Free Hyster YE40, Some Questions

Hi all, The other day my neighbor gave me his small forklift (he's got a much larger lift). He was using it off an on for years when the big lift was overkill, but now he's run out of space in his barn and just wanted it out of there. He said it was getting very hard to start when he parked it, so probably very low compression. He started to pull the carb to rebuild it, but wound up needing a couple of parts for his tractor with the same engine. He swapped the distributor with the one off his tractor and borrowed the starter as well so it's been sitting for the last couple of years. At some point he put new tires on it, which look really good, and he said the hydraulics were strong. I'm going to see if he has the bad starter from the tractor lying around. It's a Hyster YE40 (data plate says YE 40 P). Serial number A3D 6051 H which should put it as a 1964 model. The data plate says a 13ft mast with 3,600 capacity. It's got a Continental engine...pretty sure the F162 version. It has the Monotrol transmission with three pedals....I believe inching on the left, brake in the middle and F/R on the right. First question: When we went to pull it out of his barn we couldn't get the front wheels to turn. The parking brake was not left on, but the brakes could still be frozen. He pushed it with his big loader and the front tires and eventually rotated about half a turn but the tires were still dragging and clearly something was wrong, so we stopped. I used my big skid steer to lift the front tires and we pushed it to my place that way with him steering (it must have been a funny sight!). Could it be that we should have been pushing partially on one of the brake pedals to put the transmission into neutral (sorry, I'm new to Monotrol function)? At this point I'm expecting at least a partial engine overhaul...pistons, rings, etc, a new starter, rebuild the carb, rebuild the distributor, new plugs/wires, fluids, etc. Since I got it free I'm not worried about spending a little on it as it would be incredibly handy to have around. I'm sure there will be lots of questions going forward!