Can a Hyster 8K boxcar special forklift lift a 9,200 lb turning center ?

Assuming extra counterweight is added of course (in this case a 900 lb electric pallet jack battery hanging off the rear via straps connected to the overhead guarding..i.e. not just extra weight but extra weight way further back than normal)

The CNC lathe in question is 5 feet deep but it looks like the weight center would be about 20 inches out if the fork carriage was snugged all the way up.

So, the counterweight issue would be taken care of but would the hydraulics actually lift it is the big question.



FWIW, the forks are almost new and 5 feet long. Lift purpose would be to get the turn center off semi truck trailer and into shop.

Edited after sleeping on it . . .

Load center for 8000 lb rating on that truck is 24 inches - (if you wheel center is 10 inches back from your fork surface) from a counter balance standpoint - equivalent load at 20 inches is 9060 lbs without adding any counterweight.

That extra 1200 lbs over the rating shouldn't be a problem unless the pressure relief valve is really close to the limit of the forklift.

I'd be looking for confidence in the actual load center location - mast tilted all the way back and go slow.

Does your lift have a side shift? That is rarely ever accounted for in the load center chart.

I would think it would; the Monarch 13EE I picked up in Springfield Mo. was loaded by a 7000 rated Clark with five guys hanging on it! The 13EE weighs abut 12000 and the first thing I noticed was the tires were nearly flat, dual pneumatics. The forklift was grossly overloaded but he hydraulics never missed a beat.

Steve

motion guru said:

Load center for 8000 lb rating on that truck is 24 inches

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Of course, that is why I mentioned the 20 inches as that is a significant factor. However yes it does have side shift which lowers rating a little due to carriage projecting out and the extra weight of the carriage. Also the 5 foot long forks lowers rating a tad, due to an extra foot of steel on each, compared to standard 4 foot forks. I am accounting for that, which is why I would want to go overkill on the counterweight.

Whenever I have to lift something at max capacity or over I try to just lift the machine Then get the mast backed out at the max and then have the truck ride away from under it

Another way is to put some hardwood under the bottem of the mast That way the tipping point is put about 30 to 40 cm forward. I have never done that but i was considering the option of placing 2 hydraulic cilinders on the mast pushing on the floor to prevent tipping over
You cannot drive with this but you can lower a load. BTW I have a 6 ton mast on a 4.5 ton forktruck

peter from holland

Different brand but a 2.5T nissan wouldn't lift a tad over 3T on lift rams. Tilt rams would do it though- machine balance was iffy, was only moving at ground level.

Can you determine max pressure of system ? and calc the lift capacity ? Blank off hoses with a gauge and lift maybe?

Can you test capacity? Find something of equal or greater weight, and lift and drop a little to see what happens. I know you dont like obvious answers but overloading (further overloading ) seems like the best way to find out to me.

My thoughts are yes. I've lifted a Barber Colman 16-56 gear machine and a pallet of change gears with my 7k BCS Hyster forklift, best guess on the weight is 9300 for the machine alone. That's a machine I could get up close to.

Also improved the counterweight to move my Fadal VMC15, its lightweight in the 5500 lb range but there was only so close I could get to that and I was more like 5500 lbs @ 36-40" load center, forget the exact details, but that equates in the 9k range @ 24" if you compute the resultant moment. It also required counterweight improvement to make me feel better.

I know you already know from your other adventures that the load center can be fine with the forks raised and a lot of back tilt, but creeps out as you lower the carriage. But this sounds like a machine you can get close to. In which I'd trust that the manufacturer has given you a "little extra". Not saying go overload your forklift, but carefully done in a rigging situation where you are moving at creep speed with slow deliberate movements it seems to work OK.

I would take a look at your forks as well, when I first got the forklift it had these thin lumber forks which tapered down to a nearly sharp point. Not ideal and so as I was moving cross-country I invested in some Cascade-Kenhar forks of 10k capacity, big thick suckers @ 2" x 6" x 60" which are terrible for pallets but awesome for machines. I even picked them up at their Ohio plant but they wouldn't give me a tour citing safety concerns

Here is my take on how to counterweight. I had these extra tractor weights and some S4 - I beam, I welded up some flat bar to trap in the slots of the overhead guard (its 1/4" thick punched plate) and bolt in from below. The idea was to get the weight back as far as possible to maximize what I could do with it. IIRC its 300lbs of cast but placed ~7 feet back from the front wheels, the equivalent moment balance @ 24" is around 1000 lbs of additional counterweight.

I should also add that this move, while drama free, started to compromise the asphalt driveway with some deep ruts. My conclusion is that the road base is half-assed in front of the next garage door over, which was added on to the original by previous owners.

An attorney at hyster just fainted.

CNC lathes can be tough lifts. Ive seen more than one go over, Not mine thank god. Just go slow and keep it close to the ground.

thermite said:

Hydraulics will manage it. It is the lateral stability (or lack thereof) that would send me off to rental of a 12K - 15K conventional with a wider stance. Extrapolating from a 4K Towmotor short-mast FL of intimate acquaintance, this sub-species in general are too narrow to run that risk. Most especially if on 'improved ground' or asphalt (classed as 'flexible pavement', after all..) rather than stout and rigid concrete.

