beck
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- Waterloo, IL
My bad turbo story
While working on my little Cummins which is in the truck in my avitar I noticed the turbo had some play and was leaking oil into both the intake and exhaust. I thougth it was simple enough to put a rebuild kit into it, so I did. Cheap fix...
I finally drove it for the first time a week ago. I noticed boost on the gauge and good EGT. About 6 miles later I noticed no boost and high EGT. I limped the truck home at slow speed. I pulled the turbo and took it apart. My new bearings were shot. The bearing OD was worn down and the ID was a bit big. The wheels had contacted on both ends. By this time a few days had passed. I wanted to check the oil but figured any bearing pieces would be laying in the bottom of the pan. I set up a turbo exhaust housing with a plate on the bearing side so I could hook up the exhaust. I ran the motor to circulate and warm the oil. I had the turbo oil supply tube stuck into the turbo drain line. After the warm up I drained the oil and pulled the filter. While the filter was draining I saw metalic coming out of it. The missing bearing material was coming out of the filter. The big problem with this is on start up the filter bypasses quite a bit of oil. That means I was pumping the ground bearing material to the rest of the motor. BAD thing! Tonight I get to pull the pan to clean it out right. After the fact I realized that putting the turbo oil supply line into the return line was not the right thing to do either. The oiling system needs restriction in this line. The turbo normally supplies this. If you are taking the turbo off and running the motor plug the supply and return lines. My supply line is 3/8 double flair like a brake line. I don't know what is on yours.
The motor will run without the turbo. It is much louder. The exhaust needs to be routed into the exhaust piping. The motor will suck unfiltered air. The power will be way down. The motor will run very rich since there isn't the normal amount of air being pushed into it.
While working on my little Cummins which is in the truck in my avitar I noticed the turbo had some play and was leaking oil into both the intake and exhaust. I thougth it was simple enough to put a rebuild kit into it, so I did. Cheap fix...
I finally drove it for the first time a week ago. I noticed boost on the gauge and good EGT. About 6 miles later I noticed no boost and high EGT. I limped the truck home at slow speed. I pulled the turbo and took it apart. My new bearings were shot. The bearing OD was worn down and the ID was a bit big. The wheels had contacted on both ends. By this time a few days had passed. I wanted to check the oil but figured any bearing pieces would be laying in the bottom of the pan. I set up a turbo exhaust housing with a plate on the bearing side so I could hook up the exhaust. I ran the motor to circulate and warm the oil. I had the turbo oil supply tube stuck into the turbo drain line. After the warm up I drained the oil and pulled the filter. While the filter was draining I saw metalic coming out of it. The missing bearing material was coming out of the filter. The big problem with this is on start up the filter bypasses quite a bit of oil. That means I was pumping the ground bearing material to the rest of the motor. BAD thing! Tonight I get to pull the pan to clean it out right. After the fact I realized that putting the turbo oil supply line into the return line was not the right thing to do either. The oiling system needs restriction in this line. The turbo normally supplies this. If you are taking the turbo off and running the motor plug the supply and return lines. My supply line is 3/8 double flair like a brake line. I don't know what is on yours.
The motor will run without the turbo. It is much louder. The exhaust needs to be routed into the exhaust piping. The motor will suck unfiltered air. The power will be way down. The motor will run very rich since there isn't the normal amount of air being pushed into it.