Machines & Heavy Equipment

Which machine lifts, which digs and which keeps the power on:

most of the choice is made before brand or year come into it. Moving a load is the work of forklifts on a warehouse floor and of telescopic handlers, which reach forward and up over rough ground where a forklift mast only goes straight up. Earth is moved by excavators, from a mini digging a septic pit to a crawler on a road job, and by skid steers, which most people call a Bobcat whatever the badge. Tractors pull implements and wagons. Generators and air compressors run the workshop, cleaning equipment is mostly floor scrubbers for warehouses, and industrial parts holds the bearings, filters and hoses all of them wear through.

Sizing a machine to the floor, the load and the motor it has to start:

each of these rules out a sound machine that is wrong for the job. A forklift on solid cushion tyres belongs on smooth concrete; a gravel yard needs pneumatic tyres, and an enclosed warehouse an electric truck, because a petrol or diesel engine fills a closed space with fumes. LPG trucks work inside and out. The capacity on the plate holds at a set distance from the mast, so the truck lifts less with a long load or at full height. Size a generator by the motors it must start, not by the lights. A pump, a compressor or a cold room draws several times its running current at start-up, and a generator matched only to running watts stalls. A piston compressor suits a tyre shop that uses air in bursts; a screw compressor is built to run all day in a plant.

From a Q3,000 generator to a skid steer quoted in dollars:

the money is lost at the expensive end. A petrol generator that keeps a small shop open through a power cut starts around Q3,000 new. A skid steer two or three years old is still offered at Q230,000 to Q260,000, and many used machines at that level are priced in dollars and still standing in Mexico or the United States. One already in Guatemala can be seen working before any money moves, and saves the freight and the wait. Between two used machines, hours and service records move the price more than the model year.

The wear a used machine hides from a photograph:

it sits in the parts that carry the load. On a forklift, measure the fork at the heel, where the blade bends up: once that corner is worn about a tenth thinner than the upright, the fork no longer carries its rated weight. Raise the mast fully with a load and watch for jerks, slack chains or a mast that creeps down when parked. Most skid steers drive their wheels through chains in a sealed case on each side, so listen for knocking as it spins on the spot. If a tractor listed in Santa Lucía Cotzumalguapa or Mazatenango pulled cane wagons through a harvest, it ran long shifts at full load: test the clutch against a real pull and check the drawbar for stretched holes and fresh welds. Open the drain on a compressor tank; rusty water means it is rotting from inside. Bearings from the big brands are copied in convincing boxes, so a price far below the rest is the warning.

Hours, plates and the lowboy that has to reach your yard:

those come up in the first call. Photograph the hour meter, the serial and capacity plates and the wear points: fork heels, bucket edge, tyres or tracks. State the fuel, the capacity, the attachments included and whether the paperwork that came with the machine is to hand. Put the department where it stands in the first line, since a machine already in the country beats one quoted from abroad. Anything bigger than a generator leaves on a lowboy trailer, so a buyer sending one from Quetzaltenango will want to know whether a truck that long can get into your yard, and whether someone there can drive the machine up the ramps.