Jeff, I thank you for clearing up the murk surrounding the origins of the drain back hose modification. Roadway Express certainly presented it to the troops in the trenches as a bona fide Komatsu developement, or at least a KFI endorsement.
I now feel like I have spread some erroneous info around the world. My apologies to you and the folks at Komatsu Forklift USA.
You can just mention to Steve that Larry Walker in the Roadway Express shop in Nashville, TN was asking.
Steve paid us a visit sometime maybe around late 1999 and spent the day on our dock investigating an issue we (all of Roadway) were having on the -11 models. While he was there he noticed that some of our -12 models had the "economy seat" on them instead of the higher end Michigan anti-static seat that came on them as OEM customer specified option. I told him that came about because our parts department manager refused to pay the $550 cost of the seat and we had to put whatever he would buy on them.
Steve informed me and another forklift mechanic that OEM replacement seat CUSHIONS were available (for around $95) and gave us the Komatsu part numbers for both cushions on the spot.
That enabled me to go to our Shop Manager with an explanation as to what had taken place. After hearing the facts he revoked the decision made by the parts manager and from that point on we addressed worn seat cushions by replacing only the cushion.
Since that time Steve has helped me with a few other problems both directly and through our local Komatsu dealer (MHR).