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I agree, that is another issue. We have pervious concrete, which is less prone to sinking like asphalt but it is deterioating in some places such that a sudden crack under load would not be impossible. And Matt has it right about the irony that the load is less likely to tip the truck forward when it is fully raised and tilted back all the way, and more likely to tip the forklift as you lower it due to load to counterbalance aspects gradually becoming less favorable from a basic geometry standpoint....such that the lowering process is a bit of a butt tightener sometimes...and yet one resists driving around with load fully raised due to lateral stability issues as you say.

There is some mention in the manual (Daewoo 230MB) that hints it may have fork pockets...that would sure help. The passage is "Put the forks of forklift into lifting caves located in the bottom of machine base" Lifting "caves"....is that Korean for pocket ??

Looking at drawings and photos of the basic casting I think they mean recesses in the casting however, not actual "pockets" and would require a pretty wide fork carriage to span the "caves" of both pedestals. Naturally they don't bother to give the distance between "caves" dimensions but do give super helpful info like "When placing the load on the floor, care to lower it gently so as not to hit the floor"......perfect NSS (No Shit Sherlock)..well, duh... passage. Also no info on the actual front to back load center dimension (my 20" figure is obviously somewhat of a guess)... just gives the machine weight and says to "use the truck with sufficient capacity"... more NSS...

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(on edit) Looking further at a photo of the raw base casting it looks like the downside of this whole idea is that if the left fork is placed in the "cave" of the left pedestal, there is no way my carriage is wide enough to engage the right fork in the right "cave". Thus I would not be able to use either cave since the lathe would be too unbalanced otherwise.

On a positive note, I found an overhead drawing showing crane lift centerpoint, which if drawn correctly and to scale, indicates I was pretty close on front to back weight center point... 20 to 22 inches from front sheet metal.

Milacron said:

I agree, that is another issue. We have pervious concrete, which is less prone to sinking like asphalt but it is deterioating in some places such that a sudden crack under load would not be impossible.

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So putting a decent lenght of hardwood under the mast ends also ads a lot of surface supporting the forklift
And also like mentioned already puts the tipping over point about 20 to 30 cm forward


Also a heavier truck only makes things worse for the concrete
Whats under the concrete Not hollow I think

Peter from Holland

You know what they say, load limits are written to be exceeded.

Bil
The concrete does not know the truck is only at 75% of its rated load

I was refering to the sudden crack under load mentioned by the OP in post 11
The chance of which IMHO can get worse with a heavier truck

Peter from holland

I was thinking more of a pothole like situation A local concentrated bad spot While you are referring to poor concrete all over

"CBR and ESW trump your humble opinion "
BTW why do I allways have to use google and google translate to understand any of your post and even then

CBR is "centraal buro rijvaardigheden" to me and that makes no sence


Peter from Holland

I've picked up things that I shouldn't with my Clark 5,000# extra counter weight , then get every thing into position and go home first thing in the AM start truck and lift the item move and put down, by waiting till the AM oil is cool and a little thicker gives a little more oomph.

As Bill points out, civil engineering still has the last laugh.

Here is a pick I did which could have ended very badly. In less than 1 second, the forklift's front tire broke into some sort of pocket or void or soft spot the asphalt could not bridge the weight of and I was down to the frame with the lift stuck in the ground. It was a 12.5k Yale I rented to move a Mazak turning center into the shop. Was just using it since it was nice and didn't leak oil all over. Last machine to go into the shop was the Fadal. Without the fork pockets I believe this machine would have ended on its side. I was like 5 minutes or less from finishing the entire job right before this happened and it put me back about 3 hours work into the darkness and cold of a short winter day.

Milacron said:

Of course, that is why I mentioned the 20 inches as that is a significant factor. However yes it does have side shift which lowers rating a little due to carriage projecting out and the extra weight of the carriage. Also the 5 foot long forks lowers rating a tad, due to an extra foot of steel on each, compared to standard 4 foot forks. I am accounting for that, which is why I would want to go overkill on the counterweight.

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Since I don't have the needed info to calculate the safety factor that is built into the truck-IMO the Clark and Hyster had a good bit more built in than most trucks as they were used in box cars with heavy paper roll clamps and great top end capacity. If the lift chains and connector links are good and with the experience you have had over your time- I would have no second thoughts to try this-however I would not have said this to any of my past customers as I would have been the guy who would end up in court to explain what went wrong?

I observe that good riggers often bring various sorts of steel plates to help manage the punch through problem. I never noted how thick they were. But that would be one way to avoid punch-through and all the unnecessary excitement it would bring.

It seems to me a simple experiment to see if it what it will lift. Stick the forks under something than won't move and pull the lever. If the rear wheels come off the ground then the hydraulics are good for it. If you are confident you have enough counterbalance then go for it.

Milacron said:

Looking further at a photo of the raw base casting it looks like the downside of this whole idea is that if the left fork is placed in the "cave" of the left pedestal, there is no way my carriage is wide enough to engage the right fork in the right "cave". Thus I would not be able to use either cave since the lathe would be too unbalanced otherwise.

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I'm getting another large Mazak CNC lathe (12,000 lbs) delivered in the morning. My riggers are going to use their monster 30k lb capacity Hyster forklift again mainly because the machine is so large, they can straddle the open gap between the feet from the headstock and tailstock. The other reason for using the big ass forklift is it also gives them a LOT more stability on uneven ground because they have to wheel my machine in using the dirt alley behind my house to get to my shop. This is basically going to be a repeat of what they did when they delivered my first Mazak 2 years ago. They also got the job done a LOT faster using the big MoFo than being super slow using a smaller forklift.

Bottom line: Overkill is sometimes used simply for peace of mind.