Industrial & materials handling tyres

Press-on bands are a rubber tread bonded to a steel band, pressed onto a plain wheel with a hydraulic press. No air, no rim flanges, no bead. They are the standard fitment on smaller electric counterbalance trucks working indoors on smooth floors.

Press-on sizes are quoted as three dimensions — outside diameter, section width and band inside diameter — so 18x8x12.125 is an 18 inch tyre, 8 inches wide, on a 12.125 inch band. Confirm the band diameter to ensure compatibility with the wheel. They need a press to fit and to remove, which is why they are a workshop item rather than a mobile-fitting one.

Bands are also made in standard, premium and non-marking compounds, and in traction-tread as well as smooth. On a wet loading bay or a yard ramp the traction tread is worth the small premium.

Solid resilient tyres — often called pneumatic-shaped solids — look like a pneumatic tyre and fit a standard pneumatic rim, but contain no air. Construction is normally three layers: a soft base that grips the rim, a resilient middle layer that does the cushioning, and a hard-wearing tread.

This is the default choice for the majority of UK counterbalance work. It gives most of the ride of a pneumatic with none of the punctures, which on a site with scrap, swarf or pallet nails is the whole argument. The trade-offs are a firmer ride, more vibration through the mast, and a higher purchase price offset over life by the absence of downtime.

Solids carry wear indicator lines moulded into the sidewall. Once the tread is worn to that line the resilient layer starts doing work it was not designed for, heat rises and the tyre will chunk. Replace at the manufacturer’s wear limit to reduce the risk of overheating and delamination.

Air-filled forklift tyres, marked with a ply rating rather than a load index. They give the softest ride, the lowest rolling resistance and the best flotation on rough or unsealed ground, which is why they stay on yard, timber and builders’ merchant trucks.

For trucks working outdoors on debris, foam filling can prevent pressure loss from punctures while retaining the pneumatic casing and footprint. The tyre can still be damaged, so suitability depends on the machine and duty cycle. See the foam filling guide for when that is worth doing, and remember that a filled tyre cannot be repaired.

Rough-terrain masted trucks use lugged industrial or agricultural-pattern tyres on the same rims and are specified much more like site plant than like a warehouse truck.

Reach trucks, order pickers, pallet trucks and stackers work indoors on smooth concrete at low speed with high point loads through small wheels. Load wheels and drive wheels take very different treatment and are often different compounds on the same truck, so quote the position as well as the size.

Floor condition decides everything here. On a good floor a harder compound gives long life. On a floor with expansion joints, damaged edges or drainage channels, a harder compound chunks, and a softer one lasts longer despite wearing faster on paper.

Small-diameter wheels turn very fast for the truck’s road speed, so heat is a real constraint even at walking pace. A load wheel that is running hot to the touch at the end of a shift is telling you the compound or the load rating is wrong.

Scissor lifts and boom lifts are almost always on solid or foam-filled tyres, because a deflation at height is not an acceptable failure mode, and the machine’s stability calculations assume a fixed rolling radius.

Indoor machines take non-marking solids; rough-terrain machines take a lugged pneumatic, usually foam filled. Never substitute an air tyre for a solid on a lift, or a different overall diameter, without checking the manufacturer’s approved fitment list — it changes the machine’s height, its level sensing and its stability envelope, and it is part of the machine’s certification rather than a preference.

The running gear under industrial trailers, plant trailers, bowsers, spreaders and towed equipment. These are low-mileage, high-static-load tyres that stand loaded for long periods and fail from ageing, ozone cracking and chronic under-inflation rather than from wear.

The 15.3 series designations are worth knowing. 10.0/75-15.3 means a 10 inch section, 75 per cent aspect ratio, on a 15.3 inch rim. That odd rim diameter is specific to implement and trailer running gear and does not cross over to any other range.

Most of this class is cross-ply and rated by ply rather than load index. Where a trailer runs at road speed behind a vehicle, check that the tyre carries a speed rating suitable for it — a great many implement-series tyres do not.

Towed generators, welfare units, compressors, lighting towers, cable drums, works trucks and in-plant tugs. The common factor is that the tyre spends nearly all its life stationary under load and is asked to travel a few times a year.

These tyres almost never wear out. They age out. Rubber hardens and cracks at the sidewall flex point, the tyre takes a flat spot where it has stood, and the first sign of trouble is usually a failure on the first journey after a long stand. Read the four-digit date code on the sidewall, check for crazing at the bead and shoulder, and treat pressure as a maintenance item on equipment that is never driven.

Small industrial wheels — 4.00-8 and similar — are also available in solid and puncture-proof forms for in-plant trolleys and works equipment, which removes the pressure problem entirely on anything that does not need suspension.