FINALLY - Got the Forklift Running!
Well, it took a long time - a little over seven months actually, but I finally got my little TCM forklift running!
I bought the forklift back on June 16th, 2014 from the Swift Current Co-op at one of their auction sales. I've been wanting/needing a forklift at the shop for a while now, especially since I've been dealing with larger items like the zero-turn mowers and other heavy wholegoods items. In the past, I've hired someone with a forklift to help unload the items from the truck (most delivery services do not provide foklift service) but I can't always count on someone being available when I need it. Plus, the key word there is "hire", as in "pay someone to do this for me." As the business grows, and I start getting more large items, this could start to get expensive.
When I got the forklift, it wasn't running. They told me that it had a leak in the propane vapourizer, but I wasn't overly worried about that as I intended to run the machine on gasoline instead (this unit being a dual-fuel type.) Just getting it to my shop was a bit of a challenge; I used my big flat-deck trailer to transport it, and the guys at the Swift Current Co-op loaded it onto the trailer using a much larger forklift to pick it up. My trailer has fenders coming up the sides for the wheels, so placing the little TCM forklift on the trailer wasn't as simple as just plopping it down. At first, it was far too close to the front, and the weight of it (3530kg) pushed my poor Chevy 2500 right down; I was very worried that the suspension and/or the hitch would give out! As quickly as we could, we hooked some chains to the back of the forklift and pulled it towards the rear of the trailer to balance it out. Unfortunately, the guy driving the towing forklift pulled it back a bit too much, and it actually lifted the Chevy 2500 a bit! They weren't too keen on helping me move it back a bit again, so we made do with it as it was, and secured it to the trailer with chains and boomers. With the back end of the Chevy considerably lighter than it ought to have been, it was a slow drive back to the shop in Shaunavon, but we made it. My friend Jack helped me unload it using one of his large front-end loaders and some heavy chains, and then it sat it the middle of my lot all Summer, and Fall!
The problem was that I was absolutely swamped at the shop, and I could only work on the forklift in my spare time (which was pretty much non-existent.) The first thing that I discovered was that the solenoid valves that select propane or gasoline were stuck. More correctly, the solenoid for the gasoline was stuck, the one for the propane worked fine. That was an easy fix: a couple of light taps with a small ball-peen hammer on the side of the solenoid freed it up, and it worked fine after that. I checked the fuel-pump to make sure it was pumping the gas, and then discovered that all of the rubber fuel-lines had rotted and were full of holes! Those were easy to replace, and then I tried to get the thing started.
It tried to start; it wanted to start, but it was having a lot of trouble doing so. When it finally did, it was coughing and sputtering and just barely managing to run, and then I noticed the gasoline leaking out of the carburetor. :/ Clearly, it was going to need a carburetor overhaul.
Sometime around mid November, I finally had time (and a break with warm temperatures) to get the carburetor off the machine. It became very obvious as to why it was having such a hard time: The carburetor was full of MUD!! Literally, there was fine silty mud throughout the thing! Fortunately, the carburetor could be separated into three sections, each of which was small enough to fit into my ultrasonic cleaning machine. It was December before I was able to get the carburetor back together and mounted back into the forklift, but it still would not start!
It took a lot of searching, and nearly another month before I had time to work on it again, but I finally figured out that the engine was a Nissan H-20, and from there I was able to get more information about its various settings and specifications. It was only after I got it running again that I discovered the engine's model stamped on the block! That would have been useful information a few months earlier! At any rate, armed with this new information I replaced all of the spark-plugs, making sure they were gapped correctly, and tried again. It still wouldn't start, though one could tell it was trying to. I put a timing-light on it, and that's when I noticed that I wasn't getting a nice even beat of pulses like I expected to. Fiddling with the wiring coming out of the distributor, I noticed that it caught and sputtered each time I jiggled the wires. AHA! There was a kludge of electrical-tape holding three wires together, and with that mess removed, I found another key to the trouble: bad wiring! I got that fixed, but by now the battery was about worn down and couldn't keep cranking the engine over. I was so close! It wasn't fair! Then I remembered that I had another utility battery in the shop, and it was fully charged! I switched batteries, cranked the engine over, and it coughed and sputtered to life! A little tweaking and twiddling with the carburetor settings, and this is the result:
It still needs some more tweaking, and a proper tune-up, but you can see it's purring away at about 600-700 RPM, and that's a darn sight better than it was doing when I bought it! :)
I bought the forklift back on June 16th, 2014 from the Swift Current Co-op at one of their auction sales. I've been wanting/needing a forklift at the shop for a while now, especially since I've been dealing with larger items like the zero-turn mowers and other heavy wholegoods items. In the past, I've hired someone with a forklift to help unload the items from the truck (most delivery services do not provide foklift service) but I can't always count on someone being available when I need it. Plus, the key word there is "hire", as in "pay someone to do this for me." As the business grows, and I start getting more large items, this could start to get expensive.
