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Originally Posted by sir_lancealot
So to those that have dealt with these engines...What was the point/reason for the dual fuel? Was it that the electronics of the era weren't powerful enough to crank/start the higher compression diesel engines?
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One engine only, no pony like Cat and Deere. Batteries/electrical just were not that reliable for diesels at the time. Also, you could still hand crank these machines. Dad worked for a neighboring farm driving their TD-14, he had to hand crank it--to be clear he had to crawl over the blade to do so, I certainly wouldn't have guts enough to hand crank anything in that confined of a space.
The gas was strictly for warming up, you may could putter around the farm yard but that was it. Don't confuse these with the older engines that ran on kerosene (distillate) or gasoline.
Interesting footnote (going by memory) IH made the first wheeled tractor with a diesel, Cat made the first crawler (tracked machine).
I used to want one of these tractors bad. Lucked up on an ID-9 not far from the house. Rainwater had gotten on a piston and busted a sleeve (dry sleeves), so the engine was gone. Sent it down the road as a parts machine. Seems like it wasn't that long ago, it was actually 25 years ago.