When it comes to maintaining the lift truck, it could really be easy to overlook the simple yet important tire. If you pick 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, significant cost-savings and an overall more effective operation. A properly selected tire could actually decrease the downtime for replacement and potentially last 40 percent longer.
Tires are actually quite complex components on the machine; therefore, it is easy to choose the wrong type accidentally. There are so many different kinds of tires and brands, with different treads and compounds. This means you must be completely prepared with the right data when you are going shopping for tires so that you could decide on some safe and tough options to help prolong the life of your lift truck.
The specific type of tire chosen for a forklift depends on the type of surface you will be using the machinery on. For instance, indoor applications and smooth surfaces normally use tires which 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 characteristics give them a good grip on surfaces which are uneven and rough.
Forklift Tire Safety
Each and every year, 200 individuals are killed in lift truck or forklift related accidents each year. Ensuring lift truck safety, such as proper inspection practices, can all contribute in to avoiding these dangerous and horrible accidents from occurring.
Pre-Work Inspection
The tires of the lift truck have to be checked before every shift. Tires should ideally have the right air pressure, which is set by the tire manufacturer. This is extremely essential because if the tire pressure is too low, the equipment could inadvertently tip over when a load is being lifted.
Types
For indoor work, lift trucks that have solid tires made out of rubber are the most suitable option.
Other factors
The Occupational Health and Safety Administration or OSHA require that lift trucks utilized on a continual basis need to be inspected at the completion of each and every shift. The driver should check the equipment for any mechanical issues and the tires must be inspected for excessive wear, cuts or obvious tire damage. Any issues which are detected have to be dealt with as soon as possible to maintain safety.