Will tractor implements fit in a container?

The mistake is measuring the wrong dimension

Here is how it usually goes wrong. Somebody has a six foot brush hog and a 40 foot container, does the obvious arithmetic, and figures there is thirty odd feet to spare. Then the implement stops six inches into the doorway because the top link is standing straight up and the A-frame is taller than the opening.

Length is almost never the constraint. A 20 ft gives you about 160 square feet and a 40 ft about 320, and farm implements are short things. What decides the answer is the doorway, and the doorway is smaller than the box in both directions.

So measure the wrong dimension and you get a confident wrong answer. Measure the right one and you will know before the truck ever loads.

The doorway is the gate, not the container

A standard container's cargo doors open to roughly 7 feet 8 inches wide and somewhere around 7 feet 5 to 6 inches tall. A high-cube adds about a foot of that height. Those are ISO figures and they are close on every box, but used equipment varies, so treat them as approximate.

The exact numbers for the specific unit you buy are stencilled on its own door, beside the CSC plate. That is the figure to trust when something is going to be tight. On a used container it is also the only figure that is genuinely about your box rather than about containers in general.

• Door opening width: roughly 7 feet 8 inches on both 20 ft and 40 ft.
• Door opening height: roughly 7 feet 5 to 6 inches standard, about a foot more on a high-cube.
• Interior width past the frame: roughly 7 feet 8 inches, near enough the same as the door opening, so clearing the doorway is the whole test.
• Interior height: near 7 feet 10 inches standard, which matters once things are stacked or hanging.

The implements that actually give trouble

Most three-point equipment goes in without a second thought. Box blades, single-bottom plows, carry-alls, post hole diggers with the auger off, landscape rakes, small tillers and forks are all comfortably inside the door. Here is the short list of what is not.

• Anything with the top link or hitch mast standing upright. Drop it, pin it flat, or take it off and the same implement walks right in.
• Wide-cut mowers and finish mowers over about seven feet six. Some fold, some do not, and the ones that do not are a hard no.
• Round balers and larger square balers. These are not doorway equipment. They want a shed.
• Folding harrows and drills in transport position, which are often taller folded than they are wide open.
• Loader buckets over eight feet, and anything with a rollover protection bar left up.

Two of those five are solved with a wrench. That is worth knowing before you decide a container will not work.

How the thing actually gets in there

This is the half of the question people forget. The container floor sits on blocks, a few inches above grade, and there is no dock to work off. Something with wheels and a tongue rolls in behind a four-wheeler or a come-along over a pair of stout planks. Something on a three-point does not roll at all.

The usual answers are a set of ramp planks at the sill, a pallet fork on the loader to carry it in and set it down, or a length of pipe and a bar for the heavy awkward pieces. None of it is complicated. It just has to be thought about before the implement is standing in the doorway at dusk.

Point the doors toward flat ground and toward whatever you will be using to move things. An implement that has to make a hard turn at the sill is an implement that scars the door frame.

Pinning down your own answer

Walk out with a tape and take three numbers off each implement: widest point, tallest point in the position it will travel in, and overall length. Write them on a scrap of paper and compare them against the door figures above. Anything under seven feet in both height and width is a non-question.

Anything close, call us at (276) 237-6144 with the numbers before you order. We have the boxes in the yard in Woodlawn and the sales lot in Wytheville, and we would rather measure a door with you on the phone than have a truck arrive and a mower not go in.

One more thing worth planning for. If everything is going in the same container and staying a while, work out the order you want it in. The implement you use in May should not be the one at the back wall behind the ones you use in October.