The Cute Little Forklift Story

                                    The Cute Little Forklift Story

                                                                 1975

                                     How my friend Barney Kaplan modernized me                              

                                       Written 12/2011 Re-Written 8/2015

                                                           Howard Yasgar

This is a story all about getting my first forklift.

It’s how a good friend, had to actually threaten me, in a nice way of course, to get me to change my way of thinking about buying a forklift.

However, once he did it, it set in motion circumstances that I felt was worthy of me writing all about it.

This story Actually started in 1973 when I had just started a new division of our company in Miami called API Marine.

API Marine remanufactured outboard and inboard marine starters, and alternators.

I had started the new company in Miami in the same location as  API, (Automotive Parts Industries) which was our automotive parts rebuilding company.

We had just started doing business with a surplus automotive and marine parts dealer located in Detroit, his company name was Barney Kaplan Surplus.

At the time, Barney was purchasing most all of the excess  marine parts from the Prestolite Corporation.

At the time, The Prestolite Corporation was one of the largest manufacturers of Marine electrical parts.

Our being able to obtain these Prestolite parts from Barney was crucial to the success of our company.   

Barney not only became our biggest supplier, but he also became my good friend and eventually my mentor.

My relationship with Barney was unique, every time I talked to him he gave me lots of suggestions on how to improve the running of my business.

Every few months I would fly up to Barney’s place in Detroit and sort and prepare lots of Prestolite parts for Barney to ship to us in Florida.

The Prestolite parts would usually come to Barney in large pallet boxes, I would then sort through the Boxes removing the parts I wanted, loading them into empty 55 gallon open top barrels that were provided by Barney.

Each barrel when filled, probably weighed somewhere between 400 and 800 lbs.

As soon as I filled enough barrels Barney would call a commercial trucker to haul the stuff to Miami.

If I filled too many barrels, Barney would hold them for the next shipment,

At the time, Barney, was a bachelor, so when I flew up to Detroit he would have me stay with him in his apartment.

This gave Barney the opportunity to give me his advice for a full twenty four hours, and that was whether I wanted to hear it or not.

At the time Barney was in his fifties and he had a lot of experience in the automotive rebuilding business. Consequently he never once stopped advising me about how to improve my own business.

Barney didn’t care at all if I disagreed with him, he just wouldn’t stop advising me.

Sometimes I would get tired of listening to him,  and I would go so far as to tell him that I thought he was wrong.

But then after my telling Barney he was wrong, I would find out later that Barney’s advice was actually correct.

Whenever that happened, and it was often, I called him to apologize and I told him he was 100% right, and that always inspired him to give me more unsolicited advice.

In the long run I estimated that my friend Barney was giving me good advice at least seventy percent of the time.

One day he asked me how we were unloading the truckloads of parts he was shipping to us, so I told him exactly how we did it.

At the time, our receiving truck loads of parts was a relatively new experience for us, we never had a loading and unloading dock, or a forklift or anything like that.

So I told Barney step by step how we unloaded his barrels of parts.

I told him that first we would put about six used car tires on the ground, then I would climb up into the truck with three husky helpers, while two or three guys would wait below on the ground.

We would then, by hand, rock the heavy barrels into position on the end of the truck and let them drop on to the tires on the ground.

The three fellows standing below would kind of steady the barrels as they bounced off the tires.

Occasionally a barrel would bounce the wrong way and tip over, then my guys standing on the ground would pick the barrel back up and refill it with what had fallen out.

We knew this was a crude way of unloading a truck, but it was cheap, I knew a forklift would be better, but I felt that the cost of buying a forklift just seemed too much for us at the time.

One day, Barney said, “Why don’t you have a forklift”, I told him we never had one and I don’t think we need one.

Barney said, “How many of your guys show up for work the next day after unloading a truck”. I had to think a minute, Barney was right, after unloading, the next day most everyone complained about sore arms and shoulders.

Barney said, “It looks like I need to get you a forklift”.

I replied, please don’t do it, I don’t want one, and besides that, I really can’t afford one.

I had hoped that was the end of my forklift conversation with Barney.

About a week went by, and Barney was on the phone, and he was again talking about a forklift.

He said, “You listen to me, on your next truck load, I am sending you a forklift, and when you get it, and after you get the forklift  running 100 % percent to your satisfaction, you should send me $250.00”.

Barney then said, “If you don’t take the forklift, I won’t sell you any more parts in the future.

I knew Barney couldn’t be serious about not selling us, so even though I didn’t really want the forklift, I didn’t say no.

I felt it was easier for me to accept the forklift from Barney than to have to listen to him talk to me about it every time I spoke with him.  

A few weeks later, a truck arrived from Barney and I went out to look at what he had sent to us.

The truck driver opened the trailers rear doors, and laying there on its side in front of the barrels of parts, was the smallest, dirtiest and rusty little forklift I had ever seen.

At first, I didn’t even know what I was looking at, because it had very faded yellow paint and there was so much rust. It just looked like a pile of scrap Iron.

