When it comes to maintaining the lift truck, it could really be easy to neglect 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 right tire you could enjoy significant cost-savings, improved safety and an overall more effective operation. A properly chosen tire can really decrease the downtime for replacement and potentially last 40% longer.
The lift truck tire is a quite complex component of the machinery. It is thus, easy to choose the wrong one accidentally. There are so many different kinds of tires and brands, with various treads and compounds. This means you need to be totally prepared with the right information when you are purchasing tires so that you could choose some safe and durable options to help prolong the life of your lift truck.
Your company must select the specific tire for their machine based on the type of surface the machine will be operated on. Smoother surfaces and indoor applications for instance, will generally use tires of a smaller size and made from rubber. On the other hand, outdoor operations require pneumatic tires. Pneumatic tires are filled with compressed air and have a rubber tread. These features give them a good grip on uneven and rough surfaces.
Forklift Tire Safety
Each year, 200 people are killed in lift truck or forklift related accidents each year. Ensuring lift truck safety, like for example correct inspection practices, could all contribute in to preventing these horrible and dangerous accidents from happening.
Pre-Work Inspection
The tires of the lift truck have to be checked prior to every shift. Tires should ideally have the proper air pressure, that is set by the manufacturer of the tire. This is very important because if the tire pressure is too low, the equipment can inadvertently tip over when a load is being lifted.
Kinds
The tires utilized on indoor forklifts will be made out of solid rubber.
Other factors
OSHA or the Occupational Health and Safety Administration places a requirement on the frequent utilization of forklifts. These forklifts must be inspected at the end of each and every shift. The operator needs to check the machinery for any type of mechanical problems and the tires have to be inspected for excessive wear, cuts or obvious damage to the tires. Any issues that are detected should be addressed as soon as possible to maintain safety.