I have a situation whereby a Case fork lift model number 688 was involved in an accident when the operator jumped from the cab. The operator indicates he was backing down a slope and when the engine shut off there were no brakes. Has anyone run into this before? I thought that most like machines would have automatic brakes if the engine was not running. The emergency brake had been recently services and seemed to be in service. The operator broke his arm and now needs a hip replacement. I suppose that the operator panicked if he thought there were no brakes as he backed down the sloping driveway. This machine was made in 2002 but still I can not imagine a design that would leave a machine without brakes when the motor stops. Thanks for any insight you can give me on this.
i suppose it all happened due to the panic. driving backwards down a ramp sometimes seem difficult as the rear wheel steering with hydraulic steering cylinder but he could have pulled the parking brake lever that has nothing to do with the engine it is just a wire pulled mechanical brake that directly jams the wheels.
Thanks for the reply. I finally hired a mechanical engineer to look at it for me. When the engine is not running the fork lift slows and stops on it's own due to the hydraulics. The equipment rolled about 30 ft on a steep incline even so. The button which activates the emergency brake did not seem to be effective when the engine was not running. That is when activated while moving it did not operate to stop the machine. We believe after looking at the equipment that the motor did not fail but the operator panicked as the equipment ran off the roadway to the shoulder. At any rate the equipment, brakes or engine did not seem to fail for any particular reason and any fault seem inherent to the design.