(Pallet Forks) Little BX has a lot more grunt than I thought

So Iv been looking for some used pallet forks for my bx2370 and didn’t want to spend a lot being that it’s right before Xmas and Money is pretty tight.

I found a guy about 2 hours from me that had a set of skid steer pallet forks (I have an LA340 skid steer quick attach loader) and he said he would take $300 for them. The forks were in good shape and when I talked to him on the phone I asked him how much they weigh as I didn’t want pallet forks that weighed over around 200lbs + or -. The guy assured me he didn’t think they even weighed 200lbs so I took the 2 hour journey out to him and when I saw the forks I immediately could tell they were heavy duty skid steer forks.

The fork frame was made out of full 1/4” steel and was super beefy, the forks were 4” wide by 1.5” thick and 42” long.. all in all these forks gotta weigh close to 300lbs give or take.

I was pretty upset that the guy mislead me (whether he knew it or not) and I took them anyways since I was already there and they were a great price.

I was very worried that they wouldn’t do what I needed them to do but sure enough my little bx handles them with ease!

I tested them out by picking up my woods box blade that was already on a pallet with the new pallet forks.. the box blade has to weigh around 600lbs and my tractor didn’t even grunt.. my rpms were only at MAYBE 2,000 and I was just glorified that it did it.

Between the weight of the box blade, the pallet, and the forks I figure it had to be close to or over 900lbs. I only lifted it 8-10” above the ground I didn’t try any higher but I just couldn’t believe it even did that!

Needless to say I should have had a little more faith in my little BX and I’m happy to know it’s a strong runner.

PS. I did up my hydro pressure to 1950psi so I’m sure that helped a little

I don’t have a picture of me lifting the box-blade but I do have a picture of me lifting up my 6’ backblade which prolly weighs around 500lbs? It lifted my backblade with ease. I’d say the box blade I have is prolly 100-150lbs more than my backblade.




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Cglaza said:

Believe it or not, those pallet forks are lighter duty. I have something similar for my bx. You did alright sizing the forks for your machine and did great on the price. I love mine, very useful attachment.

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I disagree about them being lighter duty. Lighter duty forks typically have a 1/8” - 7Gage steel frame or thinner, they use something similar to those skid steer plates you can buy off eBay for $100 to make your own attachment.. also lighter duty forks will typically be 3” wide or less and only 1” to 1-1/4” thick mine are 4” wide and 1-1/2” thick which is just about as thick and heavy as they get.

I can’t even begin to pick up the pallet fork frame by myself it’s that heavy and the forks alone weigh close to 100lbs each. There is nothing “lighter duty” about them. Typically lighter duty forks will be 40-60lbs a fork and the frames will only weigh about 90-120lbs.

You really can’t tell from a picture how heavy or light these forks are...most pallet forks and frames DO look alike but it’s the type of metal and thickness in which they are built/constructed that stands heavy duty forks apart from light duty forks.. there’s no way you can tell from a picture

I have done a ton of research on forks, fork weights and fork frame weights before I bought these.. taking note of typical thicknesses and how that relates to weight prior to purchasing these just to inform myself before I bought a set

But thanks man! yah I absolutely love them. I have so many uses for them around my property and knew they would come in handy.

Only down side i see is that they weigh around 300lbs so I am going to need more ballasts in the rear to even out the weight that I lift (no big deal though). The important part was knowing that my bx could handle these forks with such a heavy load which means they should do just about anything I need them to do in the future around my house


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AKguy09 said:

Your box blade weighs no where near 600 pounds unless you have a 72" or 84" box blade

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No where near huh? Well I just googled it and my 5’ woods box blade weighs 500lbs.. so I was 100lbs off on my guess.. now add the fact that it was sitting as far out as it was on the forks and the pallet and that is still impressive... this is all I was trying to get at.. sorry for guessing the weight next time I’ll google it first..

FYI the 6’ woods boxblade weighs over 600lbs just check their website.. That’s prolly more of what I was thinking of.


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I said “my boxblade has to way AROUND 600lbs” I was just taking my best guesstimate by what it looked and felt like. My 5’ boxblade weighs 500lbs and the 6’ weighs 600.




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And if you guys don’t Believe me on how heavy my pallet forks are I’ll throw them on a scale and I can garentee you they are all of 290-310lbs


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SidecarFlip said:

All are cute little implements.....

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Thankyou. Cute implements for a cute tractor. I have no need for a large tractor. I own maybe 3 Acres or so.


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It’s the EXACT same one. Check in my original post there are pics of it on the pallet


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AKguy09 said:

Working width54"

Capacity10.3 cu. ft.

ASABE quick-hitch compatibleyes

End plate thickness.375"

Moldboard thickness.188"

Approximate weight486 lbs

Scarifier depth0", 1.5", or 3" adjustable

No. of Scarifiers4

Tailgate typefixed

Cutting edges2

Tractor hitchCat 1

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Now go bother somebody else.

All I was getting at is the tractor lifted a LOT more than I thought it would with those heavy forks.. who the hell are you to try and nit-pick down to the last pound..

I took my best guess.. it was very close.. point being it did the job I needed it to even with forks that in my opinion are too heavy for the tractor... point being that they will do the job that I needed them for and I got a killer deal at that.

