The Caterpillar Starter Kit Story
1978
The story of a unique invention that got its start in Cuba
Written 2010 Re-written 02/06/2016
Howard Yasgar
I am pretty sure everyone has heard the expression “Necessity is the Mother of Invention”, well this story is a classic example of just that.
In 1978, I was fortunate enough to have met two enterprising Cuban refugees that had come to the United States when Fidel Castro had taken over their country in 1958.
While they were in Cuba, these two fellows had invented a system that converted Caterpillar Diesel engines over to using electric starting motors.
They had invented the kits while they were still in Cuba.
Up until 1969, most of the Caterpillar diesel engines that were used in bulldozers, required a pony motor to start them up.
A pony motor was a specially built small gasoline engine.
Prior to starting the large Caterpillar diesel, the small pony motor was started, it warmed the diesel engines oil and the water.
Once the oil was warm enough, a gear on the pony motor engaged with the flywheel gear on the diesel engine to start it up.
Bulldozers, because of the rough work they do, require constant maintenance and repairs to keep them running, the pony motors just wore out.
For many years the repair and rebuilding of the pony engines was not too difficult a project to do, primarily it was because the Caterpillar Tractor Company made pony engine replacement parts available.
Up until the 1970’s a Pony engine could economically be rebuilt, but then the Caterpillar Tractor Company started raising the prices of the parts prior to discontinuing them.
Soon locating the parts needed to rebuild the pony motor became a very expensive project.
A solution was needed and these two enterprising and inventive Cubans solved it.
They invented a way to replace the pony motor with an electric starter.
By designing special adapters and gears, they were able to replace the pony motors with an economical heavy duty electric starter motor.
Their innovative invention was a combination of adapters and helical gears and it saved thousands dollars for owners of pre 1969 Caterpillar tractors, they no longer had to rebuild pony motors.
Now one might ask, what’s the big deal, when the Caterpillar engine and pony motor wears out why not just throw the bulldozer away and buy a new one.
The answer is simple, Caterpillar Bulldozers are very expensive, and many thousands of bulldozer’s are owned by people that use them intermittently.
For example, a farmer, may use his bulldozer once a week or perhaps once a month.
Caterpillar bulldozers are so good that farmers are still using machines that were made back in 1939.
It was people like farmers that needed an economical solution to keep their equipment running.
In 1978, my Company located in Miami Florida, was assembling new heavy duty diesel starter motors. Our market was truck parts dealers and exporters.
One day, I was approached by two fellows, they introduced themselves as Willy Silva and Geronimo Lazo.
Willy was perhaps in his 30’s and he didn’t look Cuban, he was blonde and light skinned, Geronimo appeared to be in his late 40’s or 50’s and had a darker complexion.
Willy spoke flawless English but Geronimo spoke only Spanish.
Willy said they were originally from Cuba and they had escaped when Fidel Castro took over the country in 1958.
They said that they had started a company in Miami called “U.S. Tractor Company”.
Willy said that they would be interested in purchasing our 24 Volt, heavy duty starter motors.
When we sat down to discuss prices, Willy mentioned that the starters they needed didn’t have to have front housings on them.
He said Geronimo would install their special front housing at their facility.
I had never had anyone ask me for an incomplete starter like that before.
I asked them what they were going to use the starters for, but they were hesitant to tell me, and they became evasive.
I realize now that they were concerned that I might copy what they were doing, and they didn’t want me to know what they had invented.
They said they would need 20 to 30 starters per month, but they wanted a special price, because they would not be needing the front housings.
Other than their being evasive, Willy appeared to be a very smart fellow, especially when it came to dealing with electrical parts. Since making electrical parts was my business, I took an immediate liking to Willy.
I tried talking to Willy’s partner in Spanish, but I could see he was also uneasy and became evasive with me as to what they were doing with the starters.
Over the next few years Willy and I became friends, and every week when he would come by to pick up a load of starters, we would sit in my office and talk for awhile.
Willy told me that before they escaped from Cuba, he and Geronimo were both in the industrial tractor business in Cuba.
Geronimo was one of the leading specialists in rebuilding Caterpillar tractors on the island.
Willy said that when Castro took over the country in 1958, he confiscated all the private owned businesses, and that was when Willy and Geronimo fled Cuba for the United States.
Willy said he and Geronimo, had been friends in Cuba for a long time and because they both came to the United State at exactly the same time, they went into business together.
I liked talking to Willy.
As time passed, Willy and Geronimo’s business with us increased.
Then one day in early 1983, Willy Silva came to see me, he was alone.
He confided in me that “Geronimo and I are ready to kill each other, we are arguing every day”.
Willy had a brochure in his hand and he gave it to me.
The brochure was from their company, U.S. Tractor, and it had pictures of several Caterpillar starter motor kits in it, that were all using my starters.
It was the first time I had ever seen their brochure, or I had any idea of what they were doing with the starter motors they were buying from me.
