Originally Posted by rockinbbar
Originally Posted by StoneCutter
This is a good thread. Thanks for all of the info, it's educational. We had this same discussion on Monday and it's good to hear different opinions on this and it clarifies what we were talking about.

I have a handful of flatbeds with truck mounted forklifts. In case you're not familiar with how they're mounted, here a brief explanation. You pull up to the back of the truck and slide the forks into a pocket in the forklift kit. You lift up the machine to the ride height and suck it in so that the front tires are under the truck and over the tire pads. On each side of the machine there is a chain. It's heavy, maybe 1/2". At the end of each chain is a shackle. You then hook the chains to the forklift kit by putting a 3/4" hitch pin through the shackle. Then you relax the hydraulics on the machine and the tires sit down on the tire pads and the rest of the weight hangs on the chains. The machine only weighs 6000 lbs., but it's hanging on the back of the truck and they have a tendency to bounce a little when you hit bumps.

On Monday, one of my drivers rolls into the yard and he's dragging one of the chains. The shackles are held onto the chains by a 5/8" pin with no head and they're held in with a couple of roll pins. The roll pins didn't hold and he lost the 5/8" pin. My first thought was to put a grade 8 bolt through it, or a hitch pin. The discussion started and everyone had a different opinion. My driver didn't like the grade 8 idea and thought there was something stronger. So I went to Tractor Supply and looked at the hardware. They had grade 5 and grade 8. I wasn't sure which one was stronger so I looked at the hitch pins. They had the regular silver hitch pins for $4.00 and they had the fancy black ones with a handle for $9.00. I went with the $9.00 hitch pin. So far, so good. But I told him to keep an eye on it. The last thing I need is to lose a $70K forklift and kill somebody.

As far as the Toyota 4 Runner goes, anything will work.

I'm wondering why they go with a 5/8" pin on that, and not a 1 inch pin?

Seems like insurance to me. Obviously, the 5/8 can and will break. I'm guessing the pin sheared, is why they lost it.

Yeah, not sure. He just rolled back in the yard, so I looked at it again. The pin that goes through the shackle is actually 1 1/8". The chain is 1/2". But the pin in the shackle is 5/8". The forklift is a Moffett made by Hiab. Not sure about the pin, you could be right about it shearing off, but the hole in the shackle wasn't screwed up or anything. If it just fell out, not sure how that could happen with all of that weight on it unless it came out when it bounced or something.


[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem."
Ronald Reagan