I started a 80 SD after it sat in a field since 97
 

Nice!

The writers of The Walking Dead should know that. The group is still walking up to gasoline cars which start right up after sitting for 10+ years. Of course, even a diesel car would have a dead battery, and ditto for their walkie-talkie batteries. Looks like wet Eastern Oklahoma and the top of the air filter is rusted, but might not have affected the engine internals if they had a good coating of oil.

Awesome! What did you have to do to get it started?

old fuel?

The car came out of Texas originally, that is where it sat in a field for decades. All 4 tires are beyond flat so I just dragged it off the trailer up to my shop door. We have had a ton of rain lately and it ended up sitting in a low spot that holds water for about a week after it rains. Car is rusted out and interior is toast for the most part.

I have started diesels that have sat for 10+ years with just a normal glow and they fire off, even with old diesel. On this one, I put some fresh diesel in a bottle and ran it off that. Over the years I have got many diesels to run that have sat for 10-20 years and have a couple of different methods. I first crank them over a bit with the glow plugs disabled so we get some oil circulating. If they do not start with glow plugs I have a couple of different approaches. If the car has tires that hold air and brakes, I have tow started several of them. You have to get them up to about 40mph or so then drop it into drive and that will get them spinning way faster than the starter will and you can usually resurrect an old dead diesel that way. When it first starts it will throw out a huge cloud of smoke. After this initial start, they will then usually start on their own afterwards.

I took my second approach with this car. Glow plugs were dead, did not seem like relay was even working. I probably should have swapped in a different relay but didn't. If glow plug are not working, or I disable them, I pull the air cleaner U pipe and give it s small shot of starter fluid, crank it a bit and it will start firing off a little. I did this is small amounts several times and it eventually started firing longer and longer each time till I had it running on its own. If you are careful with the starting fluid, and IF the glow plugs are not glowing, it will not hurt the engine. It is with working glow plugs and lots of starting fluid that you crack pre chambers. Anyway, after it got going and ran a bit the idle started smoothing out and it sounded great. I should probably go ahead and pull the engine before I drag the car to my pasture to sit for another 20 years.

A couple of German Mercedes mechanics (father son team who spoke German while working on the cars...) told me to never use starting fluid or WD40 to start these diesels because it can snap the timing chain. Since both of these men have forgotten more about these cars than I will ever know, I listened and nodded in agreement.....

note; I've gotten away using WD40 before they told me this. Since then, I've never used it.....if it won't start using normal methods, then I'm not going to risk snapping the timing chain just to make myself happy.

Just bought -om603 3.4l... been sitting out of wrecked car for few years, seller is a mechanic. He ran it for me for several minutes ( I wanted to hear if it had any rodknock- it was very smooth/quiet.)

My question is to you w/ your past experience w/ motors sitting for years. Should I be concerned about any internal corrosion/rusting/etc. for this motor- from sitting w/ no oil circulating? What do your real world experiences tell you?

Any easy tests to do to see if this om603 will be oil eating/rodbender... before I throw it into a new to me chassis? And spend more $$$.

Thanks!