There has been heavy white smoke on start-up (about 4-5 seconds) for about a month but this morning it kept on smoking moderately for a couple of miles. Enough to be embarrassing. It's white smoke and does not smell like coolant so I'm thinking injectors. Current injectors probably have 150k miles so its about time. All smoke goes away when the engine warms up.

Here is the problem - I'm was planning the first half of 1,000 mile trip tomorrow and it would be really hard for me to get new injectors and install them by then. Will it hurt the engine to run it this way?

Probably not, but try not too "push it" too hard.

older injectors, that injects a stream as opposed to a spray, have been known to torch a hole in a piston, but its pretty rare.

Its probably just incompletly burned fuel. If it goes away when the engine warms up, you should be OK..

FWIW, my 18:1 motor smokes like a freight train on start up. Its bad enough for the neighbors to b!tch at me...

Tim

Precisely - takes a bit to get piston, cylinder, and head surfaces up to op temps in winter ambients

Thanks guys. I started feeling a lot better after the smoke went away when the engine warmed up, but its good to hear from experts I'm not in immediate danger of a meltdown. All this smoking is new in the past month - I've been through two winters with the truck and it never smoked much so its something more than just cold weather. I'll replace the injectors when I get back home next week.

It's always something with these things. When people ask me what I do these days I'm starting to tell them Diesel Mechanic :)