How to identify and replace leaf chain with plastic guides

Some years ago, a number of forklift manufacturers started to factory-fit leaf chain with plastic guides. These guides were added to prevent wear on hydraulic cylinders or to control guide hoses which were routed through or near the mast of the forklift.

Leaf chain with plastic inserts is now available in a variety of pitch sizes and lengths and are found typically fitted to forklift trucks manufactured by Linde, Boss, Komatsu, Still, Toyota, Cesab, Hyundai and Jungheinrich.

If you should need to replace or repair these leaf chains, then you may find that identifying them is an issue, as these types of leaf chains are not covered by the International Leaf Chain Standards, although their component link plates and pins have similar dimensions. In fact, leaf chains with plastic guides are amongst the most challenging to identify, so some extra information will be needed when specifying them to a supplier.

Fortunately, this is something we can help you with here at FB Chain. Here are some useful tips to help us to identify and supply the correct leaf chain:

• Take photos of the leaf chain and email them to us here at FB Chain. We can usually identify the leaf chain from photos or at least narrow it down to a couple of possibilities.
• If the leaf chain has a plastic guide running down the centre, is that guide round, concave or flat?
• If the plastic guide is on the side of the leaf chain – it is just on one side of the leaf chain or on both sides?
• Some leaf chains can look similar and share plate and pin dimensions, but each will have a unique rivet pin length, plastic guide shape and width so please provide as many details and measurements as you can.
• Please advise the make and model of truck as while this may not confirm the leaf chain type required it will almost certainly help.

We keep over 20 types of these plastic leaf chains in stock and you can see the complete range here.