Hi there learned and experienced colleagues.
My friend is looking to buy a 7.5t truck with a box on the back for moving house, storing furniture short term and when this is all over, towing a car trailer.
Questions for the trucking missive:-
With a 1000 kg tail lift, how far can you “push” the load capacity? Or, put another way, could you lift 1200 kg? (yes I know, H+S tosh and all that, but it’s not a business setup)
What are the options for fitting a towbar with a tail lift? Is it possible? Would a removable 'bar be needed?
Yes, he has all the grandfather rights to drive this setup.
He won’t be able to tow a loaded car trailer on grandfather rights.
Most 7.5t don’t have a 1000Kg tail-lift, if you do have one then ‘adjusting’ them to lift 1200Kg is easy enough, but the platforms are very lightweight and will be right at the edge of their design.
I believe that tailifts have a pressure relief valve, which means it won’t lift over a certain capacity and as the 2 guys who where unloading a car at Silverstone last year can testify, tailifts bite back when not used or maintained properly, luckily they were only injured, but still needed to go to hospital when the tail lift failed and the car came off.
You can get heavy duty removable tow-bars, one of the trucks I drive has one. or maybe depending on the tailift one that is far enough under not to foul the lift operation.
tail lift are like fork trucks they assume that the max load is going to be near the bit that’s doing the work, a 1000kg pallet near the fork truck mast or in the middle of the tail lift is what it is intended for, spread that same weight over the length of a car, especially with the engine away from the truck and all the forces change, a quick look at the load plan on a fork lift will show the reduced weight for a pallet of 1000kg on 1 meter forks and the same for forks of i.25 meter fork etc. a lorry loader chart is another good one to look at they show the reductions over longer distances. good luck be careful out there.
If he only has a car licence (with grandfather rights) and intends using the 7.5t to tow, then he will only be permitted to tow up to 750kg max and that includes the weight of the trailer.
Yes you can usually adjust a 1000kg tail lift to lift 1200kg. You would certainly need bracing chains and reinforcing work to any tail lift extension to accommodate a car.
One option would be raise the back of the car up to the bed height by attaching some sort of high lift manual jack to the rear if the extensions and raising that bit by bit first. Newer tail lifts with a lightweight aluminium design are much harder to strengthen to load cars etc. For thr work involved you may as well install a 2 ton rated cantilever from a scrapped 18 or 26 tonner.
Towing is a non-starter without C+E but I reckon there’s a lot towing car trailers in ignorance of that.
How I understand it:-
With a car licence you can tow up to 3500 kg behind a suitable vehicle.
But with C1+E and code 107 on your licence, you are restricted to 8250 kg train weight.
So he can tow a car and trailer behind a Land Rover Defender, but not behind a 7500 kg truck…
Sometimes I fail to understand the logic!
And yes, there must be many people blissfully ignorant of the meaning of code 107 and driving illegally.
I have just suggested he does the +E bit, but it was not well received.
Now searching for a truck with a larger tail lift.
sonflowerinwales:
Interesting twist thanks to the licence update.
How I understand it:-
With a car licence you can tow up to 3500 kg behind a suitable vehicle.
But with C1+E and code 107 on your licence, you are restricted to 8250 kg train weight.
So he can tow a car and trailer behind a Land Rover Defender, but not behind a 7500 kg truck…
Sometimes I fail to understand the logic!
And yes, there must be many people blissfully ignorant of the meaning of code 107 and driving illegally.
I have just suggested he does the +E bit, but it was not well received.
Now searching for a truck with a larger tail lift.
Cheers
Paul
Yes, but the MAM of the Land Rover + car and trailer wouldn’t be anywhere near the MAM of 7.5t + trailer of 8250kg
Worth remembering with a trailer on the police/dvsa will look at the train weight of the truck & not what it actually weighs, so normal train of a 7.5t is 11t with the grandfather 107 code as said above 8250kg is the limit.
This is a big issue, not just an on the spot fine but a go to court & big fine issue, 2 guys got done for this recently, different areas completely, one Devon one Oxford so is something they are cracking down on currently.
You can down plate the trucks train weight to the 8250kg for towing as long as it won’t be running much weight on the truck. I’ve done this with a 6.5t down from 10t train to 8250 so it can be driven by regular grandfather rights drivers & not need the 12t +e test or a class 1 just a paperwork exercise & £27
Someone earlier likened tail lifts to forklift trucks which is a good comparison - what you want to look for is the load centres chart - all tail lifts have them. Even if they can carry 1,500kg (most I’ve used can), this is a maximum, with the CoG right up at the back. In most cases, your CoG will be further to the edge - CoG at the very edge will probably give you a max lift of only about 600-700kg. If you’re on about putting a car inside the truck, you definitely won’t get it on the tail lift, don’t even entertain the idea. Didn’t see this in OP but someone was mentioning it. You’re better off finding (or building) a ramp. Keep the tail lift upright and lower it down to the ground (unless of course it’s a tuckunder).
But as someone else has already said, tail lifts bite back. Don’t overload or mess with them. There’s a colleague been off work for months because he crushed his hand in a tuckunder.
