettyhunt29d ago

Bolt cutters seems like a bit much for a flat tire.