D4 4G S/N New to diesel crawler

The pony motor doesn’t have an oil filter and the oil drain tube is on the right side just in front of the pony. I bought my gasket kit for the pony from Olson’s gaskets in Orchard, Washington. A word of advice, if you can, give them the numbers for only the gaskets you need. I only used about half the gaskets out of the kit and could have saved some money if I’d have purchased only the ones I needed. I also put new bearings in my pony and had to order the mains from Florin Tractor in CA, the rest came from my local CAT dealer, however, Florin does carry almost all the parts you would need for the rebuild. Make sure you thoroughly clean and rebuild the carb. Lots of little passages that get clogged and will cause headaches of not cleaned properly. And as for the magneto, I’m running a Wico but in general, if the magneto isn’t tuned properly you’ll experience either intermittent spark or no spark at all. I went thru hell with mine before I got it tuned right. If the mag and carb are tuned and in good shape the pony should fire up every time.

As for the main diesel, if I were you I’d take the intake and exhaust plumbing off and make sure there isn’t any debris in the ports before trying to break the pistons loose. Does the pony spin freely? When I brought my unit home the pony was seized solid and the started pinion was stuck. Caused me to think the main was seized. I had a spare pony so I rebuilt it, installed it and the main turned freely.

Ok good to know. The pony is free, and the pinion your are talking about is what engages the main engine when starting right? The one lever on the left side behind the long lever acts like it’s not attached to anything. It moves freely up and down. Are the steering clutch drains the big plugs on the back side kinda by the finals?

Anywhere I’d be able to find a radiator cap? It’s missing. The rad will have to come off to be boiled. It’s pretty rusty.

the lever that engages the pinion will flop up and down if the pinion is latched and engaged

the steering clutch plugs are on the bottom of the case,--there are plugs on the rear to fill the final drives and there is a drain plug at the bottom of each final grive

I’m sure you can call Chad Enyeart up in Wyoming and he’ll have one. I busted the filler neck cap on my tractor and he had one at a reasonable price. Google his name and Caterpillar and his info should pop up.

How do I disengage it? I can turn the pony motor by hand.

How do I disengage it? I can turn the pony motor by hand.

If your pony will start with the pinion engaged, you don't really need to disengage it. When the diesel engine starts it will kick the pinion out automatically. However some of them have enough drag in the pinion clutch that it is hard to start the pony, so for those, you need to punch the forward most end of one of the latches (the area where the adjustment screw is) and the pinion should disengage and jump forward. To check that it is engaged, move the pinion clutch lever forward and see if you are trying to rotate the diesel engine when you rotate the pony flywheel.

Hi Farmer12,
To unlatch the latches you need to take the top clutch cover off and with a pair of multi grips ( plus a lot of swearing bursied forearms) you will in time get them unlatched, this is from first hand experiance.

Ps what is the serial number

Regards