Save or Scrap? CAT Towmotor sitting for years. Will it Run??

The Towmotor co est 1919 were the inventors of forklifts, their early models didn’t have forks and would just tow carts from place to place 👍🍻

Don't give up on the Towmotor just yet Matt. At work we have a mid 70's 15,000lb capacity Towmotor with a Continental flat 6 that had a similar lost spark issue. Our company purchased the machine from a salvage yard where it lived outdoors exposed to the elements for many years. It took some digging, but my friend (who's name is also Matt) found the problem. There are bakelight/plastic pieces that isolate the points assembly/parts from the breaker plate and distributor body. The bakelight/plastic pieces had disintegrated and were causing the engine to randomly lose spark. My friend found some non-conductive material at our shop and made new isolators for the distributor. That solved the problem and the Towmotor has run fine ever since. The distributor in that machine was rusty like the one on your machine due to being stored outside for a long time. My friend thinks that's what caused the isolator pieces to become brittle and fail. It's worth checking out.. Distributor refurb kits are still available as are new/used distributor assemblies. Those old Towmotors are great machines once they're sorted. #DieselCreek

"Got a screwdriver..., woop yeah things are angry down here...., the lights really did dim, heh heh heh!" That gave me a hearty chuckle as well, especially since you called it beforehand.

This brought back many fond memories of the first forklift I ever operated, a 1950's Towmotor. The shop's chosen forklift mechanic knew of it's history before the shop owned it. It began life in the high rise construction industry. Back then it was raised floor by floor with a crane to move construction material around as the high rise buildings were constructed.

Much respect for calling attention to you doing something dangerous. Which of us hasn’t been in a hurry and done something stupid only to realize it afterward? It takes a lot of integrity and humility to own and highlight it for others.

That starter is a real trooper.

That started single handily carried this entire video. These are always great to watch cause I like looking at old machines run

0:34 we can see here as the mother gently picks up her offspring. Truly a sight to behold.

@Diesel Creek - Towmotor was a fairly popular brand back in the day. The company was founded in Euclid, Ohio in 1919, during the early days of forklifts, right when Hyster and Yale were getting started too. The company operated until 1965, when it became a wholly-owned subsidiary of another forklift manufacturer (Caterpillar Tractor), and production ceased sometime in the 1980s. Why share these pictures? Well, Towmotor is an interesting part of our industry history. See, the Towmotor marketing people were pretty savvy. They promoted their forklift as a "one man gang" capable of doing the work of 30 men (aka a gang) using hand trucks. That idea, of a one man gang really seemed to light up the imagination of forklift owners and operators. Soon people were referring to ALL forklifts as “towmotors” regardless of the brand. This was pretty great for Towmotor, but less so for all the other brands. It’s a classic example of a genericized trademark.

The small forklift getting lifted by the bigger one is like a mother cat bringing her kittens back😂😂😂

Matt these videos are getting better with each one I don’t know what I would do without your channel. Amazing!

@48:40 love the emotion we're all sharing

You should know by now, if a forklift (or in this case a Towmotor) is not leaking, there's nothing left to leak!

Semi supervillains logo on the door was a nice touch

The GM starter sell node back in the day , the contact disc could be flipped over giving you a new surface on the disk . Its been a long time back but it seams like the copper stud bolt contacts could be rotated 180 in the bakelight insulator. Thanks for making the video. 👍

That 645 b sounds so much like a kirovets k700 it gets me every time i hear it

Watching these videos is like checking in with a friend who is into stuff you know nothing about. Just interesting and positive.

Love the Semi-Supervillains ad placement!

So happy to see you again hope you’re doing well and your family too mate all the best

Years ago when I worked on VW Diesels (pre 2,000), I would put Slick -50 into the cylinders after I jacked up the car to make the cylinders plumb. I would let the car sit over night, put the injectors back in, start the engine and let it get hot. Teflon in the Slick-50 would help seal the rings for a while to get College students through to graduation.