How to Maintain Used Fork Lift Trucks?

Steps to Maintain Fork Lift Trucks

Maintenance of utilized forklifts becomes a giant pain in the back. The maintenance is never facile to do, as used forklifts are already jaded and any enterprising act of belligerence might result in cumbersomely hefty losses incurred.

Used forklift trucks have to be taken care of very delicately, just like a second hand car. There are certain ways in which these used forklift trucks can be maintained. Given below are some:

• The components have to be consistently oiled and utilized with lubricants.

1952 Willys & 1937 Ford Classic Monster Trucks - Chariots Of Fire

Fully Functional Customs
By Jim Allen

If you knew the builder of these trucks also built real firefighting brush trucks, would you call "Lil Squirt" and "Silly Willy" art imitating life, or life imitating art? If you ask Jeff Cook, owner of 1st Attack Engineering, he'll answer, "Both!"

Cook is a graduate of "Monster Truck University" and "Custom Truck College," as well as a trained firefighter with 18 years experience.

It makes for an interesting mix of experience. Shortly after graduating from Northwestern College with a tech degree, Cook went headlong into the world of monster trucks, building and driving trucks for several teams, including his own, the legendary "War Wagon".

His father, Jack Cook, is well known in the Midwest for building custom cars and trucks and Jeff spent his early days at Cook's Body Shop in Auburn, Indiana, learning the custom car trade from a master.

After becoming a local volunteer firefighter, he put those fabrication skills to work building a brush truck for his fire company. In the process, he discovered a life's work and founded a company, Wildfire Manufacturing.

While not running the monster truck circuit, he built fire trucks. Business picked up enough that he recently left monster trucks behind to focus on fire trucks. The name of the company has recently changed to 1st Attack Engineering after nearly 10 years as Wildfire.

Silly Willy was constructed in 2002 to highlight the design and construction skills of the company. It's built on a custom chassis and suspension and mounts a '52 Willy pickup cab. Lil Squirt was built in '05, also on a custom chassis, but with four-wheel steering. Both have a lot of "show" and are regularly seen on the show and truck Jambo circuits, as well as at firefighting conventions.

They have a "go" side, however, and it may surprise you. They are both fully functional brush trucks, mounting 1st Attack hardware, and every once in a while, they are allowed to flex their firefighting muscles.

Such was the case in the fall of 2008, when they appeared at a training fire set in a wheat field. Yep, they may be "just" show trucks, but they can do the job of a brush fire truck. When asked why he would risk the expensive trucks, Cook replied, "Oh, they'll clean up."

Lil Squirt uses a fiberglass body to represent a '37 Ford truck. The chassis and underpinnings are a smaller version of what you might see on a competition monster truck.

The bed and firefighting apparatus are just the same as used on production 1st Attack brush rigs, which can include the 200-gallon water tank, Honda-powered fire pump, and two -inch handlines on reels as seen here.

The outward-facing jump seats, from which firefighters can safely work a fire while strapped in and protected by a rollcage, are a signature 1st Attack feature.

Silly Willy uses a '52 Willys pickup body on a custom, monster truck-style chassis. It's powered by a 454 fed by a Gerardot racing-style fuel injection system, adapted for gasoline.

The power feeds through a built TH 400 trans and into a New Process 205 transfer case. From there, power goes to a Dana 70 front axle from an IH application and an Eaton rear dropout-style axle used in a 1 -ton truck. Silly Willy also mounts a 1st Attack bed system with water tank, 3/4-inch hand lines, fire pump and jump seats. It also carries a chainsaw and a backpack sprayer for hot spots.

Taken From Fourwheeler.com

Monster Trucks

Love them or hate them, monster trucks have brutally stomped and crushed their way into their own niche in pop culture drawing massive crowds to arenas and stadiums all over North America who cheer with glee at their ability to destroy helpless cars.

In the beginning they had steel bodies, leaf-spring packs large enough to support the weight of a battleship, and lots of chrome. They crushed cars slowly, with their massive weight doing the work of flattening the cars.

Nowadays they are all high-tech, fast, agile, and impressive. Now they fly over cars with ease.

On Sunday afternoon the Monster Spectacular rolls over the coliseum featuring competition between some of the biggest names, and hugest trucks out there. The Iron Outlaw, Bounty Hunter and others will take on Monster Spectacular reigning world champion, Black Stallion.

