Long time reader, first time poster. Getting our Series III Diesel really tuned up for a change, hoping for some final adjustment tips.

There's a lot of white smoke at idle on startup, and there's always black smoke on hard acceleration. The amount of smoke varies with the amount of load. On cold start, the engine shakes like crazy unless I give it some throttle until it warms up, usually 2-3 minutes.

The fuel pump and injectors were removed, serviced, and adjusted for high altitude running in 2021. At that time, the compression was checked and found to be acceptable. Even after that service, though, we had these issues. I am confident the injectors all work and that the pump is in good shape, but I'm not confident the fuel pump timing is acceptable. I just replaced all the old glow plugs with the new parallel kit, so not worried that a cylinder is down on heat either. The timing chain was replaced in the 2021 service, and I adjusted the valves last year. Just changed the oil, no flakes of anything in it. It's a happy, peppy engine when warm, but I wish it started nicer and that it smoked less under acceleration.

Where would you start? Mess with the pump timing? I have a quart of fuel system cleaner I could run through the works, not sure if that'll help but it did sit for a while. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

 

I’m not a diesel guy but isn’t that normal for an older diesel?

 

Maybe, hopefully! I don't know, I'm kind of new to the diesel game. I'd like for it to smoke less, it has 60k miles but it probably worked a lot as a farm truck with its PTO rotating but no odometer reading.