My brother in law worked at a shop where they were converting the GM V8 5.7 diesel vehicles to gas(lots of Caddies, 98 Olds etc).. Were so busy you'd have to make a appointment as much as a month in advance... Most of the conversions were due to blown engines, broken cranks, busted head bolts, blown head gaskets etc were common...
I had a '81 Olds Cutlass Cruiser wagon with the kero burner(and at $1.10 gal, sometimes it did get kerosene)... Bought it on a COLD Feb morning in '88 off the local Pontiac dealers back lot after no one else had been able to get it started... Paid $300 for a car that was almost showroom cond(how badly the diesel devalued those cars)... It apparently had been setting prior to trade in, as both batteries were stone cold dead and would not charge enough to more than burn the lights dimly... Using the dealers jump box I couldn't start it either but just as I'd given up, a buddy rolled in with his wrecker so we connected jumpers to both batteries and after five seconds or so for the glow plugs to heat, it fired off instantly... Of course it sounded like the pistons were swapping holes but after a couple minutes settled somewhat, so we took it for a ride and other than it pulled like a 6cyl, ran great...
We went back that night to get it and was like 15*F so I stuck the primary battery in, crossed my fingers and turned the key... Wait light cycled as expected and same as that morning, it fired instantly... Dayum other battery must be OK... We were in a cold snap so finally approx 10 days later I checked the second battery, totally dead... It had been starting every morning at 10-20*F on one battery with no issues... With good second battery it spun a little quicker but made almost no difference in how quickly it started... It started as easily as any modern FI gas vehicle I've owned... I owned it five years and other than when it'd get temperamental and not light the glow plugs(loose connections on glow plug temp sensor), always fired instantly...
It did puke the injector pump but with my brother in law swapping out the GM diesels, was no issue getting another... It's major problem was it busted a head bolt one morning on way to work... When I arrived it was smelling of coolant and dripping, still running fine... Called my buddy with wrecker and said "come get it"... Once back at the shop I drilled the broken bolt and used a Easyout on extensions to extract the threads... I cranked in another bolt and it was still fine a couple years later when I sold it(I figured it'd blow the gasket in a few days)... Oh yea it did develop a funny little knock at idle, I traced that to a loose flex plate... Diesels can shake loose any part you can name, basically was why the glow plug/temp sensor gave issue every couple years... If it got temperamental, all that was necessary was to jump the glow plug solenoid with a pair of pliers to light the plugs and it'd start right up... No glow plugs, it wasn't going to start, even in warm weather...