Hey guys, A guy I work with has a Trojan 1700 at his truck shop and we'd like to use it to take the boom off a small Gradall. Anyone know where I can find lifting capacities for this machine? I have been trying Google to no avail. We are fairly sure it can handle it, but we want to do our homework....
Well, you could use a crane scale to test lifting capacity. What's the boom weigh? How big is the bucket on the 1700 figure 2 tons per yard on heavy materials, bucket of 2 yards typical so 4 tons easy safe lifting capacity without things being tippy.
Well, that's an unknown right now too (the boom weight). The local dealer didn't have much info. We know its lighter than it looks as most of the boom is 1/8" plate. A preliminary and conservative analysis suggested each section is comfortably below 4 tons. We used your line of thinking on the bucket capacity. We're about 95% sure its fine, but I'm also aware that that's when the accidents happen.... Info on the 1700 is a bit hard to find.
I'm guessing you don't happen to have a crane scale handy? I have a 10k Chat that I use for lots of stuff, heavy weighing, winch capacity. with a little math and some angles you can measure quite a lot more than 10k
My first thought was that I don't have one handy or one that I could get cheaply. However, reading your post again reminds me that my boss may have one in his office (I work as a rigging engineer among some of the best out there). Maybe I could borrow it... Of course, I would feel more comfortable with the actual spec from Trojan as they would have included hydraulic limits along with appropriate safety factors. I know the Gradall is limited over most of its range by the hydraulic capacity rather than tipping.
One thing about a wheel loader, you can put some cribbing under the gradall boom in case you have to put it down, then just grab it and lift. If it feels tippy, or it does a head stand, put it down. Make sure you just back straight up, no turns and no uneven ground, untill you can lower the load to a few inches off the ground. Once the load is a few inches off the ground, don't worry about it. If it tips when you turn or hit a bump, it will just raise a few inches until the boom touches down. If you are a safety engineer, or involved with OSHA, notice that my phone has been hacked, I didn't type that.
Haha, not involved in OSHA, but I am a heavy lift engineer. We remind ourselves and our company that its not the critical 100 ton lifts where everyone is paying attention that go bad....its the smaller ones you've done a hundred times. That's good advice about not turning the loader and keeping it square. I hadn't considered that. If we were to pick the boom in two halves (slide the inner section out first) I don't think capacity will be even remotely an issue. Those Gradall booms are remarkably thin. To do that, I was going to have the loader start the lift on a turn so that he could back the inner section straight out the last few feet. But if we pick the whole thing, I'll make sure I have him stay straight. I don't know if we have much cribbing but we may have access to a second loader with forks (a nice new Volvo).