New member from AL

Hello everyone. I’m Brian from Alabama. I recently joined ACMOC after spending quite a bit of time reading through the forum while working on an old Caterpillar D2.

The tractor is a 1956 D2 5U, serial 5U17027, with a gasoline starting engine and Hyster D2 towing winch.

This particular tractor has some family history, which is really why I wanted it. It belonged to my family years ago and my dad spent a lot of hours operating it when he was younger. I remember riding on it with him when I was a kid. It left the family decades ago, but I knew where it had ended up and had been trying to buy it back for several years.

I finally got the opportunity recently and brought it home.

Mechanically, I think I started with a pretty good tractor. The diesel and starting engine both run, it drives through the gears, the steering clutches and brakes work, the undercarriage appears to be in good condition, and the Hyster winch is still there. It has plenty of 70-year-old leaks, worn linkage, questionable repairs and missing hardware to keep me occupied.

My plan is a complete mechanical and cosmetic restoration, but I’m trying to do it methodically rather than tear the entire tractor apart and create a very large yellow jigsaw puzzle. I’m cleaning and servicing it first, repairing mechanical problems as I find them, and learning the machine before I get into paint.

I’m reasonably mechanically inclined and do quite a bit of fabrication and equipment work, but I’m new to restoring old Caterpillar equipment. I’ve already discovered that these tractors have their own language, and some of the old Caterpillar part numbers apparently require archaeology equipment to locate.

I’m also trying to document what I learn and collect the correct literature for it. I’ve started a binder with the late 5U parts catalog and I’m gathering the service, operator and Hyster literature as I find it.

I joined ACMOC because I’ve already found quite a bit of useful information here, and there seems to be a tremendous amount of firsthand knowledge among the members. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of questions as I work through the tractor, and hopefully as I learn more I’ll eventually be able to contribute something useful in return.

Here are a few pictures of 5U17027 as I brought it home and as the cleanup has started.

Thanks for having me.

Try posting the pictures one at a time with individual posts. I look forward to seeing your D2. Several of us on here getting our feet wet by bringing home D2’s.

Yea it didn’t like copy/paste from my phone. I guess mobile version doesn’t have the attach function. I’ll upload some when I’m back on my laptop.

D2 seems to be a good all around platform. You get the tractor big enough to do something with, but not so big it’s impossible for the average person to work on and store. Love this thing already.