smoking
 

when i started my car it was smoking badly probably cause of it sitting a while. after i turned it of i opened the oil cap and it had smoke in the engine too. what does this mean?

By opening the cap your letting the smoke out.:D Post a no smoking sign on the valve cover.:D Actually it by itself means virtually nothing. Do not make any judgements before you have new fuel flowing into that engine. Also a can of diesel purge properly applied to the engine would be my next move once I was sure engine was running on fresh diesel and still had the external smoking. Look up diesel purge in archives and italian tuneup as well. If car is starting pretty easy now that is a good sign. You have to find a way to comunicate how much smoke is coming out the tailpipe as well since some diesels smoke a little all the time in the visable range. Others just totally eliminate visability. You probably are somewhere between both extremes. There are a few things to check if fresh fuel does not clean it up with an italian tunup plus a purge thrown in.

CAREFUL
If you do a search on diesel purge you will get thousands and thousands of hits. It is the magic elixer, will cure everything from smoking to a brake caliper sticking. AND, if that diesel purge doesn't unstick the caliper, adjust those valves. Then have a compression and leak down test done......
Did I forget any of the most common fix-alls??:D :D