Loading, single axle truck, weight of forklift, etc.

Makes sense - I'm just making shtuff up. I just asked one of our main dock guys and he said ours can handle it okay, but it's just a company policy to not allow forklifts in them for whatever reason.

 

It's more about the suspension under the box and the wheel base. I've seen box trucks that tipped when the forklift inside got too close to the edge. It's not worth risking life or limb to unload a truck.

 

No forks in the bobtail !

 

Some of you box trucks used to have or may still use a set of swing down legs at the rear of the Frame under the doors. You back the truck to the dock, set brakes and then swing your legs down and set them so that forklifts will not have too much of a bounce into and out of your box.

Yes your truck may be hurting and feeling stressed when them motors weighing a few ton bounce onto and off the poor thing.

An alternative would be a power jack. You can hop onto a corner a certain way and control the thing to grab the pallet and back out of your box truck.

The problem is most shippers ban outright anyone using those Pallet Jacks. To me that's BS because in some cases I learned to drive one before I had a car. lolz. Imagine that driving a big rig before I own a car of my own.

Most of the time the REALLY BIG forklifts stay out on their dock and put a set of chain and clamp onto your pallet and drag onto the dock plate and then into the warehouse.