Clark forklifts

Useful accessory??? ..... Oh .. you mean the ornament hanging off the steering wheel? What does it do, anyway?? ..

Seriously .. The CY is the model, the 25 is the capacity in 100's of lbs (2500lbs, or 1 ton in round figures).
The second row of letters and numbers is your model and chassis S/N.
The engine number is self-explanatory, but I couldn't tell ya what the MFH 154 stands for.

I've scored another addition to the collection. An engine-less, 2.5T Yale, a Jap-built one from about 1975. I pick it up tomorrow, so now I have to make more room for it .. :'(
The engine in the Yale is a Mazda. They heard a knocking noise, and pulled the motor out and stripped it .. and there was nothing wrong with it!
The knocking noise was coming from a crook uni-joint on the hyd pump drive!
They gave up on re-assembling the motor and went and bought a 4 ton diesel Nissan, because it suits their operation better. I got it for less than scrap value.

If you think you've got a collection, you ought to see these blokes. There must be about 2 Ha of trucks, trailers, loaders, machinery, and God-knows-else. A lot of it is nearly antique, too.
Their shed is absolutely humongous, and full of gear from motors to trucks being rebuilt. I'll get a couple of pics when I load up tomorrow.

Cheers, Ron. Any idea on when CY25s were built?

Nice job on the Yale. Coupla rubber bands and some mice and you're off.

G'day Ron, mate I love the pallet storage on top of the little forklift. Would'nt OH&S have a field day there. Cheers Tim

Andy - I'll have to find my forklift specs book and see if there's any info in there as regards the CY25. It may be a little too old for the book, I'd have to say late 1950's or early 1960's at the latest, with a Grey Holden powering it.

Tim - Yeah, the whole operation is a bit casual there, I reckon any sort of inspector would have a field day.

Well today went very smoothly, in fact it was so smooth it was unbelievable. Can't say I've got any good words for the new Fuso. Brakes had no feel .. it was either brakes on or brakes off, when empty .. which made for some dickey stopping.
Loaded, the brakes felt better under the foot, but then they felt like they weren't going to stop in time!

Never seen a small truck use so much fuel. Took it easy, went up the freeway and back down some major arterial roads, with RPM rarely exceeeding 2300-2400 RPM, and speed rarely getting over 90 kmh.
Did 102 kms in total, 44 loaded and 58 empty .. and the mongrel of a thing took 34 litres!
The 6 speed gearshift is a shocker. Virtually no separation between the slots makes it difficult to pick the right cog. Synchros were slow, and the cogs seem poorly spaced. Not a patch on my old FK415.

Here's the Yale getting pulled out of the shed. That 4 tonner is working at its max, the tyres went pretty flat, and she knew the Yale was there.





Loaded up, chained on, and the additional pallet and half of jigsaw-puzzle parts, strapped down like a roped calf ..

Once loaded, it was "snoop time", around the yard! Had plenty of time up my sleeve, and the blokes weren't too fussed about me snooping around. What a dream yard for collectors!

Here's one I haven't seen in a long time. An original Cat 988A from the 1960's .. still cabless, too! I last drove the compactor version of this (the 834) in 1997.

One for Swishy and the Screemer nutters .. A young bloke is doing up an SAR in this fellas shed. 8V-92 powered, and looking like he's spending a heap of $$$'s on it.
The old fella that owns the operation was pretty scornful of the Jimmy. "Pile of gutless crap!! Obsolete now, who wants those POS, anyway!! A Cummins will walk all over them, any day!!
Obviously a Cat and Cummins man. I agreed with him, in case he got nasty if I suggested otherwise .. and didn't tell him about a big heap of Screemer lovers who live on the right coast, and who would be deeply offended by those hurtful words ..

I seem to recall the S/N was 407608, from memory. Don't quote me on that. I didn't get any other pics of this truck, or write down details.
The old bloke wants it out of the shed, because the owner hasn't worked on it for a long time. The old fella has a $100,000 Winnebago out in the weather, and he wants his shed space back ..

One for Bugly and his fire truck loving mates. A genuine Jap Tojo, rag-roof, 6 seater, quick-exit, fire truck.
Never seen anything like it before. Running on NSW rego, it has a genuine 8000 kms on the clock. Must be a reasonably late model, it had the later, plastic-fantastic dash.
Can't imagine what the handling would be like at speed, with that humungous great water tank mounted behind the back axle.
"Interesting handling", would have to be the description, I'd say, when that tank was full! ..

Hey onetrack ... wouldn't need power steering on the Tojo!

Ron, the thing probobly hardly even used 2nd gear until it came over here. I think every factory of a certain size needs their own fire truck over there. There are certainly a lot imported here.

Hey Ron, I like the chassis colour on that SAR, looks very nice. The difference in the colour between the two photo's was amazing. Looked 2 different chassis. Cya Tim.
ps. Don't suppose you know what it's called by any chance?