>82 Diesel Vanagon. After a lot of hard starting I finally couldn't
>get it going and the battery was draining, so I found two shot glow
>plugs and replaced them.  After another episode of hard starting off
>another battery, it finally fired and seemed to cough up a monster-
>sized "hairball of smoke."
>After hard starting with no combustion, is this normal?
>It took a little while to totally clear up and now seems fine, but I am
>still concerned about the hard starting and the crazy exhast.

One time I had to start a Golf Turbo Diesel on a cold morning.
The fuse for the glow plugs was broken because of the cold
night, and I didn't recognized that.

Anyway, I started the engine in usual way, just wondering
why it was that hard that morning. It took about 30 seconds
before first combustion and the engine came up. But I darkened
the street like midnight within the next minute. In the evening
I had time to find the broken fuse and replaced it. I mounted
it with a bend, and it cannot brake because of being cold.

That happened 5 years and 100.000 km ago, the car is still in
nice condition and there was no harm to the engine.

Helmut
'80 Vanagaudi