Well I confirmed fuel at each delivery valve on the IP when cranking, so I put it all back together and I was able to get the thing to fire up with starting fluid after doing the atf flush of the injection pump. I was able to drive (with lots of smoke) to the gas station and fill up a fresh tank of diesel then take it for a drive up a steep canyon then back down to the house. It did great all drive as far as power/acceleration but it did smoke a lot. Then it died at a stoplight as I tried to take off in first. I was by the house and a nice fellow offered to give us a tow but I couldn't even get it to pull start so he just towed us home.

I will try the propane. I'm wondering if injector nozzles would help with starting as the injectors are more of a squirt than a spray right now, but I have trouble throwing expensive parts at a dying engine. If I can figure out an easy way to get it started I will hold on to the car. But I don't really want to take on an engine replacement right now. Any thoughts on the nozzles?

So unless I'm missing something, it seems like I'm facing a engine rebuild / possibly new pump if I wanted the car to be reliable. The car is an '82 240d with a '79 300d om617 engine. I paid 2,500 for the vehicle without the WVO kit, and have done ample work since I bought it. driveline (new center bearing and flex disks), brakes (new hoses, shoes, pads, rotors, fluid), new tie rods and cv axels, fixed oil leaks with a new waffle oil housing gasket, new oil cooler line. Completely overhauled the diesel tank when I first got it with muriatic acid. Has a new battery with autozone warranty. new glow plugs, rewired a generic ignition relay to a push button. fixed the odometer and clock and bypassed the broken instrument cluster lights switch, have fixed many other little things in the interior as well. Has newish tires. I have put on about 15,000 miles on the thing, but when I got it, the broken odometer was right around 200,000.

The WVO kit has heated hose-on-hose inside heatshrink to a second plastic tank in the trunk that is also heated with coolant. Tank has a sender and gauge. Vormax / racor filter in back, a flat plate heat exchanger under the hood, three hydraforce valves to switch and purge to D2. Also has injection line heaters and a 20amp vegtherm.

Would anybody be interested in purchasing? Car is in SLC, UT. My mechanic has spare engines and pumps and could probably hook them up for cheap as well.