Tire chains attached onto the tires to work on snow for a wheel loader consist of side chains and cross chains.
Manual installment of the tire chains onto the tire of a wheel loader is often an extremely heavy process. A major difficulty with attaching tire chains is trying to lift manually a part of chains onto a tire. This may cause low back pain because the weight of chains on the tire of a wheel loader with curb weight of 8 tons is as heavy as 50 kilograms. Weight of chains varies depending on the size of the wheel loader.
Installing the chains on a tire requires an operator to align side chains while another operator drives the wheel loader forward or backward with utmost care so that the chains properly wrap around the tire. This is very hazardous process because the operator aligning the chains works in the vicinity of the moving tire.
The tire chain mounting tool has been developed that ensures much safer and more efficient attachment of the chains onto the tire (See Fig. 1).
The newly designed tire chain attachment tool for a wheel loader (Fig. 2)
consists of:
The procedures for installing the chains to a tire using the tool are:
The tire chain attachment tool for a wheel loader can greatly reduce the manual handling of the heavy tire chains and the consequent severe physical strain.
The device obviates the need for manual alignment of the chains, thus improves security of the operator. It also has an advantage of increased speed for attaching the chains.