Diesel Bombers - Newbie from Northern Illinois

Hello folks. I am a 62 year old geezer from northern Illinois and the only thing I know about diesels is they are sometimes hard to start in cold weather and they don't have sparkplugs. I have worked on gas motors all my life. When making my profile I forgot to add that I have an old Allis Chalmers 4 cylinder track bucket crawler HDG6 which is late 40's I believe. I had a rocker arm pop sideways one time about 10 years ago when starting the first time in the spring and have changed oil several times but have never done anything else to it in over 25 years but use it. If it will turn over it will always start on ether down to about 15 degrees without putting a torpedo heater on the engine. My redtruck is a 53 Ford that has been modified with different front suspension subframed from 79 Firebird and 350/700r4 Chevy engine and trans and Firebird rear axle. I have several other old cars and trucks all in various conditions but not all running. From the looks of all my projects I am going to have to live to 150 to get them all done. Right now I feel like I can after losing 50 pounds in the first 6 months of this year, started at 252 and am now at 202 and feel good. I just took delivery of a steel building and am getting site ready to pour concrete for a home workshop 30'x50' with14' sidewalls to put in lift. I found this site while looking for information on GM 6.2 for a friend with a warm start problem. I belong to an automotive group called carfix and this seems very much like that one. Looks to be a very friendly group with a lot of knowledgeable folks who might be able to educate me to start using a diesel for a driver.
My make a living job is machine repair/plant maintainence and am also converting a 98 Dodge Dakota to electric. I have the motor bolted to trans and in truck and now just have to make and mount battery boxes. It will have 24 golf cart size batteries for 144 volt system.Thanks for the invite and I hope to learn a lot.
Bill Anderson