Hello Crawler Fans. my name is Sam, Swilling is my longgoing nickanme.  I am in the sierras of northern california and very excited to have just aquired my very first crawler, and tractor for that matter. 

My hobby background is in muscle cars and bikes and hobby machining, i do all my own work, build engines, body and paint, fabrication.  Ive always wanted a little crawler like this and lucked out to find one very local.  i for sure have seen better examples but of course for a lot more money and a lot further out. And my car hauler isnt up to the task of a long haul with one of these machines. 

I feel confident i can get any engine with a carb and a magneto to run (experience with a mag on my old harley) but i really know nothing as a whole about this kind of equipment other than i am in love with it.. Id love to learn more from all you experts here and learn about this tractor and get it up and running, and then move onto actually doing a complete restoration.

So here it is, all ive learned so far is that it seems to be early because the gauge cluster is under the tank and the throttle is also not mounted to the face of the tank.  

The history of it as i was told it was used here locally till the late 90s when some dirtbag came in overnight and stole the radiator, top cap, waterpump and magneto. So these are obvious things that i need to start with. But hopefully from the pictures you guys may be able to throw a little knowledge my way and point out some obvious things that may be missing, as again i know nothing about these and never seen one in person till i just got this today.  

So my goal, lets get it running first then i can figure out the details and replacements for the non period correct stuff.
Radiator
Radiator Top Cap
waterpump
fan
Grille
Grille straps
Magneto

what else ?  

i should mention the engine turns over by hand smoothly and feels like it has compression.

Cheers

                         

carb kits are still available from the dealers for some models.
if your not a paid member join us. the info in the tech library is well worth the cost.
you will need three books for this machine, a parts book, service refference and owners maintnance instruction. there is probably copies in the tech library but hard copy is more user freindly. hard copies can be found at swap meets and on ebay. there is also the cat publications website which has reprints of some books for some models available for purchase.

buy books that cover your machines serial number which is often on the engine block or on the rear of the transmission housing yours appears to be 2f41.
ive had reasonable success enquiring with the dealer for parts if i had a part number they could search for.

There's quite a few Cat 22's out there. Best if you find another machine for parts. Cool that it has such a low serial number.

Hi, swilling.
There were 2 series of the Cat 22, 2F from 1 to 9999 and 1J from 1 to 5,000 something. That would make your machine a very early first series which, I think would place it somewhere in 1933. If I am wrong, I have ABSOLUTELY no doubt that someone will be along to correct me.

As Dandy Dave said, if you can find a parts machine with at least most of the parts that you need, that would be a good place to start, especially as it would likely leave you with bunch more parts for future 'emergencies'.

The 22s were among the most bullet proof small crawlers of that era.

Just my 02.

Hi, swilling.
Further to Neil's post, and as I understand it, there were virtually ZERO changes to the actual Cat 22 tractor between the two series with the few changes that were made being in the assembly line process rather than the machine itself. Also. at that time, Cat had a habit of stopping at #9999 of a series and starting a 'new' series from #1.

Just my 0.02.

Welcome, and congratulations on the first of many Caterpillar tractors!
You are fortunate that the spark plug cover is still on it, usually it gets tossed or lost first. You have the hot rod belief: It turns, it burns!
Myself, I would clean things up and see what needs to be loosened up besides the billfold for parts purchases
Hopefully it steers still, if not, that is a chore to get steering clutches unstuck, etc.
The 22 was the Model T of Caterpillars. A LOT of them built, and surprisingly, many floating about in various conditions for sale.
Yours although missing a few parts, looks pretty good from here.
Hmmm, NorCal ehh? Maybe someone will chime in and offer to help? I am in Yuba City, but my hands on experience for a 22 is very limited.
Keep on sharing progress reports and pictures of course, this is exciting for many of us as well! JuiceMan.

Looks to be a nice machine. Seems to have a PTO judging by the lever. There are actually an amazing amount of small changes over the years that these were made, but most of them dont make much difference. Much of the driveline parts are also the same as a 15. I also have a couple of low serial number 22s and one thing that had me puzzled was the flywheel and clutch. On #811 and older they are different than the later ones. It turns out that the early 22s also used a 15 flywheel and clutch.

The first thing that I would do is to get a friend and put the machine in gear and have the friend turn the crank. Push the clutch down and see if the engine still turns. If it turns, the main clutch is not stuck. Then with the trans still in gear , pull both steering clutches back and see if the engine can be turned. If YES, your steering clutches are free,

I dont know if the radiator core would be the same as a 15 or not. I will try to compare my 22 parts book with my 15 book today. The sparkplug cover is from a later machine. The very early 22s had an unvented sparkplug cover was changed to a vented one at some point. Probably made the plugs run too hot. There was a good thread recently about 22 parts compatibility with the {rare} small 20. It is an interesting thread.

Hey "Juiceman", you need a tailseat 22 in your stable !!!!!

Great suggestions Grant:
Not to hijack this thread, but "we" actually have an orchard 22 here! I saved it from the property that my brother purchased next door; I was going to get it running, but he gave me the directive to NOT get it running... okay! So it sits in the "dungeon" here, in pieces. So there you have it! JM