Hey all. I am a noob here so please pardon my ignorance with some things. I am the owner of ChristianKustomz Automotive & Performance Tuning and I have a question about my diesel truck. My expertise is with gasoline engines and I have never worked on a diesel before. I had no need and at the time I had no desire to know either.

However I have bought my first diesel truck because I needed the torque and fuel mileage and I likes the year and style of the truck. I have a 1986 Chevy 4x4 K20 with 3/4 ton axles. It has a 6.2L diesel engine. I bought it not running and after having to replace the engine (other one had a broken crank shaft) I bled the system and finally got it started. I noticed even after the glow plug light would go out it would still take a good 1-2, 5 second cranks and it would fire up. I did not have any coolant in it at the time because I just wanted to hear it run and see if there were any leaks from the engine or transmission. I let it get hot for a second or two by accident and it saw about 230* for a matter of 2-4 seconds. It took me forever to get it started again. It would crank and crank and crank. After hooking up my jumper box and a set of jumper cables from a running car after 15-20 second hard cranking I finally got it started again. I moved my truck out of the way and shut it off. I tried to start it again but the engine would barely turn over. So right now the battery is on the charger for the night.

My question is this...why is the engine so difficult to start now? Did I possibly cook the rings or fry the headgasket? Is there a way to test either one of these ideas? I know next to beans about diesels so if someone could help educate me would be great. Thank you for any help or assistance. I am in Westminster, MD so if anyone wants to come by my shop and take a look at it then that's cool too. Thank you again for any insite.

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Well started the truck up this morning and it's back to normal again. 1-2, 5 second cranks and she fired right up. Am I missing something here?

 

Ok I have a follow up. I have added a second drycell battery and ran a few more ground wires (heavy duty). Since I have done that it seems to start a lot faster. Engine cranks over very fast and now starts up within a few seconds of hard cranking after the glow plugs heat up. So I'm not sure what happened but I have everything together on it now and seems to be fine. I also sandpapered the connectors so they all had a good connection.