When it comes to maintaining the lift truck, it could 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 improved safety, significant cost-savings and an overall more effective operation. A properly chosen tire can actually reduce the downtime for replacement and potentially last 40 percent longer.
Tires are really quite complex components on the equipment; therefore, it is easy to select the wrong type accidentally. There are so many different brands of tires and kinds, with various treads and compounds. This means you should be fully prepared with the correct information when you are going shopping for tires so that you can decide on some durable and safe alternatives to help extend the life of your lift truck.
Your business should choose the specific tire for their machinery according to the kind of surface the equipment will be operated on. Indoor applications and smoother surfaces for instance, will generally use tires of a smaller size and made from rubber. On the contrary, outdoor operations require 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.
Lift Truck Tire Safety
Each year, there are roughly 200 people killed in accidents related for lift truck use. Ensuring forklift safety, like proper inspection practices, could all contribute in to preventing these horrible and dangerous mishaps from taking place.
Pre-Work Inspection
The tires of the lift truck have to be checked before each and every shift. Tires must ideally have the proper air pressure, that is set by the tire manufacturer. This is really essential because if the tire pressure is too low, the equipment could accidentally tip over when a load is being raised.
Kinds
The tires used on indoor forklifts will be made out of solid rubber.
Other Considerations
The Occupational Health and Safety Administration or OSHA require that lift trucks used on a continual basis need to be inspected at the completion of each and every shift. The driver has to check the machinery for any kind of mechanical issues and the tires have to be inspected for cuts, excessive wear or obvious damage to the tires. Any problems which are detected should be addressed as soon as possible to maintain safety.