I quickly realized that it was the big secret that they were always keeping from me.
Willy explained, he said that he and Geronimo were assembling electric starter motor kits to convert Caterpillar diesel tractor engines over from using a pony motor.
So now I knew exactly what they were doing with my starter motors.
Willy said, “Geronimo Lazo was one of the smartest Caterpillar mechanics he ever met, and in Cuba, he had crawled under every model of Caterpillar Tractor to design the starter kits.
Willy said, “Geronimo was the first guy to invent all the adapters required to convert the Caterpillar diesel engines to work using electric starters.”
Willy said, “Today, in 1983, to rebuild a Caterpillar pony motor, costs around $6000.00 and the parts were now obsolete, and difficult to find.”
He said customers that owned Caterpillar diesel bulldozers were all so happy to be able to buy the electric starter kit made by their company.
Willy said that he really liked his partner Geronimo, but there was a problem.
Willy wanted to expand the business and go into building and exporting AC generator sets, but Geronimo didn’t want to do it.
Willy, said, “Geronimo is a genius, but because he spoke no English, he needed someone to work with him, and that was one of the real reasons they had become partners and formed their company”.
Willy said, “He and Geronimo were always afraid that if I found out what they were doing, I would copy Geronimo’s invention, because he had never patented it.”
Willy said, “The problem was, he felt that their Company, U.S. Tractor, was now hindering him from doing the generator set business that he had always wanted to do”.
Willy said, “I always wanted to design and manufacture generator sets, as I have an electrical engineering degree, but Lazo just didn’t want to do it”.
Willy said that this problem had been bothering him for several years.
He was very unhappy, and he had finally decided to break up his relationship with Geronimo, but he was very concerned about what would happen to Geronimo after he broke up their company. That’s when Willy said, that he had a proposition for me.
Willy said that Geronimo was the inventor of all the adapters used in the starting kits, and he had all the original patterns and molds to make the parts.
Also, he said that Geronimo had sourced all the angle gears that were needed to convert my starters to fit the Caterpillar engines.
Willy suggested that my company start making the kits, and we could continue buying the adapters and special gear parts from Geronimo.
This would give Geronimo a source of income and Willy would have a clear conscience about breaking up his business relationship with him.
Willy also said, our company would probably need to use Geronimo as a consultant, as he knew everything about the Caterpillar tractors and engines, and Geronimo could answer any customer’s technical questions.
Willy said he knew that Geronimo would be mad at him, but he had no alternative, and he trusted that I would do the right thing financially with Geronimo.
Boy, was I surprised, now all of a sudden, after all these years, of being evasive, Willy now said he trusted me.
The next day, Geronimo Lazo came by to tell us the exact same story that Willy had told us.
Geronimo said that Willy was destroying a perfectly good company and he was pretty mad about it.
He said he thought Willy was crazy to want to go in the generator set business.
I told Geronimo not to worry, we would take over the production and sales of the kits and he could supply all the parts that he wanted to, and he could earn a good living doing it.
For us, the prospect of our entering into a new type of business was exciting.
As we started making the Caterpillar kits and selling them, I noticed a whole new attitude on the part of Geronimo.
All the years that I had felt that Geronimo hadn’t trusted me, and now I found him eager to want to teach me everything that he knew about the Caterpillar parts business.
We took U.S. Tractor’s catalog and put all the information in our computer, then we started advertising in several tractor magazines which included the yellow paper, “Rock and Dirt”.
By late 1983, Geronimo had become like a father to me.
Every time we had a technical question, he would come over and study the Caterpillar microfiche until he had an answer.
We continued selling the starter kits, and it was a lot of fun, because we now we were having daily calls from contractors and farmers calling us from all over the country. They were all wanting to buy starter conversion kits.
We couldn’t believe that so many pre 1969 Caterpillar tractors were still out there, and still working every day.
We were also amazed that some of the farmers that called had Caterpillar bulldozers that were built in 1939, and they were still using them.
Every phone call we received became a technical adventure for us, because Caterpillar Tractors had so many variations in the design of their equipment.
Sometimes it was difficult to determine which kit fit a particular machine. But fortunately we always had Geronimo Lazo to figure everything out for us.
We had quite customers in Alaska that wanted electric start kits.
When we told them there was no way to to warm the water and oil, they didn’t care, they said they would build a wood fire under their engine to warm it up.
Some said that in the cold Alaska climate, once they started their Caterpillar bulldozer up, they never shut it off until the project was completed.
One of the most amazing things about Geronimo Lazo’s starter kits were the helical angle gears he had had located, they meshed with Caterpillars helical tooth flywheels.
From an engineering standpoint, his angled gears should never have worked, but they did, and they worked fine.
We still get occasional calls for the kits but it’s finally slowing down. those Caterpillar bulldozers built from 1939 to 1969 are finally disappearing.