Monster truck shows are the professional wrestling matches of the automotive world.

Jimmy Creten drives Bounty Hunter, and also owns the Iron Outlaw.

"I've been doing this since 1995, so about 14 years," says Jimmy. "I always tell people I got into this through stupidity, I was a four wheel drive enthusiast and I mud raced, then I bought one as a hobby. After that I lost my job as an engineer for Colgate-Palmolive and made my hobby my career."

"Now we are one of the busiest teams in the business," Jimmy muses. "We do 50 shows a year, a show every weekend. Then we take the big tires off and put little tires on them and drive them in a semi trailer to the next show."

"I love to travel and see different cultures, see how the French culture influences things. But it is hard on the family too; when we finish in Moncton we are going to Windsor, then I am catching a plane home to see the family," says Jimmy.

If you have never seen one, a monster truck is an automobile, typically styled after pickup trucks, modified or purposely built with extremely large wheels and suspension.

It all took off in the 1970s when modified pickup trucks were becoming popular and the sports of mud bogging and truck pulling were gaining in popularity. Several truck owners had created lifted trucks to compete in such events, and soon competition to hold the title of "biggest truck" developed.

In 1981, Michael Vaters bought a black 1982 Ford F250 at a local dealership. At that time, a lift kit wasn't available for this truck so he designed and built one. He added 40 inch tires which had recently became available. He named his black Ford "Black Stallion."

It didn't end there. One year later Mike had transformed his street truck the Black Stallion. It boasted a 12' suspension lift with 44" tires. Mike designed and built rear steering and it crab-walked down his hometown streets.

Michael not only drove his truck on the streets he mud-bogged in it one weekend and would spend the entire week cleaning it to enter a show and shine competition the next weekend typically winning first place or best in show. In 1983 Mike drove the Black Stallion over 500 miles to Indianapolis Indiana for the Jamboree and won runner up for the "best engineered truck."

These trucks can run up and over most man-made barriers, which usually means they can crush other cars under their tires as well. For competition there are either timed race events or regular single elimination races with two drivers on the track at once.

"I guess we think of ourselves as paid motor sports entertainment," says Jimmy. "We are paid to put on a show for people, but the show entails a competition, and obviously we didn't come all this way to lose."

In recent years they have begun to add a "freestyle" event at the end of the show. If you are creative enough you can think of this as figure skating with giant trucks. Drivers are free to select their own course around the track and its obstacles. Drivers will often try 'Donuts', wheel-stands and jumps during this segment. Additional items for the drivers to crush -- usually including a motor home -- are frequently placed on the track specifically for the freestyle event. Other obstacles sometimes placed on the track include school buses and small airplanes.

"The popularity over the last 5 years has exploded, they see it on television; Speedvision has two shows a day. So the fans see us doing the big shows and the world finals and want to come meet us in person," says Jimmy.

"Well, I guess they really come to see us make those trucks dance on edge, or catch some air, or to make 15,000-horsepower engines in 10,000-pound trucks dance in a hockey rink," laughs Jimmy.

Monster Spectacular is known for putting on one of the best dome shows in Canada. Fans get an opportunity to meet the drivers and get a chance to see the trucks up close. But the real fun starts with the races and a chance to watch drivers roll over as many as five cars before crossing the finish line.

"I've done Moncton the last two years and the trucks that we bring to town here are very good, we put on a good show in Moncton. The fans always get a good show and it keeps them coming back," Jimmy said.

Taken From CanadaEast.com

Cadillac Escalade vs. Monster Truck

The Cadillac Escalade Hybrid is most at home in the hills of Hollywood, California, or cruising next to South Beach in Miami, Florida.

It is a big luxurious SUV with twenty-two-inch wheels, leather everything, and a gas and electric engine.

So how will this biggest and most luxurious of American SUVs do when it is pushed beyond what it was originally designed to do?

To find out, I raced it against a monster truck — a remote control Traxxas T-Maxx monster truck, to be exact.

The challenge was a simple: to see which car would do better tackling the rough and tough mountains and dirt roads of Colorado.

To find out just watch the video below to see which car won the challenge.And as a bonus take a look at the new off road sport we created in the process:

To read more of Roman Mica's car reviews and other automotive news, visit: thefirstlemming.com.

Taken From TheWeeklyDriver.com