Most tilt bed tow trucks will move them for you.
Remember a 4000# lift has a 4000# counter weight.The hole thing will weigh around 6000# or more.
Had a propane 1953 Tow Motor brand in the 80"s. Hard rubber tires. Did not do well in gravel/grass/dirt.
A air tire lift will handle those. Some may be jell filled instead of air and work real good.
Side shift is nice but not necessary. I worked on lifts in the 80's both propane and electric used inside for warehouse work. Batteries last as much as 10 years or more if maintained. We had Hyster,Clark,Tow Motor,Raymond to name a few.
I'm sure newer models will be much better than my old '53 but it did get the job done.
The transport question was more for when I want to take it somewhere to do work, then bring it back. I have a car hauler, but the angle of the ramps is too great for a forklift. I'm thinking of converting it to a dovetail. So, if I follow -- the rating of the machine will have the same weight counterbalance so it won't tip?
Any forklift with hard rubber tires will not fair well on gravel or dirt surfaces, nor will one with small diameter tires. I work with and around them every day and I have seen dozens of different machines over the years. If you expect to be able to take it off pavement it needs to have pneumatic tires, at least 16 inches in diameter and with some sort of tread. Rear tires should also have tread. It really depends on how soft the surface you will be operating on. As for electric or propane, they both work well, but price may be the deciding factor.
We do take our hard tired forklifts outside on the gravel, but as soon as we get away from the really hard packed areas, they get stuck easily.
Thanks. My shop has about a 10 foot strip of hard pack/gravel between the pavement and concrete slab. If I can, I'd like to be able to leave my trailer on the pavement and use the forklift for unloading, but that would mean traversing the unpaved section.
I'm just gonna toss this out there.
I have an old Bobcat, basically a solid pump platform, fluid filled tires, - can add counter-weights as nec.
Often wish I had the forklift attachment for it .
I've thought about a skid steer for a long time, can't seem to find a decent one around here for less than $7k. Unfortunately, that's not in the budget.
Got 2 forklifts at work. One late 60s/early 70s toyota and a early 2000s mitsubishi.
The toyota is 2 stage and rated for 2000 lbs and it struggles as you get close to that 2000 lb mark. It has dually Pneumatic tires up front and does well in different terrain due to its wide footprint. It is gas powered and you can just fill it with a Jerry can but it's kind of a pain sometimes. The 2 stage still offers decent visibility in front of you
the mitsubishi is 3 stage and has side shift forks with solid rubber tires. That one is rated for 4000lbs but we have loaded 6000 on it by hanging an extra counter weight off the back and the hydraulic ram doesn't complain one bit. That one only has about an inch and a half of ground clearance and it feels just about every Crack in the concrete. This one is propane and the tanks last forever as well as with 2 tanks, it's less than 5 min of downtime to swap from an empty tank to a new one, as well as being cheaper to run than the gas model. The 3 stage lift makes for large blind spots in front of you and you will find yourself leaning left and right to see around them.
My point is that there are a lot of things to consider but the main thing would be to begin with how much weight capacity do you need, and how small of a footprint do you want? Maneuverability is a huge factor if you have. If you are working exclusively indoors in a closed building then you need electric. If you are going in and out of a building with a lot of air flow then it's not as important. but the propane exhaust doesn't smell nearly as bad as the gas.
P.S. The side shift is a really nice feature to have if you can get it. We use it a ton to make small adjustments of where to place material on the ground or on a truck.
Great info, thanks. I think 3,000lbs would be plenty for me, plus my shop is small, so that means a small forklift.
My main hangup with the electric units is A) the cost of batteries, and B) the limited ability to mechanically fix problems. In other words, I feel a lot better having an internal combustion engine vs an electric motor simply due to the ability to troubleshoot and fix problems on site. My shop is very well-ventilated, so exhaust isn't a concern, but is propane or gas better than the other regarding fumes?
