I got into the whole restoring/collecting thing thanks to a work colleague who's been doing it for years and one day when I was at his farm visiting, he let my son have a drive of his Ransomes crawler. My son Angas loved it and I thought it was pretty cool too and from then on, I wanted one.

Having never had much to do with crawlers, I did a bit of research on the internet and bought a book by Robert Pripps called "Farm Crawlers". I knew that some of the crawlers common in other parts of the world would be hard to find here but I also knew that the one I wanted most, a Cat D2, should be no problem. I figured on looking around for a year or so, then eventually I might find one that was ok but I decided to make a few phone calls anyway. Well...... by that afternoon I had found the tractor I wanted, paid for it, arranged delivery and explained why it was a good idea to my wife. It cost me $1000 Aus on the 5th of November 1999 and was complete apart from the seat, the radiator cap and the pony fuel tank.

I had decided on a D2 for a few reasons. I live in the suburbs and don't have a lot of room at home so whatever I got had to be reasonably small. The plan was to put the tractor in our front yard under a Walnut tree for the kids to play on but I don't like the thought it not able to run so some form of restoration was in order. I liked the idea of the petrol starting motor with a decent size diesel main engine and thought a D2 would be common enough that I could still get parts for it.

I got it home on a tilt tray truck and had the truck driver put it in our driveway. At this stage I knew next to nothing about crawlers but with a background as a diesel mechanic, figured I'd pick it up fairly quick. A few days after, a friend who knows about these things came around and proceeded to point out what a lemon I'd bought and what was wrong with it. I was out at the time but he left me a note with a list of obvious things that anyone who knows anything about crawlers would have seen.

The things that I knew about the tractor were that the pony didn't run, the main engine was seized and the front spring was broken. My mate pointed out that it also had worn drive sprockets, worn track pins and bushes, a worn pivot bush, something wrong with the starting clutch and was generally not worth what I paid for it. Too late now I thought and decided to make the best of it.

The blade and hydraulics that came with it were not original; but a home made setup that a previous owner had thrown together rather crudely. The blade was holed, bent and generally worn out so I cut it up with the oxy and sold it for scrap. The hydraulics were also old but still of value so I sold the whole kit to a local machinery reseller. With the machine now at a stage where I could get a good look at it, I gave it a rough clean, took some photos and thought about where to start.

I pulled the plugs out of the pony motor, poured some fuel down the exhaust pipe and found that both exhaust valves were leaking. So it was off with the heads, carby, maggy, and inlet manifold and re-lap all the valves. The seats were good and the valves were ok so I figured just lapping would do the trick. It did. They sealed perfectly after that. Next I made some gaskets for the manifold and re-installed it, cleaned out the carby, made new gaskets for it and put it back on, cleaned and adjusted the magneto and reinstalled that. I made a temporary fuel tank out of a tin can, put the plugs back in, fuelled her up and started it. It ran ok and blew a bit of smoke but I figured that would clear once it got hot and did a bit of real work cranking the main engine.

It was time to tackle the big problem - the stuck diesel. I pulled the head off and straight away saw the problem. At some time it had water sitting in the bores of number one and two cylinders and there was plenty of corrosion still there. I poured a diesel/kero mixture into the bores and figured I'd leave it for a week or so while I thought about the next step. I was initially planning on making a wood plug to go down the bore and using a hydraulic jack, just force the pistons down one at a time. In the meantime I posted a message on the A.T.I.S. Antique Tractor Mailing List on the internet to see if anyone had any other ideas. A few days later someone suggested I just stick some rag into the mixture I'd poured into the cylinders, light it, and let it burn for a half hour or so. So I did and after half an hour I engaged the starter engine and rocking it back and forth by hand, the main engine quickly came unstuck. I guess the theory is that firstly letting the mixture sit there for a week does a lot of good but then the heat from the fire really helps separate the stuck bits.

