Leathermang, you hit 3 or 4 out of 5 anyway...

Being poor miners, none of our equipment is new enough to have pre-oilers...

Although, the older and larger of the Cats -do- have pre-oiler, in a way.

The big main engine is started by a 'pony motor', a 2-cyl 25hp gasser. You fire that up, engage the drive to the main, and let it crank. It takes a good 30 seconds before oil-pressure starts to come up on the main (it's a BIG diesel motor... )

After it's been in the green for a bit, you turn off the compr-release, hit full fuel, and she rumbles to life. Of course, there -are- the jerks out there who start firing the main right after they engage the pony...

Cat also ran the pony exhaust pipe right up the middle of the main's intake-manifold (6' long inline-6), AND ran the main's coolant through the pony's water-jackets. So, if yer in Alaska, or even Minnesota , you'd just let the pony crank the main for maybe 5 minutes, pouring 50kw of heat through the exhaust and coolant, and THEN fire the main off.

It's really a great system, but unfortanately, the modern world doesn't seem mature enough to deal with waiting a minute; so all newer Cat's have electric-starters on them. blechh...

I guess it doesn't bother the guys who only own newer ones; but when yer used to seeing the oil hit 60psi before firing, on your older one, and you hop on one of your newer ones and hit the key, and she fires to life while that gauge is reading ZERO....man, it makes me cringe every time !

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WANT to BUY: 3.0L diesel engine.

My other diesel is a....

1962 Cat D9-19A, 2,000 cu-in TD
1961 Cat 966B, D333 TD, powershift
1985 Mack MS300P 8.8L TDI, intercooled, crane-truck
1991 F350 4x4 5spd 7.3 IDI NA
1988 Dodge D50 4x4 5spd 2.4 Mitsu TD
1961 Lister-Petter 14hp/6kw Marine Corp genset weekly charging 5400 lbs of forklift batt for the off-grid homestead.
1965 Perkins 4-108 Fire/water Pump
1960 Deutz 20hp/8kw genset