Roadside Breakdown Trouble

If you own a forklift and plan to get a towing service company to tow this equipment for you, these two suggestions might be of use to you.

1. Get it towed on a tipper trailer if you won't have time to refuel

If the forklift's fuel supply has been used up and you definitely won't get a chance to fill up its fuel tank again before you have it towed, then you should find out if the towing business you are going to use has tipper trailers. If they do, then you should have them tow your equipment on one of these trailers.

A tipper trailer is one that can be tilted to the point where one end of it is much higher up than the other end. Being able to put the trailer in this position could come in handy when you need to move your forklift, with its empty fuel tank, onto the trailer. It's also helpful when you need to unload it, as you won't have to turn it on and drive it to perform these manoeuvres.

Instead, you can simply position it on the lowered back end of the tilted trailer, and the tow truck driver can then slowly level out the trailer in order to get the forklift onto it. Then, when the driver arrives at the spot where you've asked them to drop off the forklift, they can tilt the trailer again, and the forklift should slowly roll off it without you or the driver having to turn its engine on.

2. Make sure the tipper trailer's rear doors are locked before telling the driver to level out the tipper trailer

After the person whose towing service you're using has angled the trailer, and the equipment has been rolled onto the edge of it, they will then need to start levelling out the trailer. It's important to check that the trailer's rear doors are not just closed but are actually locked before you tell them that it's safe to begin doing this.

The reason for this is as follows; if these doors aren't secured before the position of the trailer changes, the forklift could start rolling backwards, go flying through these unlocked doors and then fall off the trailer. This could break the equipment. This incident might not only result in you not having a working forklift for quite some time but would also probably leave you stuck with a very big repair bill.