This Restomod 1956 Hyster Forklift Is Certified Fresh

Photo: Austin Coulson via YouTube

It’s one thing for you to be forklift certified, but it’s quite another thing for your forklift to be certified badass. Most of the forklifts I’ve used at jobs have been unreliable, smelly monstrosities that have been repaired by the world’s boldest and least competent mechanics. This restomod Hyster is definitely not like that.

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What’s that, you say? Restomod forklift? Hell yes. Why not? People restomod everything else these days. YouTuber Austin Coulson had a well-used 1956 Hyster that was in need of some attention. So rather than bodging it back together, he pulled it completely apart and not only restored and refinished the body but completely changed how it operated mechanically.

The original forklift used a four-cylinder engine mated to a transmission with a clutch. It also drove a hydraulic pump to control the hydraulic cylinders for lifting, side-shifting and tilting. By the time Austin got it, the engine was tired and noisy, and the fuel tank was vented so the gas would evaporate away between his infrequent uses of the machine.

Resto Modding A 1956 Hyster Forklift

Austin’s solution was to delete that big gas engine entirely, along with the steering gearbox, and the clutch. He replaced the original gas engine with a hydraulic motor the size of a football. The gearbox stayed, but the clutch could also go because the hydraulic motor didn’t need to spin constantly. To power this hydraulic motor (and the rest of the cylinders, minus the side-shift system), he installed a Harbor Freight Predator motor.

Yep, that single-cylinder, air-cooled cheap-o engine is enough to drive the whole forklift. The downside is that the hydraulic motor is much slower than the gas engine, so the forklift only does around a quarter of the Hyster’s original speed. Coulson also replaced the standard steering system with a hydraulic one which uses a single lever and a spool valve to change direction.

The whole video, even at almost an hour long, is awesome and I learned way more about forklifts than I will ever need to know, but I can’t be mad at that.