When I got the forklift, it wasn't running. They told me that it had a leak in the propane vapourizer, but I wasn't overly worried about that as I intended to run the machine on gasoline instead (this unit being a dual-fuel type.) Just getting it to my shop was a bit of a challenge; I used my big flat-deck trailer to transport it, and the guys at the Swift Current Co-op loaded it onto the trailer using a much larger forklift to pick it up. My trailer has fenders coming up the sides for the wheels, so placing the little TCM forklift on the trailer wasn't as simple as just plopping it down. At first, it was far too close to the front, and the weight of it (3530kg) pushed my poor Chevy 2500 right down; I was very worried that the suspension and/or the hitch would give out! As quickly as we could, we hooked some chains to the back of the forklift and pulled it towards the rear of the trailer to balance it out. Unfortunately, the guy driving the towing forklift pulled it back a bit too much, and it actually lifted the Chevy 2500 a bit! They weren't too keen on helping me move it back a bit again, so we made do with it as it was, and secured it to the trailer with chains and boomers. With the back end of the Chevy considerably lighter than it ought to have been, it was a slow drive back to the shop in Shaunavon, but we made it. My friend Jack helped me unload it using one of his large front-end loaders and some heavy chains, and then it sat it the middle of my lot all Summer, and Fall!
The problem was that I was absolutely swamped at the shop, and I could only work on the forklift in my spare time (which was pretty much non-existent.) The first thing that I discovered was that the solenoid valves that select propane or gasoline were stuck. More correctly, the solenoid for the gasoline was stuck, the one for the propane worked fine. That was an easy fix: a couple of light taps with a small ball-peen hammer on the side of the solenoid freed it up, and it worked fine after that. I checked the fuel-pump to make sure it was pumping the gas, and then discovered that all of the rubber fuel-lines had rotted and were full of holes! Those were easy to replace, and then I tried to get the thing started.
It tried to start; it wanted to start, but it was having a lot of trouble doing so. When it finally did, it was coughing and sputtering and just barely managing to run, and then I noticed the gasoline leaking out of the carburetor. :/ Clearly, it was going to need a carburetor overhaul.
Sometime around mid November, I finally had time (and a break with warm temperatures) to get the carburetor off the machine. It became very obvious as to why it was having such a hard time: The carburetor was full of MUD!! Literally, there was fine silty mud throughout the thing! Fortunately, the carburetor could be separated into three sections, each of which was small enough to fit into my ultrasonic cleaning machine. It was December before I was able to get the carburetor back together and mounted back into the forklift, but it still would not start!
It took a lot of searching, and nearly another month before I had time to work on it again, but I finally figured out that the engine was a Nissan H-20, and from there I was able to get more information about its various settings and specifications. It was only after I got it running again that I discovered the engine's model stamped on the block! That would have been useful information a few months earlier! At any rate, armed with this new information I replaced all of the spark-plugs, making sure they were gapped correctly, and tried again. It still wouldn't start, though one could tell it was trying to. I put a timing-light on it, and that's when I noticed that I wasn't getting a nice even beat of pulses like I expected to. Fiddling with the wiring coming out of the distributor, I noticed that it caught and sputtered each time I jiggled the wires. AHA! There was a kludge of electrical-tape holding three wires together, and with that mess removed, I found another key to the trouble: bad wiring! I got that fixed, but by now the battery was about worn down and couldn't keep cranking the engine over. I was so close! It wasn't fair! Then I remembered that I had another utility battery in the shop, and it was fully charged! I switched batteries, cranked the engine over, and it coughed and sputtered to life! A little tweaking and twiddling with the carburetor settings, and this is the result:
Click to viewIt still needs some more tweaking, and a proper tune-up, but you can see it's purring away at about 600-700 RPM, and that's a darn sight better than it was doing when I bought it! :)