On Tue, 06 Nov 2007 10:24:34 -0500, Randy wrote:

I am starting to look for a forklift for around the shop. There's one
on ebay that has brakes that do not work, are they hard or very
expensive to fix? I know nothing about forklifts.

Item number: 140174039210

It's about an hour away from me, or should I keep looking?

I'm looking for cheap.

I can fix almost anything, unless you need some exotic special tool. (
although I have made some of them.)

I rent out part of the building to a guy for storage, and am looking
to put some pallet rack over there, so there's a second reason for a
forklift.

The things that make them hard to work on is either getting to the
master cylinder buried way down in the bottom (unless the designer was
nice to you) or getting to the wheel cylinders to work on them, since
forklifts are heavy by design and are hard to jack up. You may need a
20-Ton "Toe Jack" to get a grab on a corner and lift it, then lots of
wood cribbing to hold it up.

And parts can be cheap (swiped off a car, and readily identifiable
by the counter man) or radically expensive custom items used only on
that model fork truck depending on who designed the forklift. And if
you get really lucky, new parts are no longer available, and you have
to rebuild what you have or adapt something to fit.

If you can't figure this stuff out first, don't buy. Brakes are
important, even if you aren't moving fast you are still moving a whole
lotta mass.

-- Bruce --