Caterpillar D2 Diesel Tractor, 1938

Caterpillar D2 diesel engine required a gas fueled pony motor to crank the diesel up to speed. The pony motor originally was recoil starting, but later models were electric start.



The operator would start the pony motor and when the diesel engine was up to running speed and hot enough, about 15 minutes, the operator would turn on the diesel fuel valve and, hopefully, the fuel would fire and Cat D2 engine would run start running. The operator would shut off the gas flow to the pony motor and release the clutch to disengage it from the diesel engine. It was a little more complicated than this, what with releasing the decomp and other manipulations...



Cat D2 weighed between 6000 and 6700 lbs. Caterpillar D2 was manufactured from 1938 through 1956