Thanks Lee, this is awesome! Really gives me a good idea of what to do and the suggestions are also on point and helpful. And the pictures... well, everyone loves pictures!
Very much appreciated! :thumbsup:
Need help designing a carriage for a set of forks
- Thread starter CanDo
- Start date
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Thanks Lee, this is awesome! Really gives me a good idea of what to do and the suggestions are also on point and helpful. And the pictures... well, everyone loves pictures!
Very much appreciated! :thumbsup:
CDN Farm Boy
Veteran Member
That's great if you've got the forks already. In that case, I'd use them and still go fixed width. Applications are different for everyone. Some people really make use of the adjustability, some use it only because it's there and some never use it.
15 yrs ago, I made a fork carriage for the Skidsteer I had and made it the full 60" wide of the machine. I was installing Cover-all buildings at the time and was using it to move all the different components so the extra 18" of width from a standard 42" wide frame was significant when balancing 16' 8x8 posts or 20' long truss sections and narrow them up 12" apart for moving crates of hardware. When I quit installing those, I traded the LS160 in on a TC23 NH and cut the extra width off the frame, set the forks 32-36" and never adjusted the forks again for 3 yrs. Fast forward a bunch of years to this tractor and I didn't even consider adjustable forks.
I just wanted to throw it out there as an option many don't consider.
Interesting. To be honest, I never really seriously considered stationary forks since I've run into numerous situations where I really had wished that my non-adjustable wooden "wannabe" forks had in fact been adjustable. Of course, they were big and had three forks which precluded me using them with pallets (which is important) but there were numerous other instances as well. I had considered making a set of steel forks from scratch in order to lighten them up, but I already have this set of old commercial forks - even though they are quite heavy. Therefore, I hope to get back a little capacity through the use of a lighter weight carriage - while still being strong enough for my tractor.
Anyway, I do thank you for your thoughts Farm Boy, but at this point I'm committed to trying the adjustable route and then, as I said, I guess I'll find out!
Here's one of the forks that I'm dealing with. The pin assembly has been removed, cleaned and also painted with the springs themselves replaced. The little cam lever that lifts the pin was gone and only a bit of wire was used to pull up the pin in order to move the forks along its rail. I'm going to have to find out where they can be bought (can't be that expensive) or at the worst, take piece of sheet stock and cut, bend and drill out a set.
Obviously the yellow paint job is mine. I had some old tractor yellow laying around so I cleaned and de-greased and then painted those areas that will not come in contact with a payload or floor/ground and also a 3" area where it should contact the carriage. Why paint? Well, why not? Actually, I must just be excited about putting a real set of steel forks to use.
:dance1:
Obviously the yellow paint job is mine. I had some old tractor yellow laying around so I cleaned and de-greased and then painted those areas that will not come in contact with a payload or floor/ground and also a 3" area where it should contact the carriage. Why paint? Well, why not? Actually, I must just be excited about putting a real set of steel forks to use.
:dance1:
Attachments
OK, got part one done (quick attach conversion) done and just finished up part two which is the fork carriage.
I want to thank all of you who made suggestions (either here or in the other "Gotta convert loader to Quick Attach" thread) and especially a big thanks to Xfaxman for suggesting the "rollback" - I went with two inches back in 16 inches of height.
and to zmansmac for the heavier crossbar suggestion. I went with only 2" but that's up from the 1" that I had planned.
and I also borrowed the wing concept to help catch the loader arms from sd455dan. Hard to see in the picture, but they angle out about a half an inch.
Finally, I looked at a number of suggestions like from DieselCrawler to come up with just a simple basic frame which is way stronger than anything I'm going to be able to carry. I used 1.5 x 1.5 x 3/16 inch tubing with the bars being 3" x .5" - everything welded up solid.
Thanks again all for your support! :thumbsup:
Now, for some paint.....
I want to thank all of you who made suggestions (either here or in the other "Gotta convert loader to Quick Attach" thread) and especially a big thanks to Xfaxman for suggesting the "rollback" - I went with two inches back in 16 inches of height.
and to zmansmac for the heavier crossbar suggestion. I went with only 2" but that's up from the 1" that I had planned.
and I also borrowed the wing concept to help catch the loader arms from sd455dan. Hard to see in the picture, but they angle out about a half an inch.
Finally, I looked at a number of suggestions like from DieselCrawler to come up with just a simple basic frame which is way stronger than anything I'm going to be able to carry. I used 1.5 x 1.5 x 3/16 inch tubing with the bars being 3" x .5" - everything welded up solid.
Thanks again all for your support! :thumbsup:
Now, for some paint.....
crackerjack222
Silver Member
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2011
- Messages
- 243
- Tractor
- 4430, Ford 7000, MF235
I'm coming late to this discussion, but I also plan to build a frame for some forks I already have. My plan is to use 4"x 2" channel with the top piece turned up and the bottom piece turned down. The ends will be closed with the same channel and the mounting done with pairs of 4" angle from top to bottom. I will cut some notches in the top channel and use mounting pins in the angle iron pairs. This will not be "**** for stout" but will be simple to build and should be strong enough for anything I will be lifting. I just got the channel last week and used some for another project and will get the angle soon (too many other projects in the way).
Sounds like it should work just fine and actually be very strong. Love to see what you do with it. Why don't you take a few pictures as you begin and start a new thread - I'd certainly be interested. :thumbsup:
