Did you do any hand rotation of the engine?

So, on the fuel supply lift pump there is 2 connections. The one that goes from the pump to the large fuel filter and on to the fuel injection pump is the pressure side of the fuel injection pump. The other side of the pump is the suction side.

The old-style hand primer with the shiny aluminum body and the hard plastic knob that is usually white is a notorious source of an air leak. If when you pump the hand primer it leaks fuel it needs to be replaced. The newest rubberized bosh hand primers are great.

All you have to do is push on it and a spring brings it back up for another push.

When you are using the hand primer when the air is out of the fuel supply system you will hear kind of a squishing or mild squeaking sound every time you push on the hand primer.

When people are testing for air leaks sometimes, they remove the fuel inlet hose and run it to another container with diesel fuel. That bypass everything to the rears of that.

The only faster method I know of to bleed the air out of the fuel supply system is to use an electric fuel pump. Put it on the suction side.

Either way you cannot get away from bleeding them at the injectors. Air trapped in those fuel injection hard lines compresses a lot and moves very little. A lot easier on your starter if you loosen all the Injector line nuts and let the trapped air out.

The fuel pressure relief/overflow valves (controls the fuel supply pressure inside of the fuel injection pump housing) typically have weak compressed springs and at low rpms don't hold pressure well at low rpms. Find a thread on stretching the spring.

Fuel supply/lift pumps occasionally need to be rebuilt and in particular there is a little 5mm O-ring inside that gets hard or sometimes falls apart.

If your idle speed is low adjust your idle seed to higher rpms. On mine 750-850 rpms is normal.

That is what I can think of offhand.

White smoke that smells like fuel is anatomized fuel particle that did not burn.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel