It would seem my sweet angel of combustion is acting up.
A fresh pump rebuild on an 87(?) TD.
So I performed a swap into my 81 caddy with a mechanical injection TD out of an unknown year, i suspect late 80s. I can get the engine to run on silicone spray but only at an idle (way better than starting fluid for obvious reasons.) That tells me my crank to cam timing is right. But after setting the timing using the proper tools a couple times I keep getting the same result. During cranking you can watch the engine try to start backwards with the injection pump connected. The engine turns in the wrong direction for a split second, kicks the starter gear out and then continues to crank then trys to start backwards kicks the starter out and so on.
My assumption is that it is combusting too early but I dont know why or how to solve the issue. Wrong glow plugs, improper pump timing
Ive tried loosening the pump bolts enough to rotate the pump by hand given it has slotted bolt holes and it does seem to help in one direction or rather the symptoms arent as bad. I set the pump using the pin with the engine at TDC with the correct pin locked in place. So it doesnt make alot off sense to me what is going on. If somehow gas made it into the tank, would this be a symptom? (i dont suspect gas did but since it wont run on its current fuel supply) I may remove the fuel line to the pump and run it out of a can of diesel today to see what happens. Thats my best guess towards what to do next. Ive searched and searched with no one else seeming to have run into this before. What do you guys think?