surging while cold

[mrbrink]

About a week ago, right as it got cold around here, my glow plugs gave out. before, once I was able to get it running, it wouldn't give me any problems other than a little smoke and the occasional hiccup for the first few seconds. Now with the new glow plugs, it fires right up cold but will start surging, and has even died on me a couple times. at the peak of the surging it idles around 900-1000 rpm's cold with no advance, normally it idles around 600-750. Once its warm, it'll fire right up and run perfectly.

Another thing that I found while trying to run down a ticking noise, when I crack the injector line to the rear cylinder on the passenger side, there isn't much of an audible change compared to the others. Could a bad injector cause the surging issue possibly? Until it warms up, it rolls smoke too. The pump hasn't been touched and it smokes pretty good normally, but when its cold it really rolls no matter how I drive it. Fuel filter has less than 1000 miles, new air filter last week.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Thank you

 

[icanfixall]

Yes.... A bad injector can cause plenty of issues. A leaker will make a terrible rod knock sound. Another issue would be just as you posted. Its kinda like a spark plug that fires and then doesn't fire. The motor will run fine and then stumble. RPM will be up and down when a injector is hanging open and then closes off.

 

[mrbrink]

Thank you for the reply. Last night after sitting a few hours it fired up, then died. My lift pump went out. Got that replaced this morning and so far so good...it surged for a quick second but I didn't run it very long after swapping the pumps so I'm hoping it was just some air that didn't get worked out

 

[Diesel JD]

It's air or fuel starvation, hopefully the lift pump fixed it. How are your return lines and caps? I guess Gary is right about the possible injector problem but it would have to be pretty bad I'm guessing. My experience with bad injectors is you really don't notice anything abnormal except some funny noises and fuel mileage takes a dump. When mine went out I had been getting 12-14 with mostly in town driving and it dropped to 10-11 at best and I had oddball buzzing/vibrating noises. These had low pop pressure and terrible spray patterns but no sticking open.

 

[mrbrink]

mine does make some random noises. After the pump replacement the first drive it was noticably quieter at idle, then I went for a pretty good drive with it and the noises came back. After sitting for probably 5 hours it started up easy, started surging like normal then died. But this time it started right back up. I'm pretty certain its got at least one bad injector, looks like its time to put some more cash down on the ****

I don't have any wet spots on the return lines or injectors, but I plan on replacing them all when I get new injectors. I really don't think its got air intrusion issues, the second after it dies when I start cranking on it, it'll fire up or at least puff smoke. When the lift pump went out it didn't smoke at all so it was pretty clear that it wasn't getting fuel