Please help!!I bought a 300d! The motor had been rebuilt 100k ago as per last owner.. No blow-by oil pressure is great! Upon start up it smokes pretty bad and sounded like it was missing sometimes, so I replaced all nozzles with bosio ones..it was better then I replaced fuel filters and better again.. But still smokes.. I'm fumigating it has old diesel fuel as It was sitting for quite a bit and the filter has black residue in it..so my idea was to just fill a gallon can of fuel and run fuel lines directly into it bypassing the old tank all together...but when I did that the car ran for 10 sec and died as if it ran out of fuel...I thought that the om617 had an injector pump that pump fuel out of the tank..or does the tank contain a secondary pump or ??? I put the lines back and it fires up again...

 

It sounds like your bypass can was pulling in air. I would drain the tank and clean it out then see if that helps with the smoke problem

 

If you get Air in between the Fuel Injection Pump and the Injectors it is hard to get it out unless you loosen the Fuel Injection Line Nuts at the Injectors and crank the Engine to let the Air out (do that afer you have a Tank Full of Fuel).

So if you ran out of Fuel to bleed Aire out of the System.

Fill the Tank with Fuel
Pump on the Hand Primer (if your hand primer leaks replace it with a Bosch one, not a copy. A leaking Hand Primer can allow Air to be sucked in.) until you hear a buzzing or hissing sound comming from the Fuel Injection Pump. Then to be sure pump 10-20 times more. That Bleeds the Air out of the Fuel Supply system.

To bleed the Air out of the Fuel Injection System loosen the Fuel Injection Line Nuts at the Injectors and crank the Engine till you see Fuel coming out. Let your Starter cool off and crank the Engine a little more and be sure Fuel is coming out. Tighten the Fuel Injection Line Nuts at the Injector and attempt to start.

You also should check your Glow Plugs to see if they are working. This is not a recommendation to buy Partd from Him but the Diesel Giant Website has a Pictorial on how to test the Glow Plugs under Glow Plug Repair.
When the Page opens up you need to scroll down the Page to see the Pictures.

If the Plastic Primary Fuel Filter had balck gunk in it that is an indcation that something is growing inside of the Fuel Tank; and that is not a joke.

After you Drain the old Fuel out of the Tank get a 46mm (or the US size that is close which I believe is 1-13/16 of an inch) Socket and remove the Fuel Tank Screen and clean it and replace the O-ring when you re-install the Screen.

Some People remove the Fuel Tank and clean it out others buy a product like Startron to add to the Fuel. Startron essentially kills the stuff that is growing and breaks up the dead bodies small enough so it passes through the Filters.
Change the Spin-on Fuel Filter.
(I am not sure how well the Startron works in cold weather but I am thinking it is going to take longer to work than if it was summer time.)
However, that is the idea situation. Plan on having a set of extra Filters in your Trunk incase the Filter get plugged somewhere on the Road.