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Newer Forklift, Dangerous "Safety" Devices

Blazemaster

Hot Rolled
Joined
Oct 13, 2009
Location
Olympia, Wa
I helped a good friend move a new machine yesterday into his garage. He has zero experience moving machine tools so asked me to help. We originally wanted to get my forklift over there but had trouble finding the correct trailer to haul it, so he just ended up renting a forklift. Mine is a Cat from about 1993, the one he rented was a much newer Toyota. I only have experience with the lifts I have owned. His move went just fine but it showed up in a box truck with a lift gate and I had to drag half the machine out and lower it with half on the forks, and half on the liftgate(only a 2k lb machine, 4ft wide by 9 ft long crate).

While we were doing the move, every time I would take my foot off the gas the lift would come out of gear and would be in neutral even though the shifter was still in gear. It made the move much more herky jerky than it needed to be. The truck driver mentioned that newer lifts do that because of some safety device installed. I also noticed that when I used the tilt lever it seemed like there was some safety device on it as well. Also made for a herky jerky experience. This looked like a well taken care of machine, so I can't imagine something was screwed up on it, but after all it was a rental.

Is this normal or was the oil low etc.? It just seemed like the bullshit safety device made it more dangerous, if that was the case. The whole time I was just wishing I was on my old, all analog machine.
 
We have a newer (2015) Toyota 6k lift with said safety interlocks, however ours operates smooth as can be. The shift interlock takes getting used to and we only ever use on level floors, but after a day on it, I prefer this lift over the older TCM 5k, and Nissan 10k lifts that we have.

That being said, we do have a maintenance contract on all our lifts and they are all in tip top condition.
 
My guess is that, being a rental unit some adjustments may be off a bit, leading to jerky operation. If you've ever driven an older lift with the inching function incorrectly adjusted they tend to "go into neutral" briefly as the brakes are being released.
 
You've detailed your unfamiliararities with an unfamiliar machine, Not sure why. Unlikely most here would be familiar with the machine and it's idiosyncrasies, Rental yards most times will let a customer operate a machine, and become familiar-comfortable with it prior to the rental period.
What part did you mess up.
 
You've detailed your unfamiliararities with an unfamiliar machine, Not sure why. Unlikely most here would be familiar with the machine and it's idiosyncrasies, Rental yards most times will let a customer operate a machine, and become familiar-comfortable with it prior to the rental period.
What part did you mess up.

My, did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? Comparing his post with Motion Guru's re the same brand gives some strong hints that the rental units weren't functioning 100% properly.

And most rentals involve picking up the phone and after selecting one with sufficient capacity having it delivered - sight unseen.
 
Maybe try the decaf. Was this post out of line somehow? It was pretty clear I was simply asking if newer lifts had the "shift interlock" like the delivery driver stated, or if he was full of shit. Forgive me if I thought the lift should move when you push the pedal in gear, or tilt when you pull the lever. Yes I'm familiar with an inching pedal.

Anyways it sounds like I just need some experience on a newer lift, it definitely seemed like something you needed to get the hang of. And yes I drove the lift around a bit to get familiar with it before the move, but didn't have any of the issues during the test. I was not the person who ordered the lift, it had already been delivered to my friends place before I showed up. The delivery driver unloaded it and handed my buddy the keys, that was about it.
 
I currently have an older Daewoo (Cat sold the tooling to them and they continued to makes the same lift truck under a slightly different naming convention) and am looking to replace it with a newer Toyota. This thread was really helpful to me as I had no clue about the interlocks - thanks for posting about this.
Martin
 
You've detailed your unfamiliararities with an unfamiliar machine, Not sure why. Unlikely most here would be familiar with the machine and it's idiosyncrasies, Rental yards most times will let a customer operate a machine, and become familiar-comfortable with it prior to the rental period.
What part did you mess up.

There are 2 ways(at least)to go about things...
1) answer a question with obvious knowledge and impress / help others with said knowledge
or
2) be a dick

You can decide for yourself which method you chose
 
Sure. Call the rental yard and get a forklift delivered to a job site. To move pallets of goods, etc. But rent a unit that behaves less than smoothly or could be a safety issue moving an expensive machine tool? Seems like the OP owes his friend and the machine tool a bit more consideration? Favors and good intentions can go south quickly in this sort of situation. I'd think the extra step of checking out the forklift at the rental yard beforehand would be worth the extra time and effort. Or there are riggers that know their machines and worth the price they charge. Safety is never a popular aspect and when someone calls attention to a lack of it, they're "being a dick". Typical.

My, did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? Comparing his post with Motion Guru's re the same brand gives some strong hints that the rental units weren't functioning 100% properly.

And most rentals involve picking up the phone and after selecting one with sufficient capacity having it delivered - sight unseen.
 
Sure. Call the rental yard and get a forklift delivered to a job site. To move pallets of goods, etc. But rent a unit that behaves less than smoothly or could be a safety issue moving an expensive machine tool? Seems like the OP owes his friend and the machine tool a bit more consideration? Favors and good intentions can go south quickly in this sort of situation. I'd think the extra step of checking out the forklift at the rental yard beforehand would be worth the extra time and effort. Or there are riggers that know their machines and worth the price they charge. Safety is never a popular aspect and when someone calls attention to a lack of it, they're "being a dick". Typical.

Ok, maybe next time he'll call you so you can come and help.

You apparently missed a few details.

He was asked to help move equipment.

The person being helped had already arranged for a lift truck delivery.

I don't know how familiar you are with rentals but because they are paying for maintenance on the rental units rather than billing a customer for repair time dealers tend to push the service techs for fast repairs and turnarounds on rental units, often leaving little time for careful adjustments.

