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Help with TCM FCG20 Forklift

David M

Aluminum
Joined
Jan 14, 2007
Location
Alabama
Just brought this home today. Seems to be in good shape, runs good, everything is dry, no oil leaking out anywhere. The guy I talked to said the company had gotten it somewhere around 1996 and that it had about 300 hours on it at the time. He said that it had been regularly serviced and that he was sorry to see it go. The only thing I can see that it needs right now is a muffler. I am not sure of the year of the lift or the make of the engine. I can find literature online for FCG20-(insert any letter or number suffix here), but the ID tag on mine is just FCG20, no suffix, serial number is 344 0291. At least some of these machines came with Nissan engines, but not sure if that's what I have. It has "RED SEAL" in big letters cast into the exhaust manifold and F400A on the same side of the engine near the bottom of the block. It's a flathead 4. Can anyone help me nail down the year of this machine?
The cage is off of it right now, I need to shorten it a couple inches to get into one of my garages.IMG_3348.jpg
 
Cannot help on year. I think Red Seal was an engine mfr, or maybe part of the Continental line, flat head four is definitely their style. Don't shorten cage too much, or you will bang your head on it getting in/out, need to raise cage on my Clark lift, so I know.
 
Red Seal usually means Continental, especially if it's a flat head engine. I have seen some Red Seal power units on old equipment with other industrial engines, such as GM inline 6s.

I don't know when (or even if) Continental stopped making the flathead engines, but around the early to mid 1980s most manufacturers switched over to overhead valve engines from GM, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Toyota, etc. I'd consider that a big improvement. The Continental is fairly rugged, but extremely old tech. The basic design goes back to the 1930s.

I'm rebuilding an F245 right now. They made gillions of those motors, but I had a hard time getting parts for it. I still can't find a pan gasket or the main seals.
 
I'm rebuilding an F245 right now. They made gillions of those motors, but I had a hard time getting parts for it. I still can't find a pan gasket or the main seals.

Also try Grindstaff Engines. They are a rebuilder as well as a parts house.
 
Making progress. Found engine ID tag, says F163. Montys says they can find my serial number on a parts list dated 1969. ID tag on the transmission gives a Mfg date of 1/1971 so I'd say 71 is a good guess as to the model year. TCMs dealer locator sent me to Forklifts of Minnesota, the service guy there found part numbers for the muffler, about $250, and the tail pipe, over $600. Probably not....think I could cobble something together myself for a little less.

The price on this was right, so I agreed to buy it before I saw it. Everything I read said they were made with Nissan engines, and I expect that newer models are. Being a Japanese company though, I was surprised to find an American engine in it and haven't found a metric nut or bolt on it anywhere yet. The transmission was built by a Japanese company under license from Twin Disc.
 
Keep in mind, I can't remember ever seeing a Continental that had not been rebuilt at least once, especially in a forklift. It's very possible that you have a reman engine.
 
I've said a few choice words in the past, trying to custom make a forklift exhaust system. The problem is you don't have enough room. I agree $250 is outrageous though.

Any forklift parts from dealers are way overpriced. The best option is always try to find another source than a dealer. I once needed a 12K Cat tilt cylinder rod, I got it made at a machine shop for half the price I could get it from the Cat dealer. I can get cylinder rebuild kits for roughly 1/3 the dealer cost from my local hyd shop.
 
IMG_3353.jpg
Found a muffler for $150 and tail pipe for $300. Probably get the muffler because it's a real oddball, and either do without a tailpipe or make my own.

Does anyone know how to check the fluid level in the transmission? There is what looks like a dipstick tube coming out the top center but the cap on it looks like a breather and has no dipstick on it. Is my dipstick missing or am I looking in the wrong place? It's a Nico transmission.
 
Lots of times, the dipstick will be way down on the side and can be hard to find. It also may just have a check plug. Look on both sides, at least 1/2 way down.
 
Large tank between wheels on right side looks like hydraulic fluid, tank on left side looks like ATF. Hyd tank has dipstick, nothing to indicate proper level in the ATF tank, but looks to have quite a bit of oil in it. Also noticing a few drops of red oil dripping from right front wheel hub. ATF also oils differential? Any idea how big a job an axle seal is? Haven't had the wheel off but looks like disc brakes.
 
It depends on your definition of "big job". Everything on a forklift is hard to work on. It's heavy, it's jammed into a tiny space, and it's covered in oily goop.

Most forklift have a final drive where the axle shaft goes out from the transaxle to a final gear reduction with the brakes jammed in there somewhere. You have to pull the whole final drive assembly out and there will be some shaft seals inside you can replace.

Forklifts are basically just rolling oil leaks, so you may want to reconsider trying to fix them all...
 
Found a muffler for $150 and tail pipe for $300. Probably get the muffler because it's a real oddball, and either do without a tailpipe or make my own.

I've built mufflers for 2 engine drive welders and 4 forklifts.
It's not that hard if you have a welder and band saw. I use pipe or EMT, build it heavy and they won't ever rust thru or need replacing again. I did keep track of one of the forklift muffler builds, (small 3 wheel Hyster and really tight quarters) about 12 hours total. Work slow, steady, have fun. It was for my own machine, so no worry on the hours.
 
It's kind of unusual for a trans to have a separate tank.

On some of our lifts (none are TCM)they will have a separate tank for the hyd system and the power steering, but the power steering tank will be repetitively small. On our Cat T120, it has a hyd clutch, there is a separate tank for the hyd clutch, the hyd lift, the power steering, and the trans has a dipstick.

It's also not unusual for people to use ATF in hyd systems and is even specified by some manufactures. So that's not a for sure indication that the tank with the ATF is for the trans.
 
It's kind of unusual for a trans to have a separate tank.

On some of our lifts (none are TCM)they will have a separate tank for the hyd system and the power steering, but the power steering tank will be repetitively small. On our Cat T120, it has a hyd clutch, there is a separate tank for the hyd clutch, the hyd lift, the power steering, and the trans has a dipstick.

That's what I thought, I expected the trans to hold its own oil, I even stuck a welding rod down what I thought was the dipstick tube and there's quite a bit of oil in there. The left saddle tank with ATF in it is plumbed to the trans though. My original concern was just to make sure the trans was full. If it's drawing oil out of that tank it's not going to run out. The hydraulics and power steering are both plumbed to the right side saddle tank.
 
That's what I thought, I expected the trans to hold its own oil, I even stuck a welding rod down what I thought was the dipstick tube and there's quite a bit of oil in there. The left saddle tank with ATF in it is plumbed to the trans though. My original concern was just to make sure the trans was full. If it's drawing oil out of that tank it's not going to run out. The hydraulics and power steering are both plumbed to the right side saddle tank.

That is odd, with trans oil tank, could be to add extra capacity and more surface area to keep the oil cooler. A tank would act as a heat sink and lessen the need for a trans oil cooler.

There should be some sort of level indicator on the tank then.
 








 
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