We called a neighbor over with his forklift and he unloaded the piece of junk Barney had sent me.

Once it was unloaded and standing on its four hard rubber tires, I could see it actually was a forklift.

However, especially noticeable were the missing front forks.

Right away, I intended to call Barney and give him hell.

It was pretty obvious that this forklift had been laying in someones outdoor scrap iron pile for a very long time.

I wondered, did Barney really think I was a complete idiot and going to buy it?

I was so mad, my hands were actually shaking.

I instructed my men to push the tiny forklift off to the side of the warehouse, and get it out of the way.

I felt that I needed to compose myself before I called Barney and raised hell with him for sending me such a piece of crap.

I was hopping mad, but once I was in my office, I sat at my desk and I got busy with phone calls, and pretty soon forgot to call Barney.

After a day or so, and when I was in a better mood, I walked out into the warehouse to look at the forklift again.

This time I looked at the data plate, and I saw was that the forklift was a 2000 pound Towmotor, and it was built in 1942.

It was only about three feet wide, it was so narrow that it probably could fit through my office doorway.

So here it was 1975, and Barney had sent me a 1942 forklift, it was like an antique piece of junk that was used and abused and over thirty years old.

I felt that the tiny forklift had probably outlived it’s usefulness a long time ago. I was sure someone had thrown it into their junk pile.

However as a mechanic myself, I admit I was curious, and curiosity got the best of me. I forced myself to look at what a rusty antique Continental four cylinder engine looked like.

The engine was sure cute, but it looked like it hadn’t run for many years.

The more I studied it, the more I smiled, it was the smallest and cutest little forklift engine I had ever seen in my life.

I instructed one of my men to go ahead and put in a new 12 volt battery.

I knew the engine would never run, but what the heck.

Well two hours later, the new 12 volt battery was in, oil was put in the engine and I sat on the torn forklift seat and turned the key several times, but nothing happened.

By now I had collected a crowd of curious employees all watching.  

I considered the situation, as long as we already wasting time putting in a battery, I asked one of my men to remove the starter motor, after all, rebuilding starter motors was our business.

Later that day, the rebuilt starter was installed, and I again turned the start key, but the little four cylinder motor just wouldn’t turn over.

I tried turning the cooling fan and belt, but nothing happened, the engine appeared to be frozen solid.

Well, I knew how to fix a rusty engines, I thought that perhaps all it needed some penetrating oil in the cylinders.

I then proceeded to remove the four spark plugs and when I looked down the spark plug holes into the motor. I could see the heads of the valves and all the rust.

I figured I couldn’t hurt anything by putting some oil in the spark plug holes, so for two days, I poured penetrating oil into the four spark plug holes.

I poured it in until the they were full, and then I watched as the oil slowly ran down the  spark plug holes and onto the engines valves.

I tried the starter again, and by now everyone in our entire shop was watching me.

None of us  could believe our eyes, the engine was now actually turning.

Now when I looked down the spark plug holes and I could see the tops of the intake and exhaust valves, and they weren’t moving down, they appeared to be stuck in the open position.

I poured more oil down the spark plug holes and pushed the valves down with a metal 3/8 socket extension shaft,  and with a hammer I tapped each valve down.

Then when I turned the engine over, with the starter, to my surprise the valves came up and went down by themselves.  

We cleaned and gapped the sparkplugs, drained the fuel tank and put in fresh gasoline, and that’s all it needed, the engine started right up and ran, no one  could believe it.

It was a 12 volt battery I had installed, so we removed the 6 volt ignition coil and replaced it with a late model 12 volt coil.

Then we rebuilt the distributor, and installed a new alternator and voltage regulator.  

For some reason, I wasn’t mad at Barney anymore, for us, it was now a challenge to get this little Towmotor working.

Next I called Barney, and I told him what a beautiful and cute little forklift he had sent me.

I told him the engine ran absolutely perfect, but the forks for the forklift were missing. Barney said, he would find a set of forks somewhere.

He also said that in the meantime I should check the forklifts transmission to be sure it had oil in it, and to make sure everything was working good before we paid him the $250.00.

Next morning went back out to the warehouse to look at the transmission.

The floor shift transmission had a long gear shift lever that was held down with eight bolts.

I loosened all the bolts, lifting the transmission forks up very carefully I placed it on a shelf  so I could reinstall it back in the correct position.

When I looked into the transmission, my heart nearly stopped.

The transmission was full of rusty brown muddy water and oil.

The brown water had been in there so long it had completely rusted and pitted up the entire inside of the transmission.

I stuck my finger in the mud and it was a solid thick brown, it was the kind of reddish brown mud that stuck to your fingers and wouldn’t come off.

It took me two days for my blood pressure to calm down, and then I looked closer at the transmission.

I studied it from all sides and came to the conclusion that a forklift transmission wasn’t like a car transmission.

The only way to remove it was to take the entire front mast assembly off of the forklift, and then move the engine forward.

I could see that once that was done, the transmission could be unbolted from the engine, and slid backwards and out, boy was I pissed off, that was a lot of work.

