questions about living with a Detroit.

[greywuuf]

it has probably become obvious to most of you by now that I am new to the care and feeding of "bigger" trucks and I find myself keeping what I thought was a "parts truck" at my home as an occasional use vehicle. nothing to taxing for the old girl, just hauling trash and maybe next week some new furniture ( this flat bed thing is pretty handy )

So anyway, got me 5 gallons of Delo 100.... need to pop the end off the "lubri-finer" and see if there is a replaceable element in there or what... and I can get on with the lube and filter change ( or clean/service .. whatever is appropriate)

this 6v53 Natural had not been run in years, so far I have run about 10 gallons of fresh fuel through her and got her up to temp and down the road twice ( still does to much idling and never any real load on her ) I need to flush out the cooling system and maybe break down and take the radiator in for a rodding and seal job but she seems to be working as advertised. she is hard to start down when the temp is low ( freezing or below ) but with just a whiff of ether she fires immediately.... so not overly concerned there. What does concern me is SMOKE.... quite a bit of it, and it appears to be grey diesel smoke... not blue oil burn and not the weird steamy grey smoke of antifreeze... just smells like diesel. worse when cold and always on accel....also from an idle ( which is set too high.. about 700 and a little ) she responds to throttle real well up to about 1000 rpm, then there is a dead spot...not a bog... just no response at all.... for a pretty good ways on the pedal and then she carries on. so some one please talk to me about these beasts.... is this "normal" indicators of a common problem... is it a "could be anything" problem.... do the injectors deteriorate ( we run a LOT of winter weight #1 fuel up here and it was real hard on injectors in say my dodge cummins pickup and the Powestrokes is it possible running the rack and setting the pump up correctly ( idle speed and no load etc ) will help .....does it sound like just a tired motor or time for a blower rebuild ?. any one care to share their experience with reviving and living with a well used old DD ?