I am working on a 1986 TrooperII turbo diesel. I bought this vehicle with the front of the engine disassembled. Timing gear on the crankshaft was damaged along with who knows what else. Jerry was kind enough to supply me with a used harmonic balancer hub, timing gear, key and bolt so that I could get the engine started and see and hear what I was dealing with. Thank you Jerry. I reinstalled everything checked the oil and the engine turned over well, but only fired up after I administered CPR with the fuel hand primer for several minutes. The engine did the same thing it did when I started it with the radiator and water pump disconnected last week. It over-revved once it started, then it wouldn't shut off. Acy76 suggested I have a way to block off the intake if it ran away again. Weird, thing is that completely suffocating the air intake with a steel plate only slowed the engine. I already had the ignition switch off, I can only guess what RPM it was doing but it was scary. With my free hand I reached over to pull off the fuel supply line to the injector pump. Weirder yet there was not a drop of fuel present. What in the heck was the engine running on? No air, no fuel and it was running like a bat out of hell. It actually sounded pretty good except for the fact that it was probably doing 4000 RPMs there for a minute. Also the blocked air inlet only made the engine slow (thank god) not shut off. It was trying to over-rev then it seemed like I was starving it for air and about to die, then it would start to rev fast again. Maybe it was sucking fuel because it did shutdown a few seconds after I pulled the fuel line. I checked the fuel before I started it. I did this by using the primer to pump some into a jar. I smelled it for contaminates like gas, it seemed all right. It wouldn't light with a match so no gas present.

Like I said, what was the engine running on? The oil looked fine too, no contaminates there either. Proper level.
I have heard that a diesel can run on engine oil if it can make it into the cylinders. I guess I should check the compression next. Any ideas?
Sincerely,
Brian Rodgers