Older Catapillar 12' Road Grader

[oldermfer]

I purchased an older Cat Grader,it proabably is a 1950's Model.It starts with a pony starter engine.My question is, can you replace the pony starter with an electric one?

 

[DrRick]

depending on the engine and year model you should be able to convert to electric start. The old caterpiller forum should be of help. I think it is acmoc.com .

 

[gghb]

you may be able to get electric starter for the pony motor but the pony exhaust heats the intake manifold on my old cat 12 8t it takes forever to tow start unless you heat the manifold

greg

 

[Bob Rooks]

you may be able to get electric starter for the pony motor but the pony exhaust heats the intake manifold on my old cat 12 8t it takes forever to tow start unless you heat the manifold

greg

Seems to me it also warmed the cooling system. I'd go with the electric start conversion for the pony. Good luck.

 

[MikeD74T]

Check the forum on ACMOC.org, you can buy conversions there. MikeD74t

 

[Soundguy]

seems we had an old dozer.. a d69u that had that setup..

soudnguy

 

[cowpatty]

Any pics? Old graders are sweet

 

[MtnViewRanch]

The pony motor heats up the cooling system of the main engine. If you are having trouble starting the pony motor, it may need a tune up or you just need to play with the settings. Get the choke and the throttle just right and they will usually fire right off. I have run our old D6 when it was 20 degrees out and the pony motor will usually start with 2 or 3 pulls. If you can't get it started with say 10 pulls, time to walk away and try later. I grease the machine while the pony motor does it's job (warming everything up) Water gets up to 100* and the main engine fires right off and I'm off to work for 8-10 hours. :thumbsup: There were a lot of people that put electric starters on their ponies, but we have just never felt like there was a need to.

Good luck with your new grader.

 

[Renze]

There were a lot of people that put electric starters on their ponies, but we have just never felt like there was a need to.

How do they hand start ? with a hand crank, a ratchet rope like a lawn mower, or with a rope you wrap around the flywheel, like my fathers old Slanzi 2 cylinder diesel irrigation pump ?

 

[MtnViewRanch]

How do they hand start ? with a hand crank, a ratchet rope like a lawn mower, or with a rope you wrap around the flywheel, like my fathers old Slanzi 2 cylinder diesel irrigation pump ?

You wrap a rope around the flywheel with ours.

 

[farmallbill]

The best thing is check the flywheel housing and see if there is a cover with 3 bolts where a starter would mount, or see if you can see in the casting of the flywheel housing where a starter should mount, this is more of a difficult job, you will have to get a hole saw and drill out the flywheel housing and then drill out and tap the holes to install the starter bolts. If you have either of these contact your local Cat dealer and tell them you need a starter conversion. I work at a dealer and we have sold numerous kits through a guy in Texas. they are a nice kit that comes with starter, wiring, switches, instructions, etc.

 

[Red Horse]

I purchased an older Cat Grader,it proabably is a 1950's Model.It starts with a pony starter engine.My question is, can you replace the pony starter with an electric one?

Buddy of mine just bought a D-2. Super clean for 2500 bucks! Somewhere along the line the pony was replaced with a 24V starter.

 

[EMB5530]

In high school I worked for a guy that replaced the pony motor on both his motor grader and dozer i am not sure the size of the grader but the dozer was a d8 but I would think it could be done.
On another note though if the pony works ok why change it?
The dozer had a compression dump lever where the pony motor could turn it over easily for an amount of time in order to warm up and lube the motor and help it to start in cold weather.

Good luck in whatever you choose

 

[farmallbill]

I agree why replace pony motor if nothing is wrong, But if there is any major problems with a pony motor the parts are getting harder to find. Last time we tried to find pony motor parts for a customer we could not come up with all the parts that were needed, don't want to scare you but thought you should be aware of this issue, do not just scrap if you take off, people will pay good money for pony motors.

 

[tonyoz]

OK it's real easy to do this. On the timing cover there is a plate with 3 bolts retaining it. Remove that cover and the starter motor can be fitted. There is no nead to remove the pony motor.Purdy simple :thumbsup:
PS If you want to sell your pony motor please PM me ASAP

 

[damon5265]

I wish I would have seen this post six months ago before I took three good pony motors to the scrap yard. I didn't realize they were worth good money. I'm starting to see just how rare and valuable these parts after browsing the internet for parts and information. I have a 3U series motor grader that I'm working on and the pony motor ran great but then lost spark. I replaced the condenser and got spark again but before it fired up it again lost spark a second time. I decided to pull coil 4/2 360C-47 and replace points but I'm not sure how to align timing back up. There is a plug hold near distributor and on the coil 4/2 360C-47 there is a W and on the flywheel there is a W and a C. I have no ideal how to get this back into alignment. Is there anyone who knows how to time the pony motor or have a like that explains how this is done. Thanks

 

[tonyoz]

There are plenty of blokes on HEF that can help