Rev it up!
Stories
Forklift Fun by Boots Guy
This happened back in 1990. I was program director/asst. manager for a radio station in East Texas. We were upgrading to new equipment, and had rented a forklift to move the transmitters.
Anyway, one day the chief engineer left the forklift running. It eventually stalled. He later informed us that he hadn’t tried to re-start it, but knew it had been low on gas. Late that night after everyone had gone home, I decided to go to the transmitter site. I had a gas can to make it look official. However, there was only a small amount of gas in the can. Why I didn’t stop to get more gas, I don’t know. :) So when I arrived at the transmitter, there was nobody else around. I climbed onto the forklift and tried it once just to see what would happen. Of course, it didn’t start. I climbed back down and poured what gas was in the can into the tank, not leaving any to prime it with. I then got back on the forklift, and began trying to start it. For about the next 20 minutes, I continued pumping and cranking. No amount of pumping helped, but the sound of the engine trying to start sure made for a good jack off.
The next day, I went by a gas station and got some gas. I went back to the transmitter and again emptied the can into the tank, leaving none to prime it. It took about 20 minutes of pumping and cranking before it finally started.
When I parked it, I noticed that all the instrument lights stayed on when the key was in the on position. I wondered what would happen if I left the key in the on position overnight. I guess curiosity got the best of me, because that night I left it on. Early the next morning I had to go the site to turn on the transmitter, it was a daytime only AM station. This was on a Saturday morning, so I knew nobody else would be around. While I was there, I got on the forklift and tried to start it. At first it cranked very slowly. Just as I had suspected, the key fed off of the battery overnight. After a few tries, it started. I left it idling, and after a few minutes it started running real rough and stalled. When I went back over to try and start it, it wouldn’t start. I tried it for about ten minutes, but the battery refused to kick over. This also happened to me in a motorhome once. Ironically, I was living in the motorhome at the same station at the time.