How to use starting fluid/either in an emergency.

Go to the Glow Plug Relay and unplug one of the electrical connectors. That keeps your glow plugs from coming on and igniting the starting fluid prematurely.

You are going to avoid using too much starting fluid by having someone else crank the Engine while you spray as little starter fluid as is needed into the Air Filter Housing (remove the inlet tubing that is in front of the Air Filter Housing).

If you spray a large amount of starting fluid into the Air Filter Housing and then run, get inside of your Car and attempt to start you risk getting a large slug of Starting Fluid into the Engine. When that happens is want makes damage more possible.

Not disconnecting the Glow Plug connector also increases the chance of Damage.

If the intake is short I have seen people start Diesels with WD-40. That won't work if the distance from where you are spraying to the Cylinder head is long.

In an extreme extreme emergency I have seen my Boss soak a Rage in Gasoline and stretch a single ply of the Cloth across the intake opening (on a Truck). He wrapped his hands around it so the Rag on the end of the manifold so it would not be pulled in and had me crank the Engine. It started.

Story time: I have been sent out on 2 separate jobs where it turned out the Diesel Engine would not start even with Starting Fluid. Both engines were direct injection engine with no Glow Plugs or other cold weather starting system (this is in southern CA).

In both cases the compression was too low to start.

One was a loader like a large fork lift that was worked 24 hours a day. As long as it kept running there was no issue. But, someone ran it out of fuel and it sat unused for 12 hours.

The other one was a 3 cylinder ford tractor (like a farmers tractor) that sat in a rental yard for extended periods. Since the Port of Long Beach is a few miles away it is likely that if it sat long enough unused the rings got stuck.

In both cases the Company Mechanics did not diagnose the issue correctly and sent the Fuel Injection Pumps to us t be rebuilt. I had to go to their places of businesses because they thought we had botched the fuel injection pump rebuild.
It seems pretty clear that if you are cranking the Engine and fuel is getting up to the Injectors that the only other issue could be if the Fuel Injection Pumps were timed wrong. And, I checked that and the timing was OK.

As part of the trouble shooting process I used the Starting Fluid/Either. If the Engine won't start on even attempt to start on the Starting Fluid you know there is something more seriously wrong.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel