My brother went halves on this forklift. It's a Caterpillar F30 3 wheeled model. Guy used to own a piano moving company and was hard up for cash. Battery powered and came with a charger. I believe it's a late 80's model from googling it. Little over 8,000hrs on the meter. It runs and works but the main hydraulic cylinder is leaking, one of the second stage small cylinders is leaking, and it has no brakes. Well my brother had the great idea to try the parking brake pedal and now it's stuck where it sits in his bosses shop so I guess it has brakes but no service brakes. There is a plate to the right of the seat where the serial#, model number, etc goes but it's not legible. Neither of us know anything about forklifts but the price seemed seemed to good to pass up. How can I find out what year it is and where can I get a service manual? Not much tech info out there. Found a forklift action forum but they want more personal info than I care to give out to sign up.

You try Google? https://www.google.com/search?q=cat+F30 ... 8&oe=utf-8


Play with the E brake push hard on the brake petal then try to release the E brake lever then play with the FWD Reverse lever break petal E brake lever try all combinations you can think of also make sure you have the seat belt on in case it has a safety sensor preventing operation if the seat belt is not hooked.

First find a manual service and operating... then research desulfating fork truck batteries https://www.google.com/search?q=cat+F30 ... batteries+ years ago I read articles on solar queers buying used fork truck batteries for scrap prices then restoring them to about 90% capacity by desulfating them something that takes time but most fork truck owners do not have time to do because of the required down time.

It was running great with no brakes. I was cruising all around the shop. Then he pressed the parking break and it's stuck. Pull the release and the pedal comes up but the calipers are still tight on both rotors. I'm thinking we'll have to remove the ram that operates the tilt to work on the brakes from the top. Not much room in there. I found some service manuals on eBay but I need to figure out what the serial number is on it. They go by serial number instead of year. Hopefully there is another tag on it that's legible. He wants to fix it and resell it. I'd like to keep it. Once we get the brakes free I'm going to see if it'll drive on gravel. That will be a deciding factor. Sure would be handy to have around when you need it and I don't think we'll ever find another running forklift for the price we paid. We changed a 14 bolt reared in a suburban a few weeks ago. Our backs would've appreciated having a forklift to move that around. I told him if we keep it we'll have to learn battery maintenence. I remember they had a guy that did it at petsmart. Same style of battery that's in this thing.

I hope it works out. We had a guy at the machine shop that was told which fork truck was for indoors and which for out.... Yup he took the wrong one into the lot and buried it to the body.
Some people....

I'm wondering about that. That's why we took it to my brothers job. He works for a towing company so if I bury it he can just drag me back inside.

I bought a well used 1970's Toyota propane powered Fork Lift many years ago. One of the best tool purchases I ever made and I have really bought lots of tools. Still running strong, sits outside in the weather around the calendar and starts right up.

I bet you will be lifting stuff just to see it lift it.

well all i can say is i love forklifts at work when work on my shit enveything is soo easy

have to move the pilot no problem
have to move the 1200 lbs welding table no problem
have to lift a stuck semi truck van sketchy but it will do the job

I really wish this one was propane. As long as the battery stays alive I suppose it's just as well. I probably won't mess with it until the weekend. Hopefully he has the brakes free by then.

This site has some info... http://www.forkliftaction.com/forum/discussion_4969.htm

..."serial number will be on the right front side of the frame, on the mast side, just above the drive tire"

Bunch of places to buy the manual but if you look hard enough, and have good virus protection, you will eventually find it free.

check your voxer

I will this afternoon. I'm off to bed.