Turbo Leak 671 TI

[SKYCHENEY]

John,
Take your turbo to Michigan Turbo in Grand Rapids. They will either rebuild or exchange. Most likely you will just get hit with their minimum charge which is $400, I think.

http://www.michiganturbo.com/

[John Dickson]

Genesis - Thanks for the comments, should be to the boat this coming weekend for the airbox inspection and pics. Will post. Is the collector the pipe from the manifold to the turbo housing? Is there a procedure for the flange bolts? Looks like they've been on there for awhile.

Sky - Thanks for the turbo referral, I'll give em a call and ship it as I am in Shelby Twp. north of Detroit.

John

[Genesis]

No, the collector is the exhaust pipe coming out of the turbo and going to the showerhead and then out of the boat.

For the flange bolts my recommendation is to use a shitload of PB Blaster and BE PATIENT. If you try to force them you WILL break the studs. The steel anneals over time with the extreme temperature changes and the nuts tend to seize on the stud; if you crank on it you'll snap 'em. Spray with PB, wait an hour, try to loosen with moderate force, if no joy spray again, wait another hour, etc. You may take a couple of DAYS to get them off this way, but they will come without breaking.

The bad news is that if you break one or more studs you're in for fun. The only solution then is to drill them out and the flange is prone to break as the hot pipe is