The two steering levers declutch the tracks left or right. The lever on the far left is the hand clutch. The operator’s station is a forest of levers. The area behind the seat is the 20 gallon fuel tank, which was enough for a full day of hard work. Ditto the optional PTO, which was used for everything from agricultural implements to winches. The standard swinging drawbar was useful in agriculture and excavation. A small diesel crawler didn’t come from Cat until 1938 in the form of the D2. One of the first new designs to come after the Holt/Best merger was the Caterpillar 10 of 1928, a compact crawler delivering 18.1 PTO hp from a 143 ci gas engine. The crawler gained the most favor on larger acreages out West and on the soft ground of the fertile Central Valley of California. In the days of small farms and small tractors, small diesel crawlers also had a following in the ag world. By they end of the 1930s, Cat had a vast array of diesel-powered crawlers, as well as a large line of diesel engines for industry of all types. A diesel powerplant was one of their earliest priorities and the D9900 diesel debuted in 1931 powering the legendary Caterpillar Model 60 (see Diesel World, July 2008 issue). Best were individually among the pioneers in the crawler realm when they merged in 1925 to form the Caterpillar Tractor Company. Crawlers could put more power into traction with less ground pressure than anything else. In the early days of motorized farming, crawler tractors had a big part to play in some parts of the country.
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