Well,
this was my first post I believe (a long time ago now
).
I think with a little more diesel experience under my belt I've got it narrowed down.
That car's long gone but I have two more that had similar issues and it ended up being injection pump timing.
The chain wears (stretch) and the timing gets retarded. The dealer advanced my 87's timing 3 degrees (on time now) and it starts smoothly now.
I just did the same thing (slight pump advance) on my new 84 that wasn't starting dead smooth and now it fires right up.
Seems to me these old cars with original chains aren't getting proper injection timing. Obviously a new chain would most likely correct the problem. But I didn't want to put money into my rusty old 84 so I just adjusted the pump ahead about 1/16" or a tad more according to the nut's holding the IP on and it's good.