Some rental equipment is well maintained but over the years I've encountered such things as a stump grinder with mismatched belts on a triple belt setup, increasing slippage under load and quite a few other things that appeared to have been "rode hard and put away wet".
 
I have rented dozens of forklifts and telehandlers. I have not experienced what is described here with new machines and would attribute it to something wrong with the machine.
 
So you're saying people can't rely on a rental forklift to move expensive machine tools? Like I said before, the move went smoothly enough. Nobody got hurt, nothing damaged. It just wasn't nearly as smooth as it would have gone with my own lift. You are making a bigger deal about this than I am Dkmc.
 
You posted with a question about the problem, so you must have been concerned enough? I'm saying if the situation repeats itself in the future, could you send the forklift back in exchange for one that works properly? There is the vast collection of the 'forklift fail' videos on Youtube. I think everyone in each those vids didn't think there would be any problems....until there were. Good you didn't have any issues.


So you're saying people can't rely on a rental forklift to move expensive machine tools? Like I said before, the move went smoothly enough. Nobody got hurt, nothing damaged. It just wasn't nearly as smooth as it would have gone with my own lift. You are making a bigger deal about this than I am Dkmc.
 
Our Hyster goes into neutral when you press the brake. Supposedly it's so you can press the gas to lift the forks without shifting to neutral. Except that shifting to neutral is extremely easy, where smooth operation on a hill is nearly impossible. You can't smoothly inch up to a truck.
 
Our Hyster goes into neutral when you press the brake. Supposedly it's so you can press the gas to lift the forks without shifting to neutral. Except that shifting to neutral is extremely easy, where smooth operation on a hill is nearly impossible. You can't smoothly inch up to a truck.

The inching adjustment is off. When properly set the transmission should go into gear just as the brake is almost released but still has very slight drag. That's why it's called inching. Letting up on the brake slightly INCHES the machine forward.

The adjustment is a bit time consuming and can be a bit trial and error to get it "just so". Usually there is a threaded rod attache to the brake linkage that can be adjusted for length.

Also, it's critical that the brakes be properly adjusted first. Most Hysters have self-adjusting brakes but unless you periodically back up aggressively and hit the brakes hard they won't do a thing. Once the brakes get too far out of adjustment manual adjustment (similar to older cars with drum brakes) is required.
 
The inching adjustment is off. When properly set the transmission should go into gear just as the brake is almost released but still has very slight drag. That's why it's called inching. Letting up on the brake slightly INCHES the machine forward.

The adjustment is a bit time consuming and can be a bit trial and error to get it "just so". Usually there is a threaded rod attache to the brake linkage that can be adjusted for length.

Also, it's critical that the brakes be properly adjusted first. Most Hysters have self-adjusting brakes but unless you periodically back up aggressively and hit the brakes hard they won't do a thing. Once the brakes get too far out of adjustment manual adjustment (similar to older cars with drum brakes) is required.

The brakes are a bit out of adjustment, but work fine for everything else. The adjuster for the inching function doesn't make enough difference to get any smooth inching. We just have it backed off.

I've never driven a forklift with a functioning inching mechanism. Maybe it's great but I don't see the point. For loading equipment with material I need a gentle creep, and inching seems too coarse. For steep hill unloads, I'd rather just feather the gas and brake and have the forklift move smoothly.
 
So I've spent thousands of hours on a forklift, I've never had one with an obvious inching function. I have driven several that had a third petal that would lock the brakes and disengage the drivetrain (but not take it out of gear) so you could rev the engine to power the mast hydraulics, is that a different function or is it supposed to be the same petal but badly out of adjustment? I know the Toyota truck worked very nicely that way, and was supposedly maintained by a Toyota factory technician. One of the three at the watercraft dealership that worked that way had the idle turned down so far it would stall because the techs were using that petal as a brake petal, and the truck would jerk badly when it was engaged otherwise. It was much more of an "on or off" feel than a gradual pressure like a normal brake or clutch petal.

And I have driven one or two trucks with that threw it out of gear when the brake was applied, it was quite annoying and I do agree it made the truck less usable.
 
The thing is, every forklift made that is 10,000 lb or less capacity, is designed for moving pallets of material in a factory setting. They are designed for moving pallets safely and fast, something that doesn't work as well for machinery moving, where you need to go slow and easy.
 
Our Hyster goes into neutral when you press the brake. Supposedly it's so you can press the gas to lift the forks without shifting to neutral. Except that shifting to neutral is extremely easy, where smooth operation on a hill is nearly impossible. You can't smoothly inch up to a truck.
Someone decided that all of our field offices were to begin getting new fork trucks in about 2012, all the same model (that I don't recall) of Hyster and they all do this.

It's aggravating because these are yard trucks, perfectly level ground isn't the norm.

Sent via CNC 88HS
 
I bypassed the shuttle valve that shifts the transmission to neutral in my Clark as the brake line pressure increases. Much more positive experience for precision moving.

My Hyster still has it and it freaks me out from time to time. I step on the brake and I stop, I step off and its a slight clunk either direction. I don't love the Monotrol either. I'm going to make it like the Clark in time.

As mentioned the potential is there to overheat the transmission if the forklift is going to be used hard in a warehouse setting with lots of raising and lowering, with the torque converter stalled and the engine revved to speed up the hydraulic pump, and the designers of the machine have no idea how its going to be used.

I've used electrics which don't hold on a slight incline. Guys like to back up little pickup trucks and box trucks halfway up the grade level ramp where I work and I always ask them to drive back down to the level parking lot. I can get in perfect position and raise the load but drop down 6-8" before I can reverse back up the grade, and it can be hard on their parking pawl to have a 12,000 lb free-rolling machine tapping their tailgate or bumper.
 








 
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