hello again everyone so my idi takes forever to start after letting it sit for more then a few hours. when it does start it will run great for a second start to misfire then die then i have to crank the engine over for another 20 seconds then it will start back up and runs perfectly fine. or it just cranks over for a bit then start and runs fine. now i may have a glow plug issue but I'm not sure how that would effect this infinitely long start. it is currently summer and always no less then around 70 ish degrees. this is how my normal starting procedure goes. when i have let it sit for a couple hours i run the glow plugs for about 10 seconds wait for the start light to turn off then ill get to cranking the motor up. in the first five- ten seconds the engine will start to send a cloud of blueish white smoke out the exhaust then after turning over the engine for 15-20 seconds there is a chance it starts. if it does then most of the time it will run shortly and die. ill stop turn the key again and wait for the start light to turn off probably crank it for another 15 seconds it may start now and if it does it normally stays running. if it doesn't start the i will crank it for another 15- 20 seconds and it will probably start if not ill just keep doing it until it does i probably spent close to 1-2 minutes starting it this morning it was 78 degrees when i started it. i did recently do a fuel filter and oil and filter change but it has had this problem before i changed the filters. when the truck runs it runs great no issues ever its just starting the thing is a problem.
Stuka, I realise that this is post a few months old but I encountered a similar problem with my 1990 project truck that I recently acquired. What I discovered is that the check valve in the mechanical fuel pump was not holding the fuel in the filter and if I parked the truck on a downward incline it would start right up after a few hours or overnight, but if I parked the truck level or on an uphill incline, I would have the same problems with you.
In essence, the fuel level would drain down from the filter overnight and so the truck would either not start for the two or three minutes that it took to replenish the fuel in the filter or it would start and then die and then not start again w/o cranking for a few minutes.
In troubleshooting, I waited overnight and removed the fuel filter and discovered that the fuel level had dropped in the filter overnight. That confirmed to me that the check valve inside the mechanical fuel pump was not working. I replaced the Mechanical fuel pump and my problem has gone away.
I don’t recall if it was on this formum or another one but when researching replacing my Mechanical fuel pump somebody had recommended going in through the inner fender and removing the front tire and the battery box, et cetera. I found by simply jacking up the front end of my truck, I was able to do everything from the bottom in less than an hour.
