this kind of meaty fax is why i follow you

i was pretty sure that most diesel engines were 100% non-electrical and the electrical things have only been added since the mid 90s to do stuff like improve its cold start and such

when i was a kid, it was normal that a diesel engine would not be stopped if it was going to go again within 20 minutes or so, because restarting the engine did damage (mostly adding tar and shit to everything) and wasted fuel... not sure exact details of why, stuff about how the fuel needs to be hot, and every last bit of cold metal the vacuum-vaporised (by the high compression ratio of the cylinders) that was not at working temperature would result in poor combustion and promote tar formation etc etc

the original ICE was diesel, and it was hard to do gasoline without adding electricity, and that means, and still means a bulky battery, and there is still really no more robust battery for starter motors even today, than acid/sulfate

lithium batteries are a joke, they barely work until they are over 27`C and from about 35`C onwards they start emitting hydrogen, which only happens with a lead acid battery when it's really fucking hot

i understand chemistry and physics and that's how i know that diesel engines, even the fancy ones in most modern european cars now, can be modified to run without one single electron of electricity, just that doing so may be more tricky with some than others, just like it used to be a nightmare to work on a Subaru with their weird engine layout 

 lead/sulfate, i mean... obviously 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navistar_DT_engine. 

They stopped producing mechanically injected DT engines in 95. But I know chassis manufactures still used them for a while after, I've seen them :P. So its probably pretty rare to find one in a later chassis, but they were built to order for a while and had lagging emissions standards compared to light duty. 

A healthy Cummins 4B/T, 6B/T engines and even the DT360s generally weren't equipped with heating systems unless they were in for on-road applications. The major issue with the cold is #2 will gel up and requires mixing with #1 (kerosene) and can usually start up fine under 0*f. Starting aids were mostly added for emissions arguably. Many engines need starting aids, like International V8s, and later 4 stroke Detroits. As the engines wear though, they lose compression and injectors under-perfom and starting aids are helpful and can be required after a certain point under freezing.