Lets talk forklifts

Well, listed ol leaky last night for $2600, sold her an hour ago for $2500. Forklift market is hot!
 
Now that I know the fella who bought mine miraculously made it home, I'll share the brief story of selling/loading it. I listed it Saturday, and he messaged me Saturday evening about coming to look at it on Monday. I message him back Sunday morning and said im out of town from Sunday afternoon through Wedneaday, but if he can come before 1pm on Sunday, he's welcome to come look at it. He says he can make it by 1:15, so i said good enough.

Dude rolls up from Anderson, SC in a lifted and tuned Duramax, with a trailer behind him. I figured he was just coming to look at it and leave a deposit if he liked it, but the trailer was a pleasant surprise...until I realized it was a 7k trailer.

He checked the forklift over, we negotiated a little, then he paid up. He said something about having a better trailer but being in a hurry to get here, so I happily offered to let him pick it up later in the week or next weekend. But he insisted on taking it with him, so I said sir yessir! I looked the trailer over and told him he was crazy, 3500lb axles, Load C trailer tires that were rated for 1800lbs/ea. Forklift is 10,530lbs per the data tag, so 7200lbs on the tire rating, vs 10530 forklift and about 2000lbs of trailer puts him a good 5000lbs over the tire capacity, on a 95 degree day, with 100 miles of interstate between my place and his, and NO SPARE TIRE :eek: Not only that, but the trailer had a wood floor, 24" on center crossbars, and they were angle instead of C-channel :rolleyes:

But I ain't here to design trailers, so I pulled the dang forklift onto the trailer as carefully as I could, listening to every creak and pop and just waiting to fall through! :laughing: Made it in 1 shot too, but once it was positioned right, the backend was dead centered between 2 crossmembers. Those 2x8s were sagging a good 2" on top of the 2-3" the crossmembers were sagging. So we backed it off and I cut up an old 2x10 I had laying around to help span the gap, then took a handful of decrepit oak boards I had laying around to try and help distribute the weight a little more. Of course in the process of backing off, one of the dovetail boards surrendered, so we had to put some extra layers on that one, haha.

Got everything "in place" and gave it another shot, but there wasn't enough traction to make it up onto the 2x10s, and hitting it with momentum launched the 2x10 one side finally poped onto right out the back because i was spinning when it finally popped into it. Went again with the oak boards over the 2x10, and still not enough traction, even with the uphill tire absolutely smoking from spinning and 3 guys pushing! 4th try we shimmed in a few more wedges of sorts and nailed the boards down and finally made it!
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They chained it down and while they were doing that, I bumped the trailer tires from 30psi up to the 50psi max on the tires (plus a couplefive more for good measure, flexing heat is gonna kill it faster than overpressure). On my advice, they transferred the ramps and tanks to the back of the truck to take as much weight as possible off the trailer, and went on their merry way!
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I texted that evening and he said they made it home without issue, sticking to 2 lane roads and keeping the speed down. šŸ‘
 
Fawk, looking back at the pics, I remembered we finally gave up on the idea of self propelling on the 4th attempt, parking brake wouldn't hold it, so we had to do a driver change while I was holding the foot brakes, then I ran and got the skidsteer and pushed it onto the 2x10s! You can see the skidsteer blade in the first pic! :laughing:
 
jeepinmatt said:
Fawk, looking back at the pics, I remembered we finally gave up on the idea of self propelling on the 4th attempt, parking brake wouldn't hold it, so we had to do a driver change while I was holding the foot brakes, then I ran and got the skidsteer and pushed it onto the 2x10s! You can see the skidsteer blade in the first pic! :laughing:
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I was going to say. I see a blade in the pic, should have just pushed it on.
 
Holy crap! Reminds me of when I borrowed a cat skid steer from work. At that time work place was only 5 miles away, going country back roads. I had my 7K landscape trailer, like you described. Light weight built, C rated tires, surge brake, & fold up 5' wire mesh full tailgate. I Had added 2 C channel runners in the tailgate & use to haul my CJ on it. I had my 98 half ton chevy with suck ass brakes. Pumped the tires to 55 - 60 psi. Loaded the Cat, & the tires sat 1/2 flat. Damn. Drove about 20 - 25 mph home & back, so I could even Stop it! While Un-loading it back at work, the factory shit weld gave way on 1 side of the tailgate! Had to Tear the gate off, as it was twisted & could not un-hinge it. I Thought this Cat was 8000 something weight. Next day at work I was told it was more like 12,000. I too, was Lucky, in a 5 mile round trip! :eek:
 
New wheels made it home today. I'm happy so far. But damn it is heavy. 12k pounds. Amazingly it's more compact than my 5000lb Cat was, and this Hyster is rated for 6000lbs. You can see it bowing the floor of my trailer probably close to an inch in that 3rd pic :eek:
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WARRIORWELDING said:
That why I've seen more than one through a semi trailer floor. And darn what a mess.
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and can fawk up the operator as well....aint no suspension on that landing.
We have one when I worked for C do that and broke the dude's back.
 
jeepinmatt said:
New wheels made it home today. I'm happy so far. But damn it is heavy. 12k pounds. Amazingly it's more compact than my 5000lb Cat was, and this Hyster is rated for 6000lbs. You can see it bowing the floor of my trailer probably close to an inch in that 3rd pic :eek:
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Look on side of battery one side will have battery weight on it, remember that is as much and more of the counterweight than the chunk of iron hanging on the back.
 
Blkvoodoo said:
Look on side of battery one side will have battery weight on it, remember that is as much and more of the counterweight than the chunk of iron hanging on the back.
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Yep, 8k lift, 4k battery, 12k total.
 
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