Is this an appropriate place to ask........

If it is, we've just bought an old forklift, which we'd like to refurbish, if not "restore" for our own use at our small shop here in California.

It is a little one, maybe 3000# or so, a "Clark Carloader" of late'30's-mid '40's vintage, I think....(the wooden-rim steering wheel should be a recognition feature, I'd imagine, but the unit just has a "late '30's" look about it)

Has anyone been working on these, and might know of sources for a manual, parts book, and any possiblities for some of the basic small parts we may need, such as a carb rebuild kit, and ignition parts for the engine, cups and seals for the rams, etc.?

cheers

Carla

If we were thinking of using a '30's forklift in a busy warehouse, and employing the generality of "minimum wage worker" to operate it, yes, you'd have a fair point..... but that's just not the case, in this instance.

We deal in surplus, on a very small scale, and I do restoration/refinishing of old widgets of one sort an another. Our actual need for a forklift is rather limited, but, as has been said about some other classes of items, when you need one, nothing else will take its place.

Sure, those old forklifts will tip over if run carelessly.....but, if used with reasonable caution, they do just fine....

Years and years ago, I knew an older gentleman who had a small business rebuilding forklifts for the canneries in San Jose, Cal, where the forklifts were used very heavily during cannery season..... loading out thousands and thousands of tons of palleted canned goods.....the fork trucks would be literally worn out, running at high speed 24hrs/day, then overhauled after cannery season was over. Accidents were quite few and far between, as the cannery management took care to train and retain careful operators.

In short, yes, the workers of today apparently cannot be trained or expected to work carefully and prudently.....but, in this instance, I'll be running this old Clark myself, and, even if I do say so myself, I know what I am about....(I may follow the example of an old rigger I knew, who took the overhead cage off his 6000# Clark, and threw it away.....his explanation for that was that he didn't need it himself, and not having it on the forklift was his "reason" why he "just couldn't" allow anyone else to use his old Clark...."well, its just not safe for anyone else, you understand".)

cheers

Carla

Where do I get parts , not should I junk it . many of us use very old equipment. appearently you have never started a small business and needed equipment that was low budget.