Cat D343AT governor question

Sorry for the odd ball ignorant question about my own boat…. long story short I have owned my boat for over a year now and I have never run it, it has been on the hard since I bought it and I bought it from an estate sale where the previous owner had passed away, so I did not get any kind of "handoff" from the previous owner. Any way, the main engine is a Cat D343AT, will the throttle(or governor control) move when the engine is not running? I noticed neither throttle control levers would move, so I disconnected the cable from the engine and both helm levers move freely so I know it is not a cable issue. When I try to move the governor control lever on the engine it won't move. The boat ran fine a year ago when I hired a captain to mover her to the yard where she currently is, and the next day everything worked fine when the yard moved it to the lift to put it on the hard where it has been since. A guy at the yard thinks the engine may have some kind of governor controls that will not allow the engine to come off idle until the oil pressure come up… anyone have experience with this engine?

I don't have that engine in our Defever but we do have D330 Cats. The throttles cannot be advanced until the oil pressure comes up on these engines. I could believe yours would be the same. Also, if the oil level is low, the engine could develop a miss, much the same as a gas engine with a bad plug wire. The governor will try to cut back the rpm because of a lack of oil flow.Check the dip stick to see if the oil should be checked with the engine running or stopped. ( This is the voice of experience talking). If you don't have a manual for the engine, check on ebay. I was able to find one there for our 40+ year old engines. Also a parts manual is very helpful to look at to see how things go together. Good luck.

If you can't get an answer I strongly suggest going to Boatdiesel.com and asking there.
If you can get Daves attention he is a Cat mechanic and willl know the answer.
There are others who are very good mechanics and may know and have had experience with this engine including Ski in NC but Dave is the Cat guy.

You can post as a guest. Do it soon as a lot of these guys, like the rest of us, have Christmas plans and of course often skip weekends or are other wise busy.

Holt Cat is the group to talk to in SA. Even though the engine design is pushing 50 years, there are many 343s still working away. If your governor or safety switch is bad, new parts should still be available. I'd guess the Galveston area Cat guys would know of any oddities with a marine setup for this engine.

Good luck.

He got the answer from Clifton ... that governor has a start limiter pin that will not allow throttle movement until oil pressure is up.

Start the engine, if you can't move the throttles after lube oil comes up then start looking for problems. From the OP's description, there is no problem.