I have a set of Land Pride pallet forks that are rated at 2600 lbs I believe ... What I would like to know is ... has anyone built a slide on bracket with a chain hook welded on it to slide on their forks so you can use them as a boom (cherry picker) ... would be handy to load and unload machinery from the trailer ... thoughts and picture much appreciated.
There is a difference in overload protection on the 3 pt hitch which is usually not on the FEL.
On the 3 pt, if you lift a heavy implement and go bouncing along the road, the pressure relief valve which limited how much weight you could lift. is no longer in the circuit. Most newer 3 pt hitch circuits include a second relief valve called a "Safety Valve," which operates at a much higher set pressure. It bleeds off some fluid if bouncing loads are overloading the tractor.
With your FEL imagine this scenario.
You drive into a pile of gravel and your tractor strains to lift the load in the bucket. You keep the bucket up and decide to manually load some interlocking units on top of the gravel. You are overloading the FEL but now with the only relief valve no longer in the circuit, something may break. There is no safety valve.
With forks or other attachments which extend beyond where the front of the bucket would normally be, you are greatly increasing the strain/leverage on your loader.
Another forum member posted his story. He added forks to his FEL. He was pulling back some heavy logs using the ends of the forks. My recollection is that his bucket cylinder failed.
What you want to do is possible if done with the awareness on how quickly you can overload and break components.
Dave
