41 fire breathing HP, 7400 pounds, and a top speed of 12 mph, it's Miss Kitty!

Not exactly glamorous, but if it saves one back it's money well spent. 

It actually uses a Mitsubishi 4G63 2.0L engine. At 41 hp, it's significantly detuned and is apparently not balanced. This one breathes propane. 

It's a little bigger than I needed but forklifts are few and far between around here unless you spend new car money ($40k+- new for this one.) or buy a junker that pisses oil everywhere. This one is around 20 years old and has 8300 hours on it, but it has been maintained professionally. As much as I will be using it, it should last forever. I hope I never have to work on it. 

At 7400 pounds, I don't have a trailer that could carry it. A hydraulic trailer was $132 for 4 hours and well worth the money spent. I'm glad I only had to move it 5 miles. It's a bit of a pig. 

Awesome.  It just needs a new lick of paint with some butterfly murals on it being a caterpillar.  I think the name should be Leppy or Morph. 

Never really thought about it before but I wouldn't have guessed they were even half that heavy, makes me think again about the guy who used to absolutely hoon one around a factory my dad worked at...

5 miles and you used a trailer?  This is GRM, you're supposed to walk-n-drive it home!  If it goes 12 mph it should only take about 25 minutes. :)

GameboyRMH said:

Never really thought about it before but I wouldn't have guessed they were even half that heavy, makes me think again about the guy who used to absolutely hoon one around a factory my dad worked at...

Counter weight I'd assume. 

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

5 miles and you used a trailer?  This is GRM, you're supposed to walk-n-drive it home!  If it goes 12 mph it should only take about 25 minutes. :)

 

This is the reply of a person who never has operated a solid tire forklift on rough roads.  

We used to have two shops, down the road a bit from each other.  If you had to move something the option was either load it in a truck and drive it and offload it, or run it down there on the forks.  Running down there on the forks was awful.  Rattle your dang fillings out.  

There is something I find weirdly satisfying about driving a forklift.

Forklifts are awesome machines with the potential to do massive amounts of work. And equal potential to destroy stuff and hurt people if misused.   Please make sure you get real training for anyone who can get their hands on the keys.   

In reply to KyAllroad :

I've been running them since I was 16, call it 38 years. I think I'm good. 

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

5 miles and you used a trailer?  This is GRM, you're supposed to walk-n-drive it home!  If it goes 12 mph it should only take about 25 minutes. :)

 

This. I used to work at a small engine shop and the owner bought a lift from the rental shop 2 miles up the road. He goes "hey, come with me," dropped me off with the key and said to drive it back to our shop. I did. Took way longer than I thought. Also, scary AF on that 55mph road. 

Safety third! Please forgive me if I share this

I bought a couple of stand ups to scrap/steal parts from years ago. It was a shock how much metal is used compared to cars. Everything was intentionally thick. Panels out of 1/2" steel all over the place.

In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :

WOW

Toyman! said:

In reply to KyAllroad :

I've been running them since I was 16, call it 38 years. I think I'm good. 

 

I worked at a Kmart in the 80's and when you were 18 you could be trained, pass a test and get an Kmart FL license.  We had a lot of knucklehead gear heads working in the garden and building materials department.  

One guy (not me) would go in reverse and get momentum going only to slam it in drive and leave two tire marks in the smooth asphalt.  I was just amazed it had the same A12 or A14 engine my Datsun 310GX had. 

In reply to Datsun310Guy :

I started with a construction company in the mid-80s at 16. No training required. Forklifts, boom trucks, bucket trucks, backhoes, pretty much you name it, I've operated it. 

In reply to Toyman! :

It wasn't directed at you, more at anyone else who might have access to the equipment.  (See Datsuns story as an example of why)

In reply to KyAllroad :

One night somebody cornered too fast and flipped on its side - the cage had a  permanent twist to it.  The guy was lucky he didn't get killed or pinned underneath.   That taught me to respect the FL.  

In reply to KyAllroad :

I may, or may not have done the same thing in the 80s. I was pretty young and driving a forklift. 

I can tell you for sure you can do a doughnut with a backhoe if you spread a thin layer of clay on asphalt while it's raining. 

Double or triple boom? I have an old Cat 50 that makes yours look new but it is only a double boom and can only lift to about 10 feet. My favorite lifter is my EZ Stacker, battery powered and you push it around yourself but it will lift 1500lbs to 12.5 ft!.

In reply to jgrewe :

Double maybe, I'm honestly not sure. Lifts to 12' or so I think. I just need it to pull pallets of door panels out of the back of a freight truck so I don't have to do it one at a time by hand. 

forklifts are fun.  We are all electric where I work.  Our new ones are beasts and all computerized. 

In reply to mad_machine :

I was initially looking at electrics until I talked to a dealer here in town. He specifically warned against the electrics for my use. Said sitting would kill the battery in a hurry. They need to be used on a daily basis to keep the batteries happy.  

Oops, mine is a Cat TC30.  I've never had to buy model specific parts for it so its just "the forklift" in my world.

I have an organ donor if you want to swap that 2.0L for a 2.6 (aka the Big Block, lol).  A tenant just moved out and left it for me with  a signed title.

As a forklift tech for close to 30 years it looks like a triple stage upright from the picture(two secondary cylinders on the sides and the shorter primary cylinder in the middle).

KyAllroad said:

Forklifts are awesome machines with the potential to do massive amounts of work. And equal potential to destroy stuff and hurt people if misused.   Please make sure you get real training for anyone who can get their hands on the keys.   

I've been working on forklifts for 15 years and I have seen a lot of both. About 10 years ago I had a customer that makes PVC pipe. They had big Yale forklifts with  enclosed cabs. I went over one day to find the glass top on their cab was shattered.  The plant maintenance crew was running crazy. I  asked one of them what was up and someone had knocked down a water tower with the forklift I was working on. He said, we fix what they Berkley up and you fix what they Berkley it up with.