Forks Pallet forks on E-Bay

[NAAsty]

If you've got a local shipping company, check there. They go through bunches of forks. When they get short (36" or so) or crooked (abuse) they typically haul them to the salvage pile for recycling. Just an idea. I got 2 pair last week, now I've got to figure out how to attach them to the back of my NAA.
Happy hunting.

 

[Inspector507]

Also check your local Clark or TowLift dealer. I have a set waiting on me to go to Michigan to pick mine up. The wife's uncle does repairs for Clark /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
They get salvaged off of dead lifts all the time.

 

[jim_wilson]

The tractor is a BX23 and near as I can tell with the backhoe on it I have more than enough rear weight. I tried lifting a couple of rocks this weekend with the FEL that must have been over the supposed 463 pound lift of the FEL and rear end did not budge - I am sure it would be a different story however if I took the backhoe off.

 

[jim_wilson]

Just wanted to give an update .... I ended up doing a buy now for a pair of forks from these guys on Ebay. After all the postings on this thread I realized that the 36" forks they had advertised in the auction were way overkill for my BX23 and would weigh so much that they would significantly impact the lift capability of the FEL. So I called them and asked if I could maybe get a pair of smaller - lighter duty forks instead of the 36 inchers. I ended up talking with a guy named Michael at Forkliftrader and he said sure they had smaller lighter forks they would be glad to sell - I also asked the weight and he estimated they would come in at about 60 pounds each fork. I figured this was an ok weight since I know the bucket weighs about 130 or so (according to the Kubota manual). So I ended up ordering two pairs - one pair intended for a FEL pallet lifter and the other pair intended for a 3 pt pallet mover. Well I received both pairs today - with shipping the two pairs came out to about $300 shipped from Wisconsin to Massachusetts. Not too bad I figured since I looked around thru Northern , Grainger and ATI and they all wanted anywhere from $250 - $300 for one pair of forks without shipping. When I got them home ( delivered to work to save on shipping) I put them in the bucket of the BX23 to carry them around to the back entry to the workshop - before loading them in however I weighed them out - one pair is 70 pounds per fork (140 per pair) - the other pair comes in at 80 pounds per fork(160 per pair). So I also figured since I now had 300 pounds already loaded in the FEL bucket I would see just how much I could lift with it - I pulled out a bunch of weightlifting weights and found that with the forks and weights loaded in the bucket I can get 670 pounds from the ground up to about 3 1/2 - 4 feet before the lift stops. I did not try to see how much I could lift to max height because the weights were sort of precarious in the bucket and I didn't want to drop anything on my nice shiny hood. So after this little test it appears that even with the heavy forks I should still be able to get myself a pallet lifter on the BX FEL that will lift around 450 - 500 pounds. I figure the bucket weighs about 130 pounds and if I use the lighter fork pair at 140 that is pretty much a wash - when I weld up a backframe that is probably going to come in around 75-90 pounds so my lift capacity to full height should probably be around 400 pounds - to half height I should be around 550-600 pounds. This is pretty much all was looking for - Thanks again for the link Caddison.