Kioti CK20 Lift Capacity with pallet forks ???

[CitizenOfThePlanet]

Good morning everyone.

I was hoping for some help so I can avoid having to buy a forklift for my business.

I have inventory coming in and out for my business on a daily basis and it's growing fast but I don't have a forklift so we are having to dismantle the pallets on the delivery truck and move them from delivery to my warehouse. It's a real pain in the *****.

Somebody told me to get forks for the loader on my CK20, but I had a few questions about lift capacity.

Last summer I borrowed some forks, and I tried to move a pallet of concrete with the CK20 and it was not strong enough to handle the load. I think there were about 600 pounds on it. Thinking back, I didn't try to troubleshoot it, and I may have been in high instead of low but I don't know if that could be part of the reason?

I checked the specks on Kioti.com and it says my tractor can lift over 1000 lbs. Am I reading this wrong?

I have a delivery of 2 pallets coming Wednesday, they are about 500 lbs each and I need to remove them from the delivery truck, then ship them out the next day to another company and will need to get them back up and into the second truck. This will be a reoccurring issue but I am not in a position to buy a forklift yet so I really need to get the tractor working well enough to handle it.

Thanks!

 

[CitizenOfThePlanet]

My mistake, the weight on Kioti.com is for the 3 point hitch, I need to find the weight lift capacity for the front end loader. Thanks

 

[jeff9366]

1. In order to lift a heavy load of any kind with the FEL you need a counterbalance mounted on the Three Point Hitch. Without counterbalance weight pivots on front axle, unloading weight from rear axle, so tractor loses traction.

Gear will not make any difference.

2. Forks clamped on the bucket will not have much lift capacity because they are way out in front and leverage + bucket weight is against you.

3. Forks mounted directly on the FEL via SSQA (Skid Steer Quick Attach) mount will have approximate lift shown for your bucket in your Operator's Manual. (Small difference relative to weight of bucket vs. weight of forks.)

4. FEL lift capacity decreases with height of lift. So you may get part way up with a "book" max load but stall trying to lift higher.

 

[CitizenOfThePlanet]

Jeff, I have a backhoe on the back of the tractor that I keep on there always. Is this enough of a counterbalance?

 

[jeff9366]

Ample.

 

[CitizenOfThePlanet]

Sounds good. I still had the issue last summer with the concrete on the pallet. I couldn't lift it, even with the hoe attached. Would being in high instead of low cause this or was there something else I was doing wrong?

 

[jeff9366]

Concrete may simply have been too heavy. I know the CK20 is one of the small Kioti models. What does your Operator's Manual say about FEL lift capacity?

If it is level between delivery truck and loading dock, can't you tow pallet off with a chain?






Or buy a manually operated pallet fork, which has a small internal pump which will raise a pallet high enough to move. In my younger days I unloaded a million pallets of groceries from sixteen wheelers with one of these. When we eventually bought a battery powered pallet fork I was in heaven.

 

[CitizenOfThePlanet]

I looked at the manual for the loader online and it said 1080 pounds. The concrete was not that heavy so I am really not sure what I did wrong.

 

[jeff9366]

Read Post #3.

Where/how were the forks mounted?

If forks were clamped on the bucket you have perhaps 600 pounds (?) lift on the forks, not 1,080 pounds lift.

Were your tires correctly inflated? Low tire pressures will make moving FEL loads extra difficult.

Was the tractor on a hard, smooth surface? If tractor was on a soft or uneven surface lift capacity decreases.

 

[s219]

If you can find the lift # spec from Kioti, also be sure to note where it's spec'd for -- normally it's at the loader end pin or some other easy to locate position. Anywhere you go in front of that reduces the load capacity since you are adding lever arm (basically giving the load the leverage, which makes the tractor work harder). It doesn't take but a few feet in front of that pin to cut the capacity way down from the spec.

As an example, when I was nudging a heavy pallet into place, it would have been much easier to lift the edge of the pallet with the tips of the forks, but there wasn't enough capacity to do so since the load point was way out in front (40" in the case of my forks). Moving forks deeper under the pallet moved the load closer to the loader pins and then I had the capability to lift it.

Clamp on forks make the problem worse because you automatically lose about 1 foot of lever arm. Plus you still have the weight of the bucket there. Besides that, they are lousy because they want to move around and never stay put in my experience. I have a pair, and just hate them. If you were using clamp on forks, try instead getting a proper pin-on set of pallet forks, or better yet a quick-attach set that can swap easily. That puts the load starting right near the pins, which is good.

Based on lifting stuff with my previous smaller tractor, I estimate I would lose 300# of the loader capacity simply by using clamp on forks and then having a large pallet move the load way out in front. That was like losing about 40% of the loader capacity right there.