What year and what were the last machines that caterpillar stopped using gasoline starting engines and went to direct electric.
can't tell you for sure on the year, but I ran a d-8 push dozer in the early 80's.. and it was about 20 years old.... they had a cat blade also with the pony engine.. Plus one dozer that started on gas, then you switched it to diesel... International td-14, maybe not sure .
Generally speaking, Cat phased out the pony engines in the early to mid '60's, and by the late '60's they were pretty much gone as an option on a new machine. I heard somewhere that a gas pony engine was available as an option from Cat on the bigger dozers through the late '80's, but I've never seen one and kind of doubt it was true. For a long time- from the '40's through the '60's on the D2 and D4 at least- you could get either pony or direct electric starting, and I've seen machines that had both, but up 'til the '60's the pony was by far the most prevalent starting option for Cat diesels in earthmoving machinery. Heavylift, You're right about the TD-14 starting on gas and then switching to diesel. The early TD 6, 9, 14, 18, and 24 all used this method.
I have seen some mid 60's vintage Cat equipment with "pony" start that surprised me. Like a Cat 666 scraper & Cat 834 wheel dozer. In cold weather these were the preferred starters, as they preheated the engine before starting.
The late sixties was the latest machine I have seen with a gas starting engine. We have quite a few machines still running on ranches up here with them. Most of them are D6 (9U Series) and (37A Series); D7 (3T Series); and some No.12 Graders (8T Series). The county finally auctioned off all their No. 12 Graders last year and I bought one for $1800.00 and believe it or not, it was in excellent shape. When I worked at the Cat dealer here I remember seeing some parts microfish on a D6C (74A) series with an optional pony start and they were built into the seventies.