I moved the pistons to bottom dead centre and gave the bores a rough rub with emery to remove the corrosion and have a good look at them. They looked not too bad so I decided to put it all back together and see if I could get it to go. I suspected the rings on No.1 and 2 would be stuck but hoped it could get up enough compression to fire and then the heat of combustion would loosen them up. I must have been dreaming. It didn't even look like firing and it now had water coming out the exhaust as well. Off with the head again. I took it into a mates head place and had him pressure test it. It was immediately obvious that the pre-combustion chambers were all leaking. I took the head home and made a tool to fit the internal hex of the pre-com chambers. I applied a bit of torque but they showed no signs of moving so at this stage I resorted to one of my all time favourite tools - the oxy/acetylene set. I heated around the top of the pre-coms and around the head and they soon came out easily. They were all corroded through in spots so I welded them up and re-machined them back to shape.

I put it all back together and this time cleaned out the injectors and replaced the fuel filters as well. Guaranteed to start I thought. Dreaming again. It fired every now and then but never took off properly but at least by this stage, with all the cranking, the pony had cleaned itself out and was running beautifully without blowing any smoke.

I had noticed the fuel pressure gauge was low when cranking and once again sought opinions from the internet. The general consensus was that if it was hard to start, getting the pressure higher would certainly help and at least eliminate one possibility. I pulled the Fuel Transfer Pump apart and cleaned out the bypass valve. The end clearance on the gears was about eight thou and I thought that was a bit high. I took the centre section of the housing to a precision grinder and got them to reduce the total length by six and a half thou, leaving me with a nice clearance of one and a half thousandths of an inch. I re-assembled the pump, fitted it to the tractor, bled the system and tried to start it. This time there was no fuel pressure. I took the cover off the pump and cranked it over again. The gears weren't turning. On removing the pump I found the bronze drive gear broken. I had not bothered to check whether the pump could turn at all - just put it together and installed it on the tractor. The pump was locked up solid. Either I'd measured wrong or the grinders had taken too much off. I wasn't sure of which and it didn't really matter.

A replacement gear for one of these things is as rare as hens teeth in Australia but after a lot of phone calls I managed to track one down to a guy in Queensland who could get it to me in a few days. In the meantime I had to sort out the gear end clearance issue so I made up a selection of gaskets for the endplate of varying thickness from five thou to one thou. Have you ever tried to make a one thou gasket? It can be a challenge. With the one thou gasket the pump turned over still so I used that and when the gear arrived, put it all together and put it on the tractor. It worked nicely with better fuel pressure than before but still the engine didn't start.

At this stage I figured I'd messed about enough so I decided to bite the bullet and give it a decent engine rebuild. I fired up the pony, engaged the starter clutch thereby cranking the main engine, engaged the main gearbox in first and drove it onto the front lawn just using the power of the pony motor. Here I gave it a really good clean all over so that it wouldn't be too bad to work on, then I reversed it back into it's position in the driveway. During this little run I gave the steering clutches and brakes as much of a test as I could and all seemed well.

Time to get serious. Off with the head for the third time, jack up the front of the tractor, remove the transverse leaf spring and off with the sump. The inside of the crankcase looked really clean which I was surprised about but the sump was well gunked up so I sent that away to get hot tanked at a local engine rebuilder. The pistons came out ok once I figured out the procedure for pulling them out the bottom of the bores and they looked good too. There was a slight water mark on the skirt of number one piston and slight watermarking in the bores of one and two. I gave number one and two a fairly lengthy hone and numbers three and four only needed a light de-glazing hone. Number one and two had very stuck rings but I managed to get them out without breaking any. I've re-used the third and fifth ring on each piston and put new rings in the top, second and fourth grooves. The rings to be re-used were glass bead blasted to give them a nice surface to bed in on. The big end bearings looked really good as did the crank.

The head got a re-face, new guides, a valve job and a few cracks welded up.  The injectors were serviced by a local specialist and once I got them and the head back it was time to re-assemble.  I was so keen to get into it I stayed up one Friday night when it was only about 7 degrees (Celsius) and spent a few hours getting it ready to start the next day.  It was one of the coldest May nights on record but I just wanted to get into it. 

