I got the new, old forklift home today in very fine style. A buddy had offered his trailer to assist in the move of the forklift and I took him up on it. Why did I need it? Well, my big gooseneck is far better suited to big machines and the break-over angle where the dovetail meets the deck would have been a rather daunting prospect for a machine as low to the ground as the Allis Chalmers. So the use of the gooseneck was ruled out.
But, despite the fact that his trailer's deck was fully covered in steel diamond plate, he began to worry about having nearly 7000 lbs focused on four tiny points. After all, the machine has a 50" wheelbase and is only 38" wide. I certainly cannot blame him for not wanting to risk having divots in his nice flat deck. We came up with a workable Plan B to protect his deck which required about $50 in 2x12's. I mulled it over.
What with the deep freeze wiping out his water well-head's plumbing along with a lot of expensive looking in-ground pool plumbing that was rightly doomed because it was right the heck out in the open in single digit temps and dependant upon power to keep things warm and moving,
and the fact that he and his wife lived
without power for three days in the middle of the big freeze...... along with a looming medical 'procedure' (take one guess what
that was all about). Well, maybe the best thing a
real friend could do would be to reciprocate and give him one
less thing to worry about (and one
less P.I.T.A.)
There are people out there (I am among them) who go through life wanting,
trying to be the hero of every event that comes their way. God Bless 'Em, they'll stare down Death itself if given the opportunity to do a good deed. They are people whose first instinct is always TO
HELP and they are so quick on the draw that they don't really think before they leap into action. By golly, this country needs more of that. But these Heroes can sometimes get themselves into harm's way by jumping in to help without considering the downside (such as divots in the deck). Once they finally
DO consider the downside, being honorable folk they just forge ahead and take the risk...like it or not.
And as they say, no good deed goes unpunished.
Now, I sure don't think anyone should be punished for having their heart in the right place, much less, placing their personal health, wealth and general welfare at risk. So, I decided everyone would be much better off if, just for once, I pried open my wallet and hired a little work done. So, I let him off the hook and politely declined to use his trailer.... and I called a wrecker. There are times when I want to be the hero, too. So, Merry Christmas, chum. You're off the hook.
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Dear Reader, let me say there is really nothing quite like having a roll-back wrecker on the job....except for maybe having a forklift on the job. To say that moving my forklift from here to there was of little or no consequence would be an understatement ('consequences' would come later...). I drove it on. He chained it down. He drove it to my house. He unchained it. I drove it off. Utterly boring and not exactly the sort of stuff good story-telling is made of. That is just about the only downside to it. Otherwise,
boring is good. Nothing was damaged. No blood was spilled. Nobody died.
A small surprise came at the end of things. I tipped my driver because, tipping the fellow who (
a) did a good job and who (
b) might just be a valuable asset in the future would not be a bad idea. Nope. Not a bad idea at all. He was surprised to be tipped (apparently, tipping has gone out of fashion) and of course, he was pleased. Please and Thank You (and the occasional tip) really make the world go round. We got to chatting a bit and I recognized an accent that was very familiar to my tired old bomb-damaged ears.
As it turned out, my driver was an Afghan....or better stated, a
former Afghan. He had been an interpreter for some U.S. concerns in Kandahar pretty much during the time I was doing my overseas thing with MY interpreters in Kabul. His loyalty and his decency no doubt earned him a ticket to The Land Of The Big PX and a fast track to citizenship. He jumped at the chance. Good for him! Coincidentally, it turns out he also got blown up a couple of times while on the job (just like me) and he is nearly as deaf as I which explains some of our early miscommunications during the move.
We parted company and I drove the forklift half a block down the street to mi casa, wandering back and forth like maybe I had one too many to drink. The steering on this old rig is certainly nothing to write home about! But not all who 'wander' are lost (or drunk for that matter). Yes, I got it into the driveway, no, the wheels did not fall off and no, I never went left of center...not even once. It'll be fine.
With my latest acquisition now in the driveway, I undertook some housekeeping on it and made a serious effort to look for long-forgotten lube points and began to make a small list of small things I wanted to sort out first. After a brief cleaning of the cockpit, and looking for some well-deserved praise, I invited my son out to give him a mini tutorial on how to operate the forklift.
As usual, he grimly suggested that I was somehow horning in on his personal time and why would he want to know
any of this? Gentlemen, he's a fine fellow when you get him away from the Playstation but anywhere within 50 feet of one, he can be a jerk if he feels somehow he's being kept from it. Well, Kid....how about maybe I'm out here in serious trouble and the only thing that's going to save your ol' Dad is your knowing how to operate this fine machine? Thus ended
THAT argument.
So, we went through the start-up procedure and let it idle to come up to temp. We went over some basic safety tips, and we did a walk-around to gain a better understanding of what goes on with this machine. With it fully warmed up, he climbed back into the operator's seat and we went over the three mast controls.