At that point, I could see that the entire forklift needed to come apart, to fix it, but by now I had so much time and money invested in this piece of junk that I had no choice, I had to do it, like it or not.

It was certainly a major project, but by my using heavy duty jacks, wooden levers and blocks and a lot of sweat, I was eventually able to disassemble the entire front mast assembly.

But, in order to do it, the work had to be done by my laying on my side on the concrete floor of the warehouse.

When I finally unbolted the transmission from the engine, it still wouldn’t slide back.

I assumed there was a hidden bolt somewhere but I couldn’t find it.

I was by now so frustrated I proceeded to pry the transmission out with a crowbar, and that’s when we heard a cracking noise.

Yes there was a hidden bolt, and now I had broken off the top of the transmission bell housing.

I tried to remain calm, as I finally removed the transmission and unbolted the broken piece of housing from the engine.

We then washed out the oily mud inside of the transmission, so I could better see what was going on.

I was surprised to see that all the gears were very pitted from the rust but all of them were still intact.

My solution was to soak everything in mineral spirits for two days, I rinsed it until all the gears in the transmission eventually turned by hand.

I then proceeded to disassemble all the gears bearings and shafts carefully, putting all the parts in their proper order on a bench.

My intention was to sandblast them to get the rust off.

There was an upper main shaft and it had a large sliding gear on it, so I knew it was important to make sure the gear didn’t get taken off the shaft and accidently reversed.

I called over my trusted Cuban sandblaster Jose.

I knew Jose spoke some English, he had worked for me for several years, and he always understood me and did everything exactly as he was told.

While I welded up the broken piece of the transmission case, Jose sandblasted all the transmission gears, bearings and shafts for me.

He did a beautiful job, he even oiled up all the parts after sandblasting them.

I was a little nervous, so just to be sure, I asked Jose a second time if he had taken off and reversed the gear the main shaft.

He looked me squarely in the eye and said “No Mister Howard”.

I decided that even if all the bearings and gears were badly pitted, I could still reassemble the transmission, I knew that the transmission gears and bearings worked in heavy oil, so I felt that the pitting would actually help lubricate everything.

The transmission assembly job went like clockwork.

I then bolted the transmission on the engine, and reinstalled the forklifts mast.

I needed help and it took us two days to complete the entire job.

Finally I got on the seat and started the forklift up. I put it in reverse gear and backed the forklift out of the warehouse and onto the street.

Everything was going just fine, so I shifted into first gear, and the forklift took off just like a race car up the street.

When that happened, it was an incredible feeling, I was so proud of our accomplishment, so were all our employees.

Then I  went to shift into second gear. But there was no second gear, nor was there a third gear.

I kept trying to shift and eventually realized that I had three speeds in reverse and only one speed forward.

At that point, all my employees came out to the street to see what was wrong.

I took the shift lever off and tried installing it in several different positions, none of which worked.

I then peered into the transmission and quietly studied every gear and what was going on.

The problem soon became obvious, Jose had reversed the upper large sliding gear when he had sandblasted it.

I questioned him again about it but he just gave me a blank stare, that’s when I found out that Jose didn’t speak even one word of English, he never understood when I told him not to reverse the gear.

The only English Jose spoke was “Yes Mister Howard”.

It took another two days to take apart the whole forklift and take out the transmission again. It was easier the second time, because we knew where all the nuts and bolts went.

Eventually our 1942 Towmotor was all together and actually working and its 35 year old engine ran perfectly.

By now we had invested so much time and labor into the little forklift that I probably could have bought a brand new fork lift cheaper.

We paid Barney his $250.00 and we used that 1942 Towmotor for over ten years, unloading hundreds of trucks.

We used the Towmotor until 1985, when Barney sent us a much bigger, thirty five hundred pound Clark forklift.

We retired that cute little Towmotor by parking it under the pallet racking in one of our warehouses, and there it just sat for another 20 years, until 2005.

My wife Katherine was now running the company and I told her the story about the

$250.00 dollar Towmotor that Barney Kaplan had sent us in 1975.

When she heard the story she brought that little Towmotor forklift over to our main building, and we gave it a new coat of yellow paint, we wrapped it in clear plastic, put on a giant red bow and loaded it on a truck.

We sent it back to Barney in Detroit, along with a note thanking him for the use of the machine.

Over 30 years had passed since Barney had talked me into buying the rusty little Towmotor, so we thought that sending the little Towmotor back to Barney would be our little joke on him, Barney was now over 90 years old.

When I called Barney I was surprised, when he told me that he had received it and had already sold it again.

He had sold it to a mutual friend, Mike Murley, of Murley’s Marine, in Fairhaven Michigan.

I had to call Mike and tell him the whole story.

Mike said, he loved that little machine, and he was using it every day.

On January 2012, Mike Murley called to wish us all a happy new year, and he said that he had just converted the Towmotor to run on propane gas.

Is that a cute Towmotor forklift story, or is that a cute Towmotor  forklift story?