The next day I had everything ready to go.  I got the pony started and let it warm up the water then threw the starting clutch lever and cranked the main engine.  I could tell it had plenty of oil pressure by the way oil squirted out of a leak in the supply line to the rocker gear and all over the block and the ground but I continued regardless.  I expected it to fire almost straight away once I released the decompressors and opened the throttle.  No chance.  Still dreaming.  

By this stage I'm losing my sense of humour.  I'd just spent several hundred dollars on parts and many hours on this thing and it shows little sign of starting.   It would fire every now and then but it could do that before I rebuilt it.  I stopped the pony and re-assessed.  Everything was bled, there was fuel everywhere it should be and it had bucketloads of compression.  I fired up the starter motor again and tried to give it another go.  I had been using a bottle of compressed air to pressurise the fuel system due to low pressure from the transfer pump at cranking speed.   Almost as soon as I opened the throttle I noticed that I was out of air and with the low transfer pump's pressure, there's no way it was going to start even if everything else is perfect.  End of play for that day.

The next day with a new bottle of air and everything else ready to go (again) I went through the procedure (again).  Fill the water, fill the pony with petrol, start the pony, crank the main engine, release decompressors, turn on the air, cross fingers, open the throttle.  It almost started so I gave the inlet a big squirt of spray ether.   The tone of the noise changed and it took me a few seconds to figure out that the thing was actually running but I couldn't hear it over the noise of the starting engine.  So, I turned off the pony and for the first time heard the diesel running under it's own power.  It was only running on three so I gave it a few more revs and cracked the injector lines one at a time.  Number four was the one not firing so I left it's line open for about ten seconds to bleed it extra well and when I tightened it up, number four came online and sprang into life as well. 

I was somewhat pleased to say the least.  I've since fixed up a few water and oil leaks and basically - I'm very happy with the way it runs.  I also found the main reason for the low FTP pressure.  The releif valve in the fuel transfer pump is supposed to have a rubber or leather washer at it's base to form the seal with the housing.  Mine was missing so the pump was losing pressure there.  I made a new washer out of fuel resistant rubber and it now has plenty of pressure.

Next it was time to attack the undercarriage.  I knew it had a lot of wear because the bushes were obviously worn (right through in fact) and at some stage, someone has removed one link from each side to re-tighten the tracks.  I pulled off the right side first because it looked as if the track pivot shaft was bent on that side and I wanted to see what the story was.  On removing the tracks and frame I found that the shaft was indeed bent back by a few degrees causing the whole right track to "toe out" by a few inches at the front. 

I thought I may be able to salvage the shaft by getting it straightened but a few weeks later I pulled off the left side and the shaft was so worn, I figured a replacement was in order.   I went to a few local engineering places to get some quotes on making a new shaft expecting about $150 but of the three I visited, the cheapest was $500!!   At this stage I figured a good second hand one would do fine and went on the hunt for one. 

I made a few phone calls both local and interstate and the best I could come up with was $350 from Queensland.  I decided to go and have a talk with a Cat repairer named Allan Horstman at Salisbury,SA and to my surprise he had one there that he thought would be ok.  It was off the tractor but still had both frames attached so I removed the track frames and there it was - almost as good as new.  He said he wanted $250 for it which sounded real good to me so I got it as well as a pony fuel tank and a transmission rear cover plate that I wanted.

Next I completely dismantled the track frames - removing the springs, adjusters, idlers and rollers ready for sandblasting.  This all took several hours for each one because everything was so rusted up and I wanted to salvage as much as possible.  The adjuster bolts were particularly bad and the nuts had to be ground off.  Luckily I have a machinist mate who owed me a few favours and he made up a new set of adjuster bolts and nuts for me. 

The previous owner obviously had never heard of regular lubrication.  Eight of the roller bushes had run out of grease and were nearly worn through.  Three of the track pivot bushes were also dry and very worn.  I could have got new bushes from Caterpillar but I knew the shafts were all a bit worn so I would've had a heap of clearance on each bush.  Rather than buying the standard originals, I turned up my own bushes out of some bronze bushing stock and custom sized each one to suit the worn shaft that runs in it.

I sent the tracks off to Horstman Tractors at Salisbury to get new pins and bushes and replace the link which had been removed from each side.  He also had some drive sprockets in good condition which I got as well.

As often happens in the life of a tractor, the bodywork had a few dents and holes in it that needed fixing up.  Both fenders had holes from the home made hydraulics that I had removed earlier which needed to be filled and smoothed off as well as the dash which had a selection of 3/8th holes which also got filled.  The front of both fenders had been damaged by a few colisions with strong objects over the years so there was also some panel-beating required there.  A common thing to see on old D2s that have done some work is a huge dent in the tank were it has been stoved in while towing some implement.   Mine was no exception to the rule.  I steam cleaned the tank then cut the back out with an angle grinder.  I then bought an appropriate size pice of 2mm steel, shaped it with the grinder and sent it off to get a nice radius roll job done on the bend at the bottom.  Once it was done a friend of mine mig welded it on for me and there you have it.  Looks like new.

Once at this stage, I decided it was time to sandblast and paint everything.  I left the engine, trans and final drives assembled.  With these I scraped every bit of dirt or rust off that I could find, then scrubbed the whole lot with kerosene and then hired a high pressure (2500psi) water blaster to blast it.  The blaster took off a lot of the paint but what was left, I sanded smooth around the edges with wet and dry.   Next I scrubbed the whole thing all over again with Shellite and then it was ready for paint. 

I wanted to sandblast all removable pieces including the tracks, frames, rollers etc as well as piles of other smaller bits.  Devon Amber from Gumeracha in South Australia, is a mate of mine who has a serious sandblaster.  He's used it on quite a number of his engines and tractors with good results and when he offered to blast my stuff for me in exchange for some help with his computer, I jumped at the chance.  I took three trailer loads to his farm in the Adelaide Hills and over a few mornings, it was all done fairly painlessly. 

The paint I used was made by a local (South Australian) manafacturer called Solver.   I used zinc phosphate fast drying, rust inhibiting primer and the topcoat is 777 lead based enamel.  To give the whole machine one coat of undercoat and two of colour took 12 litres (3 gallons) of primer and 24 litres (6 gallons) of topcoat.  I was ammazed at how much painting this thing took.  There are so many surfaces to cover and in the end it cost me a small fortune in paint.

I painted the still assembled engine, trans etc first, then painted the frames, rollers etc and assembled them onto the machine.  Next I did the tracks, springs, idlers and all associated equipment.  The next step was to assemble the tracks onto the machine and tension them up. 

This was something I'd been waiting for, for a very long time.  The tracks had at some stage had a link removed to get the tension correct.  I had the link in each track replaced when I got the pins and bushes done so my worry now was, even with the new pins and bushes, I may run out of tensioner adjustment.  I needn't have worried.   Once the tracks were on it only took a few turns of the tensioner to bring them up right.  Quite a relief.

Next in the paint-then-assemble came the fenders, the dash, seat/tank, radiator and hood.  Once the whole thing was together I then drove it down the driveway and back a few times, re-tensioned the tracks and gave the whole machine a touch up coat of paint.  Decals came via the Antique Caterpillar Machinery Owners Club in the US.

That's it...........  I finished the D2 on the 12th of March 2002.  Two years and four months taking my time to fix it up. I had heard that it takes a lot more work and is a lot harder restoration with a crawler than a wheeled tractor.   I wouldn't know - I've never done a wheeled tractor but in all honesty, the D2 wasn't that hard.  I found all the bits I needed relatively easily, you only need normal mechanical skills to fix them - it's not rocket science, and there aren't really any tricks that you won't figure out if you sit down and think about it for a while.

One thing I noticed while doing my D2 is how therapeutic working on it can be. I'd often find when I was stressed out with work or whatever, I'd go and spend a few hours on the tractor and come back feeling like I've achieved a bit and the stress is no longer there.

The D2 now lives in my front yard at suburban Largs Bay in South Australia.  It's the best garden ornament it the neighbourhood.  A lot of passers-by stop and have a good look and some come in and ask me about it.  A few people have asked me why I'd even bother messing around with an old piece of junk like this but they obviously don't understand. I just tell them it's not junk - It's a work of art.

Dene Oehme
Adelaide, Australia