Left lever, the mast extends and the forks go up and the forks go down. So he tried it.
Center lever, the mast tilts forward or backward. He tried that. 2 for 2.
Right lever makes the carriage (that bit from which the forks hang) shuttle right or left by means of a horizontal hydraulic cylinder....
Now, I had been warned by the former owner that the hydraulic lines to the carriage's cylinder were weeping and it was at the very moment he tried it, the line decided it no longer wanted to weep.
No,
It did not weep.
It did not seep.
It did not creep.
It did not *
BLEEP!*
But from deep in this cheap heap came a stream that
could leap!
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OH, it leapt all right.
It
leapt, all green eggs and ham-like....straight onto my reluctant pupil. The best way I can describe the moment is....it was...
*ahem*
"rather pornographic."
There are a variety of phrases from that particular industry that may come to your mind at this moment; phrases that I assure you are
absolutely spot on.
....not to mention this eruption undid a great deal of my earlier cockpit cleaning efforts and made for some additional laundry for me to do for Junior.
Welcome to The Splash Zone, Kid.
Nobody rides for free.
Fate plays strange tricks on us sometimes. My son looked at me like maybe I had planned the whole thing. I swear to God I had not. But, it was that sullen, heavily-lidded-eyes look that took me. That look that
all parents HATE to see on their kid's face... This is what we get.....after all the good things we do for them?? I also swear that what I did next was strictly a knee-jerk reaction. Unplanned, purely instinctual and found only in the addendum to
The Unabridged Book of Good Parenting under the chapter titled,
Parents Are Human Too. Yeah, you
know what I did.
I reached over and batted the lever again and gave Mister Bad Attitude another shot. Tough love...and
nothing says,
I LOVE YOU like a little extra hydraulic fluid, Mister!
With that lesson being so obviously concluded, Junior excused himself and headed to the house for a change of clothes and the relative safety of facing other, far less physically dangerous worlds....something only online gaming can provide. I tried hard not to giggle while I wiped up the splatter.
Well, we definitely struck oil and the only way to get to the offending hose was get on with the very thing our friend Rick said he wanted me to do most.. Service that mast and lube up the carriage. So, off came the forks and after a bit of finagling, off came the front half of the carriage. My back was beginning to hurt. Wasn't this machine supposed to help me avoid this sort of work? DANG!
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In my haste to remove the offending hose (or hoses) I admit I paid no attention to what went where. Well, I have a 50/50 shot at getting it right when I put them back on. At worst, I get them backwards and have to flip them. No problemo. One old hose looked particularly suspicious. So, it was off to NAPA and not counting drive-time, I had two freshly made replacements in my hands along with a gallon of fresh hydraulic oil in no more than 20 minutes. That's how ya do it!
Stopped for some kitty litter on the way home (you already know why) and some Purple stuff filled with a secret sauce that was supposed to clean oil off driveways
like magic. Riiiiiiiiiight. Well, it's the thought that counts. When I arrived, I put the hoses back on all spaghetti-like, fired her up and batted that lever again. A fountain of hydraulic fluid sailed right out onto the driver's seat (where I was NOT sitting, thank God).
Clean up on aisle 6! AGAIN!
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Hmm. Now that wasn't supposed to happen. So, I stopped looking at the horizontal cylinder and looked more closely at the hydraulic junction block which, of course, was now thoroughly soaked and shining like diamonds. This time I gave that lever a gentle tickle. Another gusher. Oh, goodie...I followed someone else's
incorrect diagnosis and now I get to replace those nasty-looking old main lines as well. I was hoping to get a bit more use out of those at least for a while but now, I'm going to be equally happy to be rid of them and have (almost) all new lines and a closed hydraulic system that isn't gulping in air. Anyway, it's far easier to deal with the mast's main lines with these other things disassembled and off the machine.
It being too late in the day for another trip to NAPA, I elected to take care of something that had been nagging me since the first time I laid eyes on this machine. Those two support rods we spoke about earlier....Oh BOY, was I right about them! Once I got them moved to the other side of the horizontal cross member and bolted back down it became clear they had been incorrectly installed by the last guy...whoever he was. Now they are back in the right place and we are one step closer to this machine being right as rain.
Gonna hit this again tomorrow and make a bigger mess, I'm sure! Maybe my son will help. Nah...probably not..
Cheers,
TJ
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and a very typical forward-backward adjustment. Yeah, I know...this early purchase may be a little excessive, considering I don't even have it home yet but and I'm certainly not going to be spending hours in this seat. However, flipping this forklift and buying something newer, or just more capable could be an option and adding a little bling well, that never hurts.
I admit it may seem that I am being a bit naive by sitting here working on someone else's stuff while they are off partying like Covid was just a dream but believe me, I will find something for him to do in turn. 