If you don’t like my thread then get out


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Cglaza said:

I didn't mean to set you off, I was just saying that you can purchase heavier duty forks that weigh much more and that the forks you have are of good quality and sized perfectly for your machine. I had the option of 2000 lbs forks (which I bought and appears that you have) or 5500 lb forks. I've put the heavier forks on my bigger tractor (l2500) and found that there is a big difference between the two of them. Again, no disrespect. Just making a friendly comment.
Chris

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I totally get where your coming from. I wasn’t upset I was just saying that these are over Kill for this tractor.. and these aren’t 2,000lb forks.. these are more like 4,000lb forks... if you look around on the internet, almost every fork you see that is 4” wide by 1.5” thick has a load spec of 4,000lbs to 5,000lbs.. I suspect mine are 4,000lbs forks..

Yah they will do the job but they are not ideal for this little tractor IMO that’s all I was meaning by that. 2,000lb rated forks with frame usually only weigh 200lbs all in give or take from what I found in my research online...

I agree 100% that 2,000lb forks are just fine for a tractor of this size.. that’s more of what I was looking for 1500-2000lbs but the forks I ended up purchasing are easily a 4,000 lb fork

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AKguy09 said:

I see that you get upset easily, so I'll stop now...but its not YOUR thread, its a thread on a forum

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I’m not upset.. you just completely missed the (whole moral of the story) so
to speak.. just can’t stand people who bash others over non-sense.. your just one of those people who have nothing better to do than to try and prove people wrong even tho there was nothing here to prove as all I did was take an educated guess on the boxblade’s weight which was not WAY OFF as you suggested. if I was positive of its weight I wouldn’t have said “AROUND 600lbs” ..

If you thought my guess was really SO far off then all you had to do was say “it’s hard to believe that box blade weighs that much, have you tried to google it?”

Had you just been more polite you wouldn’t have come off so arrogant.

For anyone who isn’t up to date on this thread... This thread wasn’t made for exact implement weights and lifting capacity’s...It was made just to share my opinion on the kubota bx’s lifting power with heavy forks and how surprised I was with how it did.

Let me simplify it.

Heavy forks + Heavy implement + Weight far out from the pivot pins = me being impressed with the kubota bx’s lifting capabilities.


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Despite what the back blade weighs the point I was trying to make is its a lot of weight.

Had I known everyone woulda been down to the pound I woulda looked it all up and gave you the actuate information.

So are you telling me that a fork frame that weighs around 200lbs and built out of all 1/4” steel or thicker and forks that weigh around 90-100lbs each and are 1-1/2” thick and 4” wide are lighter duty? It’s very hard to find forks that are heavier duty than that.. any thicker with the forks and your gonna have a hard time using it for pallets... thus the only company’s who make wider forks than say 4”wide are usually Chinese company’s making the forks out of junk steel which means they have to make the forks wider/thicker to be able to produce the same load rating..

Fork length means nothing with how heavy duty a fork is..

If you can find me a fork that is 4” wide and 1.5” thick that is only rated for 2,000 lbs then let me know.. there may be One set at best that you find and they will prolly be from China made with junk steel.

Point being the thickness and the width tells the story in most cases with forks.. also how can you tell the fork frame is light duty from a picture? Show me a picture of that of heavier duty.. and point out what makesy frame light duty and what makes that one heavier duty.. just because it doesn’t have a top cage that doesn’t mean anything. The structure of this fork frame is about as beefy as Iv seen looking at images online...

I’m not saying these are industrial grade construction forks, I’m just saying that these are a heavy duty forks made for use on a skid steer or a large tractor.. that being said it is not ideal for a small tractor like a bx.. and that was my main point.

A good fork set for a bx is either forks that are specially made for it or forks that only weigh around 200-230lbs with the frame and the forks included in that.. that’s my opinion of what would be ideal for the bx.. and at that weight 200-230 most fork sets you will find will have a rating of around 2,000lbs give or take which would be ideal for the bx (light duty)

I would consider any fork set under maybe 250lbs to be light duty also a fork that is only 3” wide or less and a fork that is only 1-1/4 to 1” thick... THAT generally is what a light duty fork consists of in more cases than not.

I guess I just don’t see how you can look at a picture and say with out a doubt, “these are light duty forks”...cuz there is much more to it than just looking at a picture and not seeing it’s true structure and how exactly it’s built. You would have to see it and feel it in person IMO. Which I have done obv.

Let me know what you think but that’s what I got from my research on forks.

Again I’m not saying these are he heaviest forks ever made.. my point was that they were heavy duty fork made for a large tractor or skid steer and deffienlty not designed for a little bx. And I was just surprised that with the added weight of those forks AND the implement AND the offset of the weight from the pivot pin that it did so good.

I didn’t really expect to have a huge discussion about all this nonsense.. I understand you wanted to let me know that I overshot the weight of the grader box.. but even still it is still pretty cool and just thought you guys might wanna see it. And thank you for letting me know that my weight guess was not right.. I just thought the way you said it came off kind of snobby so maybe I took it the wrong way.

Sounds to me like I overshot the weight by around 100 lbs or so for each implement.. that being said with physics at play these little buggers can lift far more than kubota states it can


PS. Just read the title of my thread.. it was made to be a simple observation that I wanted to share with you guys and a simple post to share my experience running a heavier fork than most people would on such a small tractor. That’s all.

Personally I woulda never even thought twice about trying these forks on this tractor but since I got them for such a good deal I figured I’d give it a shot and was glad I did.


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