Featured Tool moving day

Nuthin’ very special here, took the pic for interested friend then thought others might want to see. Our “new” (not!) Cat Forklift has 6’ forks, longer than those on our other machines, and you can pick up two average-sized pallets at once. We bought it used because it will lift 5 tons and sometimes we need that capability. It was a pure gamble, came with no guarantee and return shipping would be prohibitive anyway. But fortunately all we had to do was buy a plain car battery to get it running, and all seems to work fine but the emergency brake, a common problem on older forklifts. We’ll just make wheel chocks and take them whenever we take it outside, because repairing that brake is another “prohibitively expensive” job.

The one thing I need to add to this vehicle is either cctv or some articulated fisheye mirrors because driver visibility both ahead and behind is very poor. I can’t see the ends of the forks or the load half the time because the mast is in the way, and can never see behind because the propane tank is in the way.

 

There is no emergency brake

If you apply the hand brake lever while driving you will have an emergency

The parking brake uses the same brakes as the foot pedal. If the hydraulic brakes work, than the problem is disconnected cable or cable length out of adjustment. Either should be a simple fix. The adjustment is usually done by turning the end of the lever on most any made in the last five decades.

 

Moving some machines between warehouses a block apart, because they are now needed for jobs being done at the destination.

 

This one’s a little different, an auxiliary disc brake is operated by a ratcheting foot pedal (broken.). The manual does show an adjustment procedure but unless the pedal assembly can be repaired or replaced, there may be no way to adjust it. Still looking into that. The factory drawings of these parts came with the machine, so it looks like someone had been trying to understand and repair it.

 

Good luck....you'd hate for that thing to be a run-a-way !!

 

Spring.....do as Davey/Terry say.......

(Just asking.....if you were to take this to the streets, don't you need to have it inspected before you can get it registered for road use?)

I have no interest in big machinery (other than admire those that can run them) but I do love to read your posts......Be safe!!

 

Thanks for the encouragement, I found a brake pedal mechanism by Cat that looks similar but has diff p/n so asked seller if it’d fit my model and S/n. He’s a regular fork parts dealer so he should know. If it fits the $300. Would be worth it, I couldn’t make that assembly in a week if I already had the materials.

 

Fingers and toes crossed!

 

No, all our little trips are over connected blacktop parking lots in an industrial park, no public street travel.

 

I could post a video if I dared (not going to do it) which would convince any skeptics how dangerous forklifts can be, but watching it even may me feel sad. Some Japanese people are carrying overloads of drywall into a building with one or two folks perched on the back of the machine to hold the rear down better. Forklift tips forward anyway and a woman on the crew jumps onto rear of machine in an effort to tilt it back again, at same time driver who can’t see her puts forklift into reverse.

 

We're just lookin for you to stay safe.....

 

Unloaded a whole semi today with smaller forklift. Only thing unexpected that happened was the rear wheels kept coming off the floor with one heavy load. Load stated weight was 5500 lbs and that forklift is good for 6k lbs so I hadn’t expected any problem, but that 6k lbs has to be centered at only 24” “out” on forks. The load was longer than I expected so the load center was probably 40” out, no wonder wheels came up. Good thing I’m not the easily-excitable type or I might have gotten excited rolling along with a large load and no steering control part of the time.

 

Neighbor guy was a carpenter. They always got excited to have a forklift to help. They needed a bunch of drywall sheets on the second floor and would otherwise have carried them up one by one. He was on the forks holding the stack of sheets on edge. They were putting them up to a second floor window. The whole stack started to slide and he couldn't stop them. He managed to hold onto the rack behind the forks as they slid down the forks. When they went forward, the forks dipped down to the ground as the whole forklift nose dived. When the sheets finally fell off the forks, the lift jumped back down to the ground and he sailed right over the forklift, landing about 25 feet behind it.

 

Was he injured?

 

Just a broken collarbone. The cranium was not capable of damage.

 

People like that are always luckier than they should be.

 

We’ve been chasing the weak parking brake issue, brake pedal assembly didn’t work even after lots of grease but I found new one online and got it here for $250. Wonderful, right? Several days after greasing it tried the old pedal again and it works perfectly. Grease took days to work in I guess. Got manual out to see how to adjust parking brake. Sounded pretty straightforward, manual had photos etc. But when we took up floorplate to see what was pictured, it looked a lot different. Manual didn’t mention they pictures taken from underneath the 13,000 lb vehicle that only has about 5” ground clearance. All the things u gotta remove and tweak can only be accessed from underneath. Hmmm, yes I can use jacks to raise front end then set wheels on blocks to let a person creep underneath. Now I know why previous owner didn’t fix that brake! Here’s our view at parking brake disc through the removed floor plate. (To be continued).