Drove up to Breckenridge, Co (9600') a few days ago in my 87' 300TDT from Denver (5200'). I was smiling as my turbo wagon hauled up the pass blowing by V8 suvs. We went straight to the ski mountain and hit the slopes for about 6 hours. We returned to the car and tried to start it, the temperature was around 10F. I had to crank and crank and throttle and throttle until finally she lulled to life spewing smoke all over the parking lot. I was surprised by the difficult start considering I have routinely started her with little trouble in sub-zero temps in Minneapolis (640').

After getting the car started I drove it to the house we rented for the week and put it into the heated garage. Yesterday I thought I would fire her up to see how she's doing and despite the warm temperature in the garage she struggled to start and when she lulled to life she spewed enormous amounts of smoke.

ALDA? Fuel fliters? Whats going on here?

Thanks in advance,
Tom

Mine is a bit slow to start at higher elevations, also. Too bad we don't have an aux motor on the turbo for high elevation starts!!!

The smoke is unburnt diesel. As for the valves, I have never had them adjusted. I was under the impression that the valves on this model were self adjusting.

Since my initial post I went out and looked around the alda and injector for any obvious problems and I found a number of vacuum lines that are disconnected.

The first photo is of a line that is connected into the Vacuum Change Over Valve and heads towards the injector but is not connected to anything there.

The second photo is of a line that seems to have been glued into the Vacuum Change Over Valve. From the valve the line heads to a "Y" connector that is pictured in the third photo.

The third photo is the "Y" connector that is not connected to anything.

Argh, this is a frustrating find. My brother and I are planning on heading up to Utah from here and then to Montana.

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The excessive fuel in the cylinders during the cranking time is what's giving you the smoke. So, you can rule out fuel filters or anything related to the fuel system.

Even at 10,000', the engine will have sufficient air to start.

The fuel is not igniting immediately.

So, as usual, we look toward a properly functioning glow plug system with hot plugs to get that effect.

Check resistance on all glow plugs and see if one........or more than one........is due for a change.

Also, let the plugs go for the full 35 seconds and see if it assists the start.

I just tested the blow plugs and sure enough plug 5 is bad. I do not get any ohm reading off it. All of the rest are fine. I will fix this and see if it helps.

It will definitely help.

As will additional glow time if the other five are a bit long in the tooth. Judging from the lack of maintenance under the hood, I'd bet that all those plugs are marginal when fully heated. The presence of a proper ohm reading when cold is no guarantee of a white hot plug when voltage is applied.

What about my vacuum lines?

Would it be a bad idea to wait until I get back to Minneapolis to replace the glow plugs? I am on the road through January and I'm not really excited about ripping of the intake manifold to get at the glow plugs.

If you are heading back through denver, we can give you some recommendations for shops that can do your GPs, clean up your vacuum lines, etc. You probably don't want to DIY in a parking lot is this weather.

In the third photo, there is a black line coming off the manifold. Can you follow this line and advise where it's connected? It's my guess that they bypassed the overboost protection valve and routed manifold pressure directly to the ALDA. This is the only thing that makes any sense, otherwise you'd be hard pressed to pass a bicycle at that altitude.

The line goes to the ALDA. So i guess I shouldn't worry about the disconnected lines eh?

I will have the car in a garage where I can work once I get to Montana. I think I am going to plan on replacing the GPs once I get there. I just need to make it through Utah and Idaho first.

Well, the blue flying saucer on the driver's fenderwell is not getting any boost signal, so the transmission shifts will be too soft at high power levels, but it will run OK otherwise.

The overboost protection valve looks like it's been bypassed because it's not functional...........corrosion everywhere.

Does anyone have a diagram of the vacuum system for my 87 300tdt.

When I start my 87 300TDT in cold weather, i warm up the glow plugs two times in a row before turning the ignition key all the way. This heats up the chambers much better and results in much less smoke and a pretty smooth start.

I don't know if just restoring the vac lines will make your engine run properly but I would worry about any vac line that come disconnected on it.
There should be a vac diagram located just in front of the air filter assy, on the top support for the radiator/hood latch assy. I can't hardly read mine without a magnifying glass

The Y-shaped rubber tee fitting you have loose goes to your ALDA. One of the lines that tees into this Y fitting goes back to the top port on the overboost bypass (aka switchover valve) You can see mine, its got a short piece of red silicone rubber hose on it.
I attached a couple of snapshots of the lines on my '87 engine but be aware that I replaced some of the plastic lines with ones of different colors or no color stripes.
I see you are also using a 94-95 W/S washer reservoir and it sticks forward more than the original. I had to offset the switchover valve towards the front using one hole to mount it, so it will not look "normal" if compared to a regular '87 engine. I guess someone else took the simple solution that I did

The nipple on the intake manifold runs over to the bottom port on the switchover valve.
You can bypass the switchover valve ok for a while (I ran that way for years) its there to protect you if your boost exceeds about 14.5 psi. but you need it to pass boost over to the ALDA.
I wrote ALDA on the side of the unit using the Paintbrush feature but I couldn't figure out how to get it to be colored (duh me, I need a class on Adobe Photoshop).
I would go the rest of the trip without messing with the Glow Plug, it will just idle rough but should still start. If you can plug in the block heater that should help a lot on cold starts. So does synthetic oil like 5W40 diesel rated. (no lets not make this another oil thread, please!)

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