Diesel timing

[superstator]

I'm slowly plugging away at making my old 2.25 more drivable, and to that end I spent the weekend putting in four new injectors and upgrading the old series glow plugs to the newer parallel wired type. Along the way I discovered that whomever installed the last set of injectors only put the copper sealing washer in one cylinder, and didn't put the steel sealing washers in any of them.

In any case, I'm now more confused than ever as to the diagnosis going forward: before I did the work on Sunday, she started very easily, sounded awful, and blew light blue smoke until very warm, at which point she started making a little bit of black - all of which I'm told means the timing was probably too advanced. Now she's hard to start, sounds slightly better, and blows clouds of white smoke until she's thoroughly warmed up, but has a ton more power (whee!) - which I think means the timing is now probably too retarded.

Thing that's confusing me is I never actually touched the timing. Could new injectors (and the addition of proper sealing washers) make that big a difference? Or am I missing something obvious?

Video (both starts were on an already warm engine): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhtrFfCl2Qo

Separately, my old glow plugs were on a 30a fuse. The new ones (from the 2.5) apparently draw a touch more than that - I had to jump around the fuse with a bit of wire to get her started. Anybody know from experience what they actually need, or should I just rewire them to draw straight from the battery?

[SafeAirOne]

Well--If the previous owner adjusted the injection timing to compensate for something that you just fixed, the timing could be off for you now. Out of curiosity, how does the green bible say to time the 2.25 injector pump (the 2.5 is timed using a flywheel pin and a locking pin on the injector pump)?


EDIT: I've just had a look at the SIII WSM (pg 19-18) and it looks as if you set the timing mark on the flywheel to 13 deg BTDC (on #1 cyl compression stroke) then using a specialty tool, calibrate the injection pump timing pointer then install the pump and align the line on the injector pump with the just-calibrated pointer.

END EDIT.


I've heard of people marking the current position of the pump with a line across the pump flange and the timing case and then adjusting the pump a bit this way and that way until it behaves, but that seems a bit of a vague way to do it to me.

[SafeAirOne]

Rather than edit the previous message yet again, here is a thread about timing the pump and the timing tool from another board which might be helpful:

http://www.lro.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22901