I am a fat dude who needs to buy a terrain forklift for my home-based manufacturing biz. (I make bullets and need to unload 1-ton pallets of lead ingots from flatbed deliveries to my rural property.) But I mean FAT! I'm 5ft7in and 360 lbs. I barely fit behind the wheel of some full-size trucks, and do not fit in most other vehicles not designed for tubs of lard like me. So I need to know from you all who might have experience with this sort of problem;...What models of forklift out there are capable of accommodating my fat ass? I'm hunting all over Marketplace and Craigslist for what I need, and there are lots of specimens to look at, but it would be a pain in the butt to go visit every place after place to try and gaff my bulbous belly behind the wheel just to find out it ain't gonna work for me. Please help me cut short my quest by letting me know what manufacturers/models you know are more likely to let a bloated tick like me fit in the damned thing. And yes, I do have experience operating one. 15 years ago, when I wasn't this rotund, I worked for Amazon operating Crown electric stand-ups. Thanks in advance for the tips,...and the jokes. I know they're coming, and it's ok. I'm secure in my gluttony.
Generally, the bigger the forklift, the more room on the platform. You're moving 2,000lb pallets, so you need probably a 4-5,000lb capacity forklift for ease of handling. What's your unload area like? Concrete, asphalt, gravel, dirt, mud? Just trying to get a feel for how "off road" your forklift needs to be. How small of a building/ door do you need to get inside of? and how much room for turning do you have once you get inside. How much room for turning do you need? Once you get above a 10k forklift, in a outdoor rig, they get a little big for getting inside building, and dealing with pallet racking etc. My smallest forklift is a old Clark 3-4,000 capacity, and you wouldn't fit on it. Its small hard tires, and a concrete/ pavement only rig. I've got a cat 5k that has "somewhat" outdoor tires on it, it will handle gravel, but its no off road rig. It would be close to fitting for you. I have a 6,000lb capacity Allis Chalmers forklift, its built off a tractor chassis turned backwards. I think you would have no problems fitting on it. It has large tractor tires on the drive, and it gets in and out of the building okay, but its a pretty long wheelbase, it would be hard to turn 90 degrees and stack pallet racking. You need a taller door for that type of lift. I have a Champ 12,000lbs capacity lift, its got all the room in the world on the platform, but it never goes in a building, because you can't turn it once you get in there. Plus its mast is 13' tall all the way down, so it won't fit in most doors. When you look at forklifts, some of them are flat under the seat, to behind the seat, on some lifts you can move the seat back, just by moving some bolts or building a extension. What kind of budget are you working with, and how new do you want it? What do you want to use for fuel? If you're going to be inside a lot, a propane forklift would be nice. If its mostly outdoors, diesel is much more convenient. If you are mostly outdoors, and just stick the pallet in the door, and then move pallets around with a pallet jack- it opens up your options. You may be able to use a IT type backhoe with a open station (roll over roof but no cab) that gives you a lot of room in the cab area. A 6,000lb capacity telehandler with no cab, means you can have a lot of you hanging out the open side.
I know a little bit of your issues, mine is height instead of width, but it presents similar issues in looking at moving seats and having room for my feet and legs. Or my head hitting the roll over bars/ roof. There's something out there that can work.
My allis "backwards tractor" forklift is a 706D. It looks like this. Its pretty good out in the dirt/mud. But it may be too large if you need to do much indoors. There are more models built by Case. they are "585" "586" "588" with letter designators after the numbers. Later in the alphabet are newer.
Here's my smaller cat. We've got the seat off for painting, but you can see you could move the seat back without a lot of work. The tires are treaded, but if you have big ruts, it's not a "go anywhere" kind of rig.
Thank you for that in depth analysis. The terrain I need the lift to be able to traverse isn't particularly difficult. Just mostly my gravel driveway and similarly flat but ungraded dirt elsewhere like the road out in front where the flatbed truck would be to unload from and elsewhere on my property where I might park some pallets until needing to be moved into the shop space. Obviously little hard rubber wheels meant only for concrete dock surfaces won't do, but the huge tractor tires are unnecessary also. Not bad, just more than needed, at least while the ground is hard. While it doesn't rain here much in the desert, it does happen, and I'd like the tire footprint to be big enough that the beast wouldn't sink in the softened dirt and get stuck. I'll try and attach photos here that are some stills from drone video I took of my place a few years ago. They might show the ground well enough to see what I mean. Also, they will hopefully show the area I need to maneuver in. I have a 4-car garage that I'm using for the moment. (I'll be erecting a steel building within a year to expand into more proper space.) The current garage door is your typical suburban 8ft tall garage door, so I do not intend to try to drive into the garage. I only need to be able to place the pallets on the concrete pad at the entrance and I can then use a manual pallet jack from there to move them just inside the doorway. If the pictures come through, you can see I only have so much width of the gravel driveway in front of the garage to maneuver, so a big heavy tractor type might be a little tight in that envelope.
Here's an example of a potential problem I'd like to avoid that one of my competitors had about 13 years ago. He only had a small Toyota lift, but it was enough to handle the typical 1-ton pallets his regular supplier packaged the lead ingots on. He had to change suppliers, and he told them that the pallets they shipped to him MUST be loaded no more than 2000 lbs. Well, someone didn't get the memo, and his shipment of an entire truckload arrived packaged as 3000 lbs. pallets. The size of machine here seems like it would be adequate for the same task I face, but I'd like tires a little bit larger than that, and of course be able to fit in the thing.
That's probably a 3-3,500lb capacity lift, and ratings are at 24" from the mast. I think anything in the 5=6,000 capacity with the treaded pneumatic tires will get all around your yard. And handle your skids. Your property looks flat and probably is pretty solid. Hyster, Cat (which are actually mitsubishi), clark , toyota, nissan, all make good lifts in that range. If you were worried about sinking away if it gets rainy, there's ones out there in the 6-8,000 lbs capacity range, that have dual tires out front. But the heavier (more capacity) they are, the more they like to sink away. I gave $4,000 for my cat 5,000lb capacity around 2 years ago. It had a lot of surface rust (hence the new paint job), its gas. Its at a secondary building/location, and the only forklift at that location. It goes in the building and in my gravel yard, but we don't go out in the gravel yard in rainy season, especially if its all rutted up. You will get stuck. I gave $4,000 for my allis backwards tractor forklift 12 years ago, its diesel. Its at our main shop and the most used forklift there. We have a large gravel yard and some concrete. It will go anywhere in our yard. The hard rubber tire one lives inside the building there, but doesn't leave the concrete, and we rarely use the 12k. Its just big and awkward. If you want to be able to drive in your future building, get a smaller lift. If its never going inside, I think the backwards tractor forklifts are great for a outdoor all the time machine. In my area, if you have time, you can get a indoor outdoor tired warehouse type machine for 5-8,000, that should be a pretty good machine. There's some $2,500 stuff out there, but they usually have problems of the engine/transmission/ no brakes variety- and they are from 1962. You don't have to pay a lot more for a lot nicer machine. A backwards tractor diesel (unless its ancient) will trend closer to $10k. A small telehandler will be easily $20-30,000. If you have pictures, or links to craigslist or facebook marketplace listings of equipment you are looking at, post them up here. There's lots of guys with history of different machines that check in, with plenty of free advice. You can also spend some time looking at machinery trader, its mostly dealers, but it will give you a idea of whats available. There are sometimes some deals on there, with equipment that is a little older that a dealer has to take on trade in, but they just want gone. Good luck with your search.
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So if you want to cruise machinery trader, first select "forklifts". go to the "filters" on the left side of the screen. Put in 5-8,000lbs capacity, put in a price range from $5,000-$12,000. Select manufacturers of Case, Cat, Clark, Hyster, Toyota, and Nissan. Then select category "pneumatic and rough terrain". And select country of USA. That should give you a couple hundred to sort through.
And there you have it.