When it comes to maintaining the lift truck, it could really be easy to overlook the simple yet essential tire. If you choose the wrong tire, you could end up accidentally with a huge increase in fleet operating costs, or increased safety risks, which is worse yet. If however, you pick correct kind of tire you could enjoy improved safety, substantial cost-savings and an overall more effective operation. A properly selected tire could actually decrease the downtime for replacement and probably last 40% longer.
Tires are really quite complex parts on the machinery; thus, it is easy to select the wrong one accidentally. There are numerous different kinds of tires and brands, with a wide array of compounds and treads. This means you should be totally prepared with the right data when you are going shopping for tires so that you could choose some tough and safe options to help extend the life of your lift truck.
The specific kind of tire selected for a forklift depends on the type of surface you would be utilizing the equipment on. Like for instance, indoor applications and smooth surfaces normally use tires that are made from rubber and that are smaller in size. On the contrary, outdoor applications need pneumatic tires. Pneumatic tires have a rubber tread and are filled with compressed air. These features give them a great grip on surfaces which are rough and uneven.
Forklift Tire Safety
Each and every year, 200 individuals are killed in forklift or lift truck related accidents each year. Ensuring lift truck safety, like proper inspection practices, can all contribute in to avoiding these dangerous and terrible accidents from occurring.
Pre-Work Check
The tires of the lift truck needs to be inspected prior to every shift. Tires must ideally have the right air pressure, that is set by the manufacturer of the tire. This is really important because if the tire pressure is very low, the machine can accidentally tip over when a load is being raised.
Types
The tires used on indoor lift trucks would be made out of solid rubber.
Other factors
Occupational Health and Safety Administration or OSHA places a requirement on the frequent use of forklifts. These forklifts are required to be inspected at the end of each and every shift. The operator has to check the machinery for any mechanical issues and the tires need to be inspected for excessive wear, cuts or obvious tire damage. Any problems which are detected should be addressed as soon as possible to maintain safety.