OM603 White Smoke Cold - Cyl 6

[ontum_a]

I have an om603 in my G wagen that smokes at start up when the weather is cooler than 60° f.

Its a bit of a Frankenstein engine. I have a 1987 3.0l block and 3.5l head/turbo/etc. The injection pump is from the 3.0l.

I believe the engine still smoked when I had the original 3.0l head on it.

At cold start, the engine starts on the glow plugs fine for one second and then acts like it is running on less cylinders for a minute or two or until you do a strong acceleration. Then it runs great and there is no observable smoke. The smoke is white in color. I do not believe I am going through oil.

I have disconnected the purple wire at the glow plug relay to force the glow plugs to run after the engine starts. This fixes the smoke issue. Obviously this doesn't fix what causes the smoke, but it covers it up. But I don't think this is a long term solution.

I have good compression in all cylinders.

At cold start and running rough: I cracked each injector line open. Cylinders 1-5 make the engine run worse. When I crack cyl 6 NO CHANGE. So what ever is going on is related to cylinder 6. I swapped injectors between 5 and 6 and the problem stayed at cylinder 6.

I checked and corrected the injection pump timing. Found it at 18° and changed it to about 14.5°. Book states it should be 15° + or - 1°. I thought this would help with the smoke, but it didn't.

Is something sticking in my injection pump when cold for cylinder 6? Causing a bunch of fuel to build up and not burn until it heats up a bit?

Any ideas are helpful!!! Thank you.

-Craig