I'm hoping someone can readily identify this issue before I have to break down and shell out for a mechanic due to the urgency of getting it resolved... My ASTM-certified-biodiesel powered 1982 W123 300D-T is having issues with starting up first thing in the morning. It has gotten bad over the past couple of weeks to the point where it won't always fire up on the first try or two. When it does catch, it "chugs" really hard, smokes light-to-medium gray like a chimney and generally sounds grumpy for a bit before smoothing out. A couple of times it has actually died during that "chugging" phase and had to be turned over again. Once it really gets going though, interestingly, it has no noticable issues and in fact has way more low-end power than my 1992 300D 2.5 turbo!!! (Probably because the 1982 has under 180,000 miles, significantly less than my chronologically newer Benz diesel... But I digress...)
I'd be happy to get some opinions from my "Comrades in Benz" here on the Forum. I may only have time for one shot at getting under the hood and fixing the problem myself due to time constraints, and I need the money a lot more than my mechanic right now, so any ideas I may not have had would be much appreciated. I'm of course going to start with the simple and move up from there - the fuel filters theoretically shouldn't be due for a change but I'll be doing that just to eliminate that as a possibility... Who knows, that might even do it... But if anyone has had a similar issue with severely hard cold starts but then no noticable problems once the ol' 617 actually gets going, please let me know what your solution ended up being.
Thanks!!!