I used stucco merely as a comparison. its some variety of industrial coating. they built cranes where the forklift came from. as for pressure washing.... its already in pieces on the shop floor. the mast is fully dis-assembled now and ready to head off for blasting and priming. actually pretty simple to remove the mast once I figured out how it was attached. kind of a neat design actually. which by the way I have read is a patented design.
Ive come across stucco before on aerial lift booms and have had very good luck with heated pressure washers and rotating sprayer tips to remove the stucco. You need an industrial pressure washer and the large rotating sprayer tip with the finned black plastic outer cover, and lastly it must be hot. Unless this is some other type of coating, a good hour or two with this setup should get the stucco off.
actually after digging a little deeper into the mast. and cleaning more crud off I have found the answer to my question. there are pins that the mast sets on top of and is bolted to. thanks for the input guys
Not too many industrial forklift masts are mounted with pins to the frame any more most (including Hyster) are mounted by clamps around the drive axle housing ends.
It comes off fairly easy you just need a overhead hoist to lift it. I have done it with another forklift but be careful. Hook a chain on the top of it to lift with. Support it and remove the hoses to the lift cylinder and side shifter, pins to the tilt cylinders, and the pins that hold it to the frame of the forklift. You may have to lift the fork carriage and chain that up to access the pins that hold it to the frame. Once everything is loose you can back the forklift up or push/pull it backward if it's not running.
I do not have the vertical height to raise it for painting purposes. besides right now I have it torn apart for the painting process and it requires blasting not mere sanding. the reason for this is the previous owner used the truck for supporting something while they applied some kind of spray coating that resembles cement/stucco. the entire forklift has a non slip coating all over it. and I do mean all over. so bad in fact you could not make out any of the dash panel lights. this material cannot be good for the forklift as its very abrasive. its thick enough a needle scaler is required to remove it. I want to rid the forklift of this overspray. hence the need to remove the mast.
You shouldnt have to remove the mast just to paint it. Just powerwash the whole truck with the mast raised and chained, sand exposed areas, mask, and shoot.