Which machines fit a 40 ft container: the door-frame test, applied to eleven

Of the eleven machines published on this site, exactly one is measured to pass through a 40 ft high-cube door and load two units to a container: the SLM-10, at 4.35 m long, 1.60 m wide and 2.45 m high in its travelling posture. Five crawler dozers are over width by between 100 mm and 1,110 mm, and no drum position, roof removal or rigging changes that. One mixer, the SLM-18, misses on height by 45 mm. Four mixers have no dimensioned drawing in our hands at all, so we do not give them a verdict — they are quoted out of gauge until a drawing arrives. That distribution is the honest shape of this product category, and it is why the shipping mode is fixed before a price is agreed rather than discovered after one.

A 40 ft high cube gives 2.698 m of internal height and a door opening of 2.585 m — a 113 mm difference that appears on every specification sheet and can never be used, because the doorway is framed by header, sill and corner posts while the internal figure is measured to the roof mid-box. Then take 50 mm off each critical dimension as the handling margin a loading crew actually works to. What is left is an opening 2.29 m wide by 2.535 m high. Every verdict on this page is the machine's travelling dimensions checked against those two numbers, and nothing else. An ordinary 40 ft or 20 ft box is tighter still: same 2.29 m of width, but only 2.23 m of usable height. So a machine quoted at 2.55 m tall genuinely does fit inside a high cube, and still never gets through the door.

Width is checked before height, and the order is not a stylistic preference: over-height has answers and over-width does not. A roof comes off — an open top is loaded from above, which takes the door header out of the argument entirely. The walls do not come off. Every standard box, high cube or not, is 2.352 m wide inside, so a machine wider than the usable 2.29 m opening is out of a container permanently. The drum on these mixers lifts and rotates through 270°, which means lowering it changes the height and only the height. A quotation that treats an over-width machine as a phone call away from a container booking has the two tests in the wrong order, and it will produce a flat-rack invoice after the price has been agreed.

*Rule as implemented in the site's container-loading module; drum rotation is a verified specification on the SLM-18, SLM-24, SLM-35 and SLM-40.*

The SLM-10 is not a marginal pass. At 1.60 m wide against a 2.29 m usable opening it has 690 mm in hand, and at 2.45 m tall against 2.535 m it clears the header by 85 mm. Length is where the second unit comes from: 4.35 m each, so two nose to tail occupy 8.70 m of the 12.032 m container floor and leave 3.33 m for chocking, dunnage and access. That is the whole basis of the two-per-40HQ figure — measured geometry, not an estimate, and the only loading figure this site is willing to state. It is also the reason the smallest machine in the range is not simply the cheapest: it is the one whose ocean freight per unit is roughly half that of an out-of-gauge shipment.

Forty-five millimetres is what separates the SLM-18 from a container. Its width is fine — 2.21 m against the 2.29 m opening, 80 mm in hand — but its travelling height of 2.58 m stands 45 mm above the 2.535 m usable door height, so it is quoted on a flat rack, in an open top or roll-on/roll-off. This is the single most expensive near-miss in the range, because it is also the most completely documented machine we publish: 2,900 L drum, 1.6–1.8 m³ discharged, 78 kW, 5,800 kg operating weight, articulated, four-wheel drive. Two of them would not share a box even if the height allowed, since at 7.06 m each they would need 14.12 m of a 12.032 m floor. The 45 mm is also the one gap on this page worth a call to the plant, for the reason set out further down: height has a second posture behind it, and width does not.

The SLM-24, SLM-35, SLM-40 and SLM-45 have no dimensioned general-arrangement drawing in our hands, so this page gives them no container verdict at all. They are quoted flat rack, open top or roll-on/roll-off — the conservative assumption — and if a drawing later shows one of them clearing the door, the quotation is revised downwards rather than left where it was. What we will not do is close the gap with an inference. We hold real specification data on all four — the SLM-35's 5,500 L drum, the SLM-45's 6,500 L drum and 4.0–4.5 m³ discharge, the SLM-40's 8,500 kg — and none of it substitutes for an overall width. A supplier who fills that column from a similar machine is not being helpful; he is moving the risk from his quotation to your booking. Name the model and the drawing is requested before the quotation goes out, not after.

None of the five crawler dozers is a container question. Measured across the tracks: the CBD-131 and CBD-154 are 2.39 m, which is 100 mm over the usable opening; the CBD-179 and CBD-187 are 2.56 m, 270 mm over; the CBD-154L, on its wide low-ground-pressure tracks, is 3.40 m — 1,110 mm over the door and more than a metre wider than the 2.352 m internal width of the box itself. Heights of 3.20 m to 3.38 m put them out on the second test as well. They move roll-on/roll-off, as breakbulk, or on a flat rack, and the destination yard has to be able to receive that on the day — crane capacity and reach for a lift, or a terminal that accepts a self-propelled unit and somebody licensed to drive it off the quay. At 17,000 to 24,540 kg, that is a conversation to have before the booking.

Clearing the door does not clear the booking: a 40 ft high cube is limited to 26.5 t of payload and an ordinary 20 ft box to 28 t, so a machine that fits geometrically can still be too heavy for the combination it is loaded into. This matters most on multi-unit boxes, where two machines plus dunnage are weighed against one limit. It is worth being exact about where we stand: the SLM-10's two-per-container figure is a statement about geometry, because no plant has yet confirmed that model's operating weight in writing. The weight that goes on a booking is the one confirmed in writing for the consignment, and it is requested with the drawing rather than reconstructed from a comparable model. It is also the figure your yard plans the lift against, so it travels on the packing list rather than in an email.

Working height, travelling height and shipping height are three different numbers and only the third has anything to do with a container. Working height is the drum or bucket at full lift — 3.45 m on the SLM-18 — and it is the largest figure on any brochure. Travelling height is the machine standing on its tyres in carrying position, which is the figure in our specification tables and the basis of every verdict above. Shipping height is the drum dropped as far as it goes for transport, and because the drum rotates through 270° it can sit meaningfully below the travelling posture. No plant has put that figure on a stamped drawing for us, on any model. Until one does, we do not use it, and we do not close a 45 mm gap with an assumption in a spreadsheet and let a buyer find out at the terminal.

One document changes the verdicts on this page: a stamped drawing giving the drum-lowered shipping height. On the SLM-18 it has 45 mm to recover, and that is a plausible gap for a drum that rotates through 270°, so it is worth asking for. On the four unmeasured mixers a drawing decides them either way. Nothing changes the five dozers, and nothing changes an over-width mixer if one turns up — that call has already been made by the walls of the box. This is the difference between a supplier who will ring the plant and one who will not: the useful call is about a height, and asking about a width burns the credibility needed for the call that could actually help. If those drawings arrive, this page and the model table change with them — downwards, in the buyer's favour, because a machine that moves from a flat rack into a box gets cheaper to ship, not dearer.

*Rule as implemented in the site's container-loading module, which allows a "lowering the drum may help" statement only where height is the sole obstacle.*

A quotation that does not name the shipping mode is not finished, whatever price is on it. The mode decides whether the machine is priced per box or as out-of-gauge cargo, whether a crane is needed at both ends or none at all, whether the unit is under cover for the voyage or exposed and wrapped, and how early the booking has to be made. On this range that distinction applies to ten of eleven machines. So the mode is settled before a figure is quoted, from measured dimensions where they exist and from an explicit refusal where they do not — and the quotation you get is one landed number to your port with the mode written into it, not a factory-gate price with the hard part left downstream.

*See also: the container guide at `/en/shipping/`, the model range at `/en/self-loading-concrete-mixer/`, and destination certificates at `/en/compliance/`.*