car smokes a little at idle, dont think it did before
 

i noticed along with other things that my car smokes a little at idle, its not anifreeze or blue smoke but it seems like the smoke that pours out when the car starts cold for the first time in the morning, i dunno if my car is running rich but is this a normal thing for an 87sdl?

Both of my '87 cars do this when the weather starts getting cooler in the mornings. It is normal.

it smokes tho when its warmed up after driving it for a while, it seems to have a light amt of diesel smoke coming out of the exhaust at idle.

new nozzles in order?

??

You didn't say how many miles were on the car, but I'm going to guess it's a lot just from the age. New or rebuilt injectors and/or injector pump would probably stop the smoke at idle, but that would be expensive. If everything else about the engine is ok-good power, same fuel economy, no rising or falling fluid levels, no funny noises-then I wouldn't worry about it.

In Iraq recently I had a hand in operating and maintaining a small fleet of diesel trucks newer than your car (1990 Internationals with N-series Cummins power) that all had under 40,000 miles and every one of them smoked at idle. They still ran otherwise fine and pulled hard with loads that would be highly illegal in the States.

Oh yeah, you could always do a diesel purge or just run some high quality fuel additive. It's inexpensive, won't hurt anything, and might help the smoke (or not).

I have the same problem, smoke at idle, but other than that it runs great, it is my guess that rebuilt injectors would fix it. It's a 300D turbo with 180k

Three words to keep telling yourself: "it's a diesel".

CAN a diesel be made to run "clean" and smokeless?
Sure.

Is it worth it, is it done frequently, is it a car-saving proposition?
No.

I'm not saying don't bother fixing it if it bothers you... I'm obsessive about things being in top condition when I can afford to be --- but it's nothing to WORRY about if you have bigger fish to fry.