BX Using CA Pallet Forks & Real World Lift Capacity

[jeff9366]

There you are doing something risky with the ROPS down. Your head and shoulders are above the ROPS fold point. Sooner or later the odds will bite you. (A tire blow out, tire dropping in a hole or rut, burst hydraulic line, or hydraulic connector popping off.) So easy to mangle an arm or leg in a tractor rollover ~~~or worse.

I do not do pointlessly risky things with my tractor. I figure out how to do tasks with minimal risk.

I would have tossed the pavers from the truck bed to the ground, then loaded the pavers on pallets. Testing lift is OK, but test from the ground, not unloading a truck. I would have made each load lighter than yours and made more trips.

An example of long-term tractor reliability being primarily a function of operator prudence and experience, secondarily maintenance and only tertiary the tractor build.

 

[nikerret]

Keep your load to the back 2' of your forks to increase their capacity.

I agree. You could have picked up several more bricks if you had kept them closer to the tractor.

Yes, I wanted to see how much it could do, with the flat bottom row. I only had two pallets and didn't want to move them all to the cage just to move them all back down to the front of the pallet. In the end, it wouldn't have mattered as I ended up moving them all a lot more than I initially thought I would. It was still an interesting experiment.

There you are doing something risky with the ROPS down. Your head and shoulders are above the ROPS fold point. Sooner or later the odds will bite you. (A tire blow out, burst hydraulic line, or hydraulic connector popping off.) So easy to mangle an arm or leg in a tractor rollover ~~~or worse.

I do not do pointlessly risky things with my tractor. I figure out how to do tasks with minimal risk.

I would have tossed the pavers from the truck bed to the ground, then loaded the pavers on pallets. Testing lift is OK, but test from the ground, not unloading a truck.

I would have made each load lighter than yours and made more trips. An example of long-term tractor reliability being primarily a function of operator prudence and experience, secondarily maintenance and only tertiary the tractor build.

Sooner or later the odds will bite you.

I didn't have the ROPS up because I had to back partway into my garage, to make that corner. The ROPS up don't fit in my garage. I really didn't see it as a safety hazard as all the weight is pushing down. Even if a tire had popped, it wouldn't have been enough to roll anything. Everywhere I worked the tractor was flat. The front of the truck was not, as the end of my driveway is sloped, thus the reason I had to back part-way into the garage, to stay on the flat surface.

I'll take flat surface with ROPS down over hill and ROPS up, when moving heavy loads. You may choose the other way. That's fine.

When I picked up the bricks, I loaded them on the pallet. The reason I bought pallet forks was to skip steps, not make more work. If I had not loaded them on the pallet, but unloaded them from the truck, on the ground, then put them on the pallet, I just added one step. Granted, I grossly overshot on how much I initially had on it. It was a learning opportunity.

In the end, I was able to get all but the large rectangles to the back yard, on the two pallets. Today, after I put the bucket back on, I carried the rest back there and piled them up.

One thing I know, is I need a lot more pallets. If I can carry one row, per pallet, I'll just have to have more pallets, to stack them.

 

[dragoneggs]

nik, I'm following you. Might do exactly the same thing. I too have to drop my ROPS in the driveway moving things into the garage. Just this week I had two opportunities to use my forks that I don't have and instead employed the FEL bucket. Should have taken pics. First, was last week when I finally decided to replace my old rollaway compressor with a 60gal upright bolted to a pallet on a mini pallet. Second was today when I bought a combo tool chest at HF for my son for Xmas.

I am really wrestling with the QA or not to QA question. I do like easy and quick, especially as I age... supposed I just answered my question.

 

[4570Man]

I discovered a trick to preform an overweight lift. Like you discovered usually the curl is stronger, but you can't get enough height. The trick is curl the forks down while simultaneously lifting the loader arms up. This will allow you to lift the loader arms up. Now, you curl the forks up. As mentioned keeping the load closer helps a lot. When my tractor completely gives up I get a stronger tool.

 

[zoltanthegypsy]

The OP's "hold is stronger than lift" reminds me of a lesson I learned a few weeks ago. You-all probably know better...

The neighbor had a big stump he wanted moved into the woods. I got the BX24 bucket under part of it and chained it up. Couldn't quite lift it but did get it up enough that only one root was touching the ground so off we went.

Passed over a small irregularity in the ground that I wouldn't have even noticed if I was driving across it unloaded. Sure enough, that root was now in the air - hold is stronger than lift - the load was off-center apparently, and we almost went greasy-side-up. Got the bucket dumped just in time.

It takes precious little to up-end one of these things. Maybe just a popped tire - and those rims look like they're on the pavement. Just sayin'

Z.

 

[4570Man]

Here's a lift I did with the L3800. I had 1,000 pounds on the pallet. It's a single row except for 2 bags. I wouldn't have been able to lift it if it was evenly distributed.

 

[gladehound]

Keep in mind that weight pushing down on the front is weight that is lifted off the rear. Tractors get stability from the rear because the front axle has a central pivot point. I'm not going to tell someone what do do or not do with their tractor. Just be aware of the forces involved and the potential issues. Safe tractoring!

 

[jeff9366]

Keep in mind that weight pushing down on the front is weight that is lifted off the rear. Tractors get stability from the rear because the front axle has a central pivot point.

A safer method to unload pallets: Lift pallet from the truck bed just one inch, maintaining the tractor motionless, brakes applied.
Have an assistant very cautiously drive the truck out from under the load, then move the truck out of the driveway.
Maintaining the tractor motionless, slowly lower the FEL and load to minimum ground clearance height, release brakes, then transport.
You would have had driveway space to maneuver the tractor and for the ROPS to be safely erected.

((However, from summed [safe] operating experience of having owned three tractors, I would have tossed the pavers from the truck bed to the ground, then loaded the pavers on pallets. ))

Lowering the Backhoe bucket, so bucket is level with, or lower than rear axle height improves stability. Picture #6.

 

[Dropsix]

Did you blur everything out but the tractor manually in photoshop?

 

[motownbrowne]

Looking good. I will agree with Jeff here, which you should understand that I don't often do.

Lifting heavy loads, whether on flat ground or not is the absolute most important time to wear your seatbelt and have the ROPS up in my opinion. If you blew a front tire, which is possible with a heavy load, the front end drops, and the rear is liable to lift because of the momentum. Once the back end is up, your stability is gone. The whole tractor can pivot on the front axle and go right over. I'd strongly recommend using the ROPS for heavy lifting.

On the other hand, do whatever the heck you like, but know that posting pictures like that will illicit these types of responses.