Telehandler Parts and Components Explained for India

Telehandler parts are the telescopic boom and its wear pads, the carriage and attachment at the boom tip, the diesel engine, the transmission and axles, the wet brakes, the hydraulic pump and rams, and the tyres. A telehandler (also called a telescopic handler) is a wheeled machine with a boom that slides out and up, so it can place a load at height and at a distance instead of only lifting it straight up like a forklift.

The boom is what makes this machine different, and it is also what makes the parts list different. Nothing else on an Indian site has a steel arm that slides inside another steel arm while carrying a load.

This guide takes each part in turn, using the figures the 13 telehandlers listed on DesiMachines publish for themselves. Where the catalogue publishes no number, this guide says so rather than filling the gap with a guess.

What are the main parts of a telehandler?

A telehandler is a four-wheel-drive chassis carrying a boom. Every part below belongs either to the boom that does the lifting or to the chassis that carries it there.

Two of these decide most of your running bill. The boom, because its sliding surfaces wear every hour the machine works. And the tyres, because a telehandler carries its load on rubber, not on tracks.

How does the telescopic boom work, and what wears out on it?

The boom is made of steel sections that slide inside one another, pushed out and pulled back by a hydraulic ram (a ram is a cylinder that extends when oil is pumped into it). A second ram raises and lowers the whole boom, and a third tilts the attachment at the tip so a load stays level as the boom moves.

The sections do not slide on steel. They slide on wear pads: blocks of hard plastic or nylon bolted between the boom sections. The pads are meant to wear out; they are cheaper to replace than the boom is to rebuild. When they get thin, the boom starts to rattle and sag at full extension, and that is the signal to change them, not a fixed hour figure.

No manufacturer in this catalogue publishes a wear-pad size, a pad life in hours, or the number of boom sections. Those come from the machine’s own parts manual and your dealer, and they differ between a 7-metre boom and a 34-metre one.

What the catalogue does publish is how far each boom goes, which tells you how hard it is working:

That capacity figure is the maximum, close in to the machine. It drops as the boom goes out, because the load moves further from the machine’s centre of gravity. The chart in the cab gives the safe figure at each height and reach. Read it before trusting the headline number. Our guide to the telehandler load chart and lift capacity works through it.

What is in the engine bay of a telehandler?

All 13 machines publish an engine model and a power figure. Power runs from 74 HP (54 kW) on the three JCB machines up to 211 HP (155 kW) on the MANITOU MRT-X 3570. Nine of the 13 sit at 74 or 74.5 HP, which is where most Indian site work is done; only the three MANITOU MRT-X machines and the SANY STH1056A go above it.

The part worth knowing for spares is who made the engine. On 10 of the 13 machines, the engine is bought in from an engine maker, not built by the machine brand:

This matters on the day the machine stops. Filters, injectors, water pumps and gaskets come through the engine maker’s network as often as through the machine dealer, so write the engine model off the plate before you need it.

Torque, published by 11 of 13, runs from 260 Nm on the SANY STH634A to 805 Nm on the two largest MRT-X machines. Torque is the pulling effort the engine makes, and it is what gets a loaded machine up a site ramp. Displacement, on 9 of 13, runs from 3.0 to 4.8 litres.

The battery is a split worth checking before you buy a spare. Six machines run a 12 V system (the three JCBs at 130 Ah, the three MANITOU MXT machines at 165 Ah) and five run 24 V (the three MRT-X machines at 120 Ah, plus two SANY machines). Two do not publish a battery figure. A 24 V machine needs two batteries, not one. Our guide to 12 V and 24 V batteries on construction machines explains why the split exists.

What moves the machine: transmission, axles and steering

Every one of the 13 machines is 4WD — four-wheel drive is not an option on a telehandler, it is the standard build. But the transmission between the engine and those wheels comes in three different families, and they do not share service parts:

That last row is the one people get wrong. On the three MANITOU MRT-X machines the drive is hydrostatic, so asking a parts counter for a torque converter kit gets a blank look. The part does not exist on that machine.

Steering is the other split. The ACE AT 30 steers on two wheels and the three JCB machines steer on the rear wheels. The remaining 9 of 13 steer on all four wheels: the six MANITOU machines list four-wheel steer, and the three SANY machines list three driver-selectable modes: two-wheel, four-wheel and crab steer, where all four wheels point the same way so the machine walks sideways into a tight spot.

Four-wheel steer earns its keep on a crowded site, and it also doubles the steering parts: two steered axles means two sets of steering rams, track rods and king pins to grease. Minimum turning radius, published by 12 of 13, runs from 3,900 mm on the MANITOU MXT 840 K to 5,060 mm on the MRT-X 3570.

What kind of brakes does a telehandler have?

All 13 machines run wet brakes — discs that sit inside the axle housing, running in oil, rather than pads clamping an exposed disc the way a car does. The wording differs by brand but the design does not: “hydraulically actuated wet disc brake” on the ACE AT 30, “oil-immersed multi-disc” on the JCB and MANITOU machines, “4-wheel, wet-disc, spring applied, hydraulic release” on the SANY machines.

For a parts list, that is good news with one catch. Oil-immersed discs are sealed away from dust, water and slush, so they last far longer than exposed pads and there is usually no pad change to budget for. The catch is that the discs share oil with the axle, so axle oil is a brake service item, not just a driveline one. Neglect it and you are wearing the brakes, not only the gears.

The JCB machines brake on the front axle; the MANITOU and SANY machines brake on both axles. Parking brakes differ too: hand-operated disc on the ACE and JCB machines, an automatic negative parking brake on the MRT-X range (it applies itself when hydraulic pressure drops), and a spring-applied, hydraulically released brake on the SANY machines. A spring-applied brake is on by default and released by oil pressure, so it holds the machine even if the engine dies.

What is in the hydraulic system?

The hydraulic system does the work on a telehandler. It extends the boom, raises it, tilts the attachment, steers the wheels and, on the hydrostatic machines, drives them.

Twelve of the 13 machines publish a pump type, and it splits two ways. Seven run a piston pump: variable displacement on the JCB 530-110 and the MRT-X range, load-sense piston units from Casappa and Kawasaki on two SANY machines, an axial piston pump on the STH1056A. Five run a gear pump, listed as “gear type with two-section body” on the JCB 530-70, the JCB 540-70 and the three MANITOU MXT machines.

A gear pump is simpler and cheaper to replace. A piston pump costs more but varies its own output, so it moves only the oil the machine is asking for, which saves fuel and keeps the oil cooler.

The main relief valve is the safety valve that caps system pressure, and the figures run from 170 bar to 350 bar across the 11 machines that publish one. That number is the reason you cannot fit any hose you find in the market: a hose and its fittings have to be rated above the machine’s relief setting, and a 350 bar system will burst a hose built for a 170 bar one. Ask for the pressure rating, not just the length and the end fittings.

Hoses, seals and the ram rod chrome are the parts that fail on age and abrasion rather than on hours. Our guide to hydraulic system maintenance for construction equipment covers oil condition, filtration and the failure signs worth acting on early.

Which tyres does a telehandler run on?

Eleven of the 13 machines publish a tyre size, and the first thing to check is whether the front and rear sizes match. Four machines publish a different size front and rear; the other seven publish one size for the machine:

Where the sizes differ you cannot rotate a worn front tyre to the back, and you have to keep two spares instead of one. That single line changes what a fleet keeps on the shelf.

The other split is the size convention. The JCB, ACE and MANITOU MXT machines use ply-rated bias sizes (the “16PR” means a 16-ply rating, a measure of carcass strength). The MRT-X range and the SANY STH634A use metric and radial sizes such as 405/70-20 and 17,5-R25. A tyre dealer quoting against the wrong convention will offer you a tyre that physically fits the rim and is wrong for the load. The telehandler weight and dimensions guide has the operating weights those tyres have to carry.

Which telehandler parts wear out first in India?

No manufacturer in this catalogue publishes a wear-life figure, so treat the order below as what site experience and the machine’s own design point to, not as a published interval. The honest position is that wear life depends on your ground, your hours and your operator far more than on the brand.

• Boom wear pads. They are designed to be the sacrificial part. Dust and grit between the boom sections are what kill them, which is why a machine working in crusher dust eats pads faster than one on a warehouse floor.
• Tyres. A telehandler carries its full load on four tyres and turns them under that load. Broken ground and steel scrap on site do the rest.
• Hydraulic hoses and seals. These fail on age, heat and rubbing, not on hours. A hose routed against a sharp edge will go long before one that is clipped properly.
• Filters and oils. Consumables by design — air, fuel, engine oil and hydraulic filters are the cheapest parts on the machine and the ones that decide how long the expensive parts last.
• Greased pins and bushes. The boom pivot, the carriage and the steering joints all carry load through pins. Miss the greasing and the pin wears the bore, which is a far bigger repair.

Greasing is the one item on that list you control completely. Our guide to greasing a construction machine sets out the points, grades and intervals, and the construction equipment service schedule puts them on an hour-meter plan.

What fluids and filters does a telehandler need?

Fluid volumes tell you what to buy before a service, and they are the most uneven part of this catalogue. Every machine publishes a fuel tank size. Far fewer publish the oil volumes underneath it.

Read that table twice. Only the three JCB machines publish axle, transmission and coolant volumes, and since wet brakes run in axle oil, that axle figure is a brake number as well. For the other ten machines you need the operator manual or the dealer before you order oil, and buying “about the same as the last machine” is how an axle gets overfilled or run short.

The largest fuel tanks, at 320 L, are on the two biggest MRT-X machines; the smallest, at 100 L, are on the ACE AT 30 and the three MANITOU MXT machines. Our telehandler fuel tank and oil capacities guide lists them machine by machine.

Filters follow the engine, not the machine badge, which is why the engine make in the table further up is worth recording. Whether you fit genuine, OEM-supplied or aftermarket parts is a separate decision, and one worth making deliberately. Our guide to genuine, OEM and aftermarket spare parts explains where each is a fair choice.

Ready to look at machines rather than parts? Browse the full range of telehandlers listed in India and talk to a dealer about a service kit for the model you are considering.

What does a telehandler cost in India?

Parts spend follows machine size, so it helps to see where the machine itself sits. The ranges below are taken from our listings at the time of writing and quoted exactly as published, not rounded or recalculated.

The three rotating telehandlers are quoted on request rather than at a listed range. The fixed boom machines carry published ranges. Which one suits your work is a different question from what it costs to run. Our complete telehandler guide and the comparison of telehandler brands in India both work through it, and the attachments guide covers what goes on the carriage.

If the machine is going on finance, work the parts and service budget into the monthly figure before you sign. Our equipment finance options and equipment insurance partners are the place to start.

A note on the figures in this guide

Every specification here is taken from the 13 telehandlers listed on DesiMachines, counted machine by machine, with each range naming the machine at its high and low end. Where fewer than 13 machines publish a figure, this guide says how many do, rather than presenting a partial count as a class rule.

Three things are deliberately absent because the catalogue does not publish them: wear-pad sizes and service life, the number of sections in each boom, and any parts price list. Those come from the machine’s own parts manual and a dealer quotation. Ground clearance has also been left out of this guide, because one machine’s published figure is under review.

Global telehandler brands that turn up in an online parts search are not sold or supported here, so their part numbers will not help you. Work from the models listed above, which are the ones with a dealer network in India.

Telehandler parts, in short

The boom is the machine. Its wear pads are meant to be replaced, and a rattling, sagging boom at full extension is telling you they are due. Under the boom, all 13 machines are 4WD with wet brakes, so axle oil doubles as brake oil. The transmission splits three ways (torque converter, powershift and hydrostatic), and a hydrostatic machine has no torque converter to service at all. Ten of the 13 engines come from an engine maker rather than the machine brand, so note the engine model for filters and injectors. Check whether your tyres are the same size front and rear before you buy a spare, and match every hydraulic hose to a relief setting that runs from 170 bar to 350 bar across this catalogue.

Compare telehandler models, specifications and prices in India and ask the dealer for the service kit part numbers before the machine arrives, not after it stops.

Read next: wheel loader parts and components, for the machine most often working beside a telehandler on the same site, and the parts and running costs hub for the rest of the series.

Prices, specifications and features are indicative, vary by variant, location and date, and should always be confirmed with the official OEM or authorised dealer before any purchase decision. DesiMachines is not liable for decisions taken on the basis of information that may have changed after publication.