Rough Starting

[Triscuit]

I just joined the forum. A ton of good info here.
I'm currently visiting family for the holidays and experiencing very rough starting issues. My pickup is a 1993 K2500 with about 25,000 miles on a complete rebuild from previous owner. It takes many cranking attempts to start the pickup and once it finally runs it chugs and smokes real bad but only for about 15 to 30 seconds then cleans out and idles normal. This only happens on an overnight shut down. I'm thinking bad glow plugs or bad injectors or both. Also, I've noticed a coolant leak coming from the head gasket on the front left side head. It seems to only be noticeable after I shut off the engine and it leaves a small spot about the size of a grapefruit on the ground.
Is it possible that these two issues are related? Could a failed head gasket cause a rough starting problem when cold and then run fine?
Any input would be great as I need to drive 1000 miles to get back home in the near future. Thanks

[phantom309]

inmho,.
its glow plugs,.or wiring,. check to see you have power coming to both sides of the engine when the glows are cycled,.
A quick check to see if the glows are burnt out,. is to pull each wire off, and with your test light hooked to the positive side of the battery,. touch the glow plugs' connector,. if it lights up its not burnt out,.(it needs to ground to complete the short circuit knowutimean?)

[Triscuit]

Thanks for the input. I'll check all the glow plugs first before moving on to the injectors. Also, I'll take to pickup to a good repair shop to check the compression as I do not have the tools with me for the job.
Thanks

[zrocket]

Just unplugged my wire running to my ect on the water neck cross over fired right up without the smoke and stumble .......I will be buying a new ect sensor today.... a bad coolant temperature sensor will cause excessive smoke on start up 10-20 dollar part.

[Dvldog8793]

Howdy
About the headgasket leak....If you can, verify with previous owner if they used NEW head bolts and check what kind of gasket. There are some real POS gaskets out there and NEW head bolts are a MUST. IMHO....if you cant verify, then pull them and replace.

The hard starting could be many different things but glows is a good place to start. Drivers side is easy, Passenger side is a real pain. If you replace them use either 60G or Bosch duraterms.

Good luck!