You do not want loads of black smoke at full throttle. You will definitely cook the engine, especially since it doesn't have a turbo on it. A little puff when you nail it, and a slight haze when you have it to the floor is all you want.

Check the glowplug controller. You have the old style, they like to stick and burn up the glowplugs. My truck has the newer style controller, but it has it's moments also. I am a proponent of a manual button for the glowplugs, I have a manual pushbutton on my truck. It works every time I start it. Some people have many different persons driving their truck and do not like the manual button though.

You have the early engine that was prone to the block cracking around the block heater. If yours is ok, I would not use the block heater on your truck (The 120v plug in). You can buy add-on heaters if you need to run one.

If it's running good, I would not mess with it. My truck has 145,000 on the old pump and injectors, and it runs too good to mess with it. If you do want to change the pump out, you will need to time it and that is a can of worms on these trucks. The equipment you need to time is is getting hard to find and expensive.

 

 

Clean the back of the injection pump where it meets the timing gear cover. There will be a mark that indicates base timing. There's no need to remove the injection pump to adjust the timing, you just have to loosen it and move it toward the passenger's (advance) or driver's (retard) fender. As was already mentioned, the equipment to time the injection pump is hard to come by and not cheap. FWIW, I advaned my pump a hair without using the spark adapter and timing light. It improved the idle of my engine a little but, I'm too chicken to go much more without the proper tools.

You can also adjust the fuel screw on the injection pump but before you do that you should install a pyrometer. I just installed an Autometer pyro and it works great.

 

Like the previous poster said, you can twist the pump to time it. And the bolts are hard to get to, and the hard lines try to fight you when you twist it. You time it like a gas engine, but of course there is no spark to trigger the light. They have two methods, luminosity method or the pulse method. With the luminosty method you have to pull a glow plug and a photo eye screws into the glowplug port, and it senses the flame when the cylinder fires, and that triggers the machine. The pulse method has a sensor that clamps around #1 injection metal line, and it senses when the injection pump pushes fuel through the line. This signal is sent to the machine, or they do have some setups that will trigger a timing light directly.

 

 

You mentioned your truck has difficulty starting cold and hot. Make sure your glow plugs and the controller are in good condition. You might also consider putting the GPs on a manual switch like Franklin mentioned to eliminate the controller, especially if they aren't working properly now.

When the truck has trouble starting hot get a cup of tepid water and pour it on the injection pump. If the truck starts right up that is an indication that your injection pump is on the way out.

If the truck idles and drives well right now you should probably leave well enough alone and address what's broken before changing the timing. Especially if you don't want to invest $150+ for the tools.

 

 

At 177 K miles the Injectors and the pump will be torched. Especially since we have all been using ULSD since 07 or so. ULSD has really shortened the life span of many mech injection pumps that relied on the lubricating properties of sulfur in the fuel to combat wear now with it gone injection pump life has been cut drastically a good rule of thumb for the IDI's on todays fuel is to replace the injectors and pump and every 100k miles or there abouts... Your pump will have advanced the timing as the injectors wear the pop pressures will have lowered advancing the timing. So you will need to retard the pump not advance it.
Try moving the pump about a dimes width towards the drivers side, mark the current location on the timing cover and pump, a cold chisel will make a nice line across both where they mate for reference don't get carried away you just want a light line straddling both, a felt marker can also work but they tend to wipe off alternatively you can use an acid pen/marker if you can find one.. The IDI's do get harder to start if they are too advanced all things being equal.

 

If it runs good now, don't touch it. If you are going to put a pump on it, then you will have to mess with it. Like was mentioned, put the new injectors and pump in all at once, one affects the other.

If you are having problems starting, we may be able to address that with more info. Once you are fully warmed up (been out on the road running it for 30 minutes) the glowplugs are really not needed to start. If you let it sit around and cool off for a couple of hours, then you will need them a little bit to get going again. Depends on how cold it is outside also.

 

 

 

I have never seen where the cold advance thing ever made any difference on my truck. It didn't work on mine either, the thermostatic switch is bad on mine. So I re-wired it with a manual switch also. I turned it on when starting cold, and then turned it off later after it warmed up. Never made much difference besides it idling a little faster when cold. I took the added wire and switch off and I never got a new switch and mine starts and works fine in cold weather.

When its really cold outside, how long is the controller glowing your plugs? After the first try and it doesn't start, how long does the controller glow the plugs the second time?

 

 

Ya there are lots of additives on the market to take the place of the lost sulfur in ULSD and yes 2 stoke oil will help, it is not as effective as a proper additive but it is better than nothing. One of the best additives on the market is from Stanadyne, the same people that made the injection pump on the IDI's.
Any one that gets #1 diesel (winter diesel) in the winter should use an additive at the very least in the winter in the IDI's. #1 ULSD Diesel has about zero lubricating properties, with the reduction of sulfur in ULSD and the reduction in paraffin and thinner viscosity compared to #2 diesel it really has no lubricating properties to speak of.

Backing the timing off is going to do nothing but good for your engine as you will with out a doubt be running advanced and it will improve fuel economy. If you are not sure about doing it yourself take it in and have it done this should be considered as a tune up and should be done every 40-50K miles just as back in the day you had a tune up done on your car once a year, this will help keep things running properly. Any shop that works on diesels should be able to do it. It should not cost any more than an hour's labour to have the timing adjusted on your truck at a shop. At this point you got nothing to lose and it will run better afterwards regardless.

I have the Ford rotunda kit for setting the timing on the IDI's and the BMW M21 As well the kit Kent Moore for the 6.2's and kits for various Mech injected Mercedes etc and you would be surprised how much the timing on mech injected diesels it will move over time as the injectors wear.

This is something most IDI owners over look but a timing check should be done at 25K miles 50K, 100K with injector replacement/rebuild/pop adjustment no later than 150K. The 150K should also include a flow check of the Injection pump to insure it still functioning correctly. That was the standard pre ULSD now with ULSD usually by 100K mech injection pumps (especially rotary's like the IDI pumps) usually show significant reductions in flow due to wear if no additives have been used in the fuel.. So the IP flow check should be done at 100K nowadays.