AUTOPSY of a Caterpillar Pony Motor. | What Went Wrong?

Follow me on Instagram & Facebook @dieselcreek #DieselCreek

Custom Music made for me by Vinnie Longhi of the Semi-Supervillains

Check out these awesome recovery ropes from Yankum Ropes.
Use the code dieselcreek at checkout for 10% off your purchase!

Wanna send me something? Sent it to:
Diesel Creek
P.O. Box 109
Burgettstown PA 15021-010

[rexmyers]

Hey Matt - I worked for a large Caterpillar company in Denver, CO in the early 70’s. (I am 81, now). I worked on a lot of D8 Cats. We changed out the pony motor as an assembly and never got the chance to tear one apart. Very interesting.

[OldIronCanada]

Regarding the grey/silver sludge, I didn't see that anyone suggested it is actually LEAD from leaded gasoline. We used to call it grey paint. I was an apprentice car mechanic in the 60s when leaded gas was the norm. The grey paint would get so thick in the oil pan it would plug up the oil pickup. When removing an oil pan with that in it, it felt as heavy as if half a crankshaft was there. With the age of that pony engine, it likely ran most of its life with leaded gas.

[jana]

BEFORE Diesel Creek I had NO idea what a pony moter was, and never even operated any piece of the sorts of equipment Matt is doing.(I'm a computer guy)
NOW I own a tractor, bought a farm, and are fixing all sorts of duhdah's for whatever i need to get by, inspired by Matt and others like him. GREAT content !!

[kcctradio]

In all my years of rebuilding engines of all sizes, I've never came across one with that much wear that still ran. AMAZING! Thats why those old Cats just keep on going.

[spyroXcynder]

I have a feeling those mysterious gear teeth are from a previous catastrophic failure that wasn't cleared out before being replaced, or were left to make a speedy recovery in the field then forgotten about, before being parked.

[taylorriley]

I own a tree service company and am from the city so naturally without much mechanical knowledge I would just send my trucks and machines to my mechanic, after watching your videos for the past year I always try taking a crack at it myself now, saved myself so much money and have learned so so much from your channel, thanks for the awesome content Matt, love and respect from southern Ontario, Canada!

[countrymuch]

Those teeth (my guess) are from a starter Bendix gear that was smashed from all that slop in the main bearings. Very interesting watching to dismantle something I'll probably never even see. Thank you Matt

[SoupyOatmeal]

What I love about this channel is how you always steam clean or pressure wash an item before you start to video.
That removes the blackened grease/oil sludge from the working surface and allows much better video content.

[garykidd]

I will never, ever need to know any of what Matt tried to teach me today, but strange as that is I could not stop watching this. The flywheel slop was epic. These episodes are why you have 3/4 of a million subscribers.

[motoXjake]

30 seconds in and i approve of this intro over the honking rigs... this is far better!

[jazzerbyte]

Fascinating teardown! The crankshaft bearings on these ponies are commonly ruined by a leaky carburetor valve: if the fuel shutoff isn't used and a tank of gas drains into the oil, the oil becomes useless. Just a short runtime with ruined oil will trash the crankshaft bearings.

[lannyfenster]

Matt I really enjoyed your “pony” motor video as I have a 1949 well drilling rig with a CAT engine that starts with a rope pull pony motor to the diesel engine and I never understood how the pony engaged the main engine to start. Big THANKS

[renevile]

a small gear like that, my guess is that it came from a broken starter that since have been replaced.

[richard]

That gearbox case looks like an ideal candidate for you to practice cold stitching on. Check out the guys from Tinkering with Tanks and see them repair a cast iron block. You never know when you might come across a really rare engine that you can't just swap out casings on. Love the content Matt

[OleGramps]

I believe the teeth were from a failed starter bendix that never was retrieved when they had the initial starter problem Matt. The size and number is similar to the teeth count on the bendix.

[streetmichal]

Try to take the crank to machine shop what they say. Try to turn it. The bearings you can pour yourself -> functional engine.
The transmission - you can try to bronze weld it. It was quite often used technique in 50 and 60 when engine block cracked. Such a block was used for very long time afterwards. If you never made it this transmission is perfect thing for a try and learn.

[warbirdwf]

My take away from watching this is pure amazement with the engineers who designed and manufactured that whole assembly pre computers. I can't imagine the cost to make all the tooling to cast all those different pieces in an economical way. Mind blowing to me.

[NineSun]

I am an IT guy from Germany. So I could not be further removed from this topic, but yet still I love watching these videos. Keep up the good work of reviving old steel that others have left to die.

Also very nice to see your channel frow over the years, almost at the 1 million mark now, great :D

[rimfire]

Wild guess s those teeth were from a part that was replaced? Something stripped the teeth off, maybe the starter? They replaced the starter but didn't pull the whole thing open to gett he bad parts out

[curtislowe]

I agree with the mystery teeth coming from a previous starter catastrophic failure. I have never been in a position where my (and possibly my family's) next meal depended on me getting a piece of equipment operating so I could finish a job and get paid. The pressures of life and the mindset of someone who doesn't perform recommended oil changes and would also leave gear teeth inside a gear case is something I cannot relate to in any way. Matt has clearly established that neither the motor or the gear case received recommended maintenance and that the carnage occurred because of the wear on the engine main bearings which was due to oil that was filled with abrasive particles. Maintenance is not done for various reasons. I know/have known people that can always find money for beer and smokes but can never find money for oil changes. If every machine owner put maintenance high on the list of important things Matt wouldn't have a channel. Without so many mistreated machines we wouldn't have such entertaining videos illustrating the effects of that mistreatment.