Not entirely true. One of GM's first diesels was a 5.7L. IIRC it was a 350 olds converted over to run on diesel. It became a HUGE flop and gave diesel a HUGE black eye that took DECADES to overcome.
Interesting!
I remember that. The people that did not have problems loved their deisels.
If cared for and driven properly, they weren't entirely bad engines. The problem was light duty diesels were still VERY new, and GM screwed the pooch on implementing them as well as maintence. This is what gave diesels such a black eye in the US, and made it so hard for diesels to take off state side.
Those early GM diesels were some of the WORST offenders for spewing black smoke. Yes head gaskets let loose left and right, and if you pushed them I believe the rods were known to shorten. They upped the compression by going to a zero deck, and a head with basically no combustion chamber to them. It was what seemed like a good idea at the time, but proved VERY bad. And if you listen to older people talk about diesels, the converted GM diesels are almost ALWAYS quoted as why diesels are loud, smoky, and undependable hunks. I cannot believe how many people accused my 6.5L of being a converted gas engine when I got it. The best was people with FORD's and there IDI's when in fact THERE diesel WAS a converted gas engine to diesel. Next on the GM list after head gaskets and rods I believe was injector pumps which early on failed quite a bit. Then if they got many miles on them, they would sludge up because people didn't know that diesels needed different oil than there gas counterparts, so the sludge would plug em up within a failrly short amount of time with S rated oil without much detergents. So it was a doomed experiment fro mthe get go. And if you think about it, the diesels of the day you quoted weren't sold in large numbers, and were rearded as good because they WEREN'T made by GM. Probably one of the reasons GM went to ISUZU to design the all new DURAMAX for them to build(and yes, GM has built the DURAMAX since the beginning for the most part. They did use parts from ISUZU, but they were still assembled right here in the states, yet people still call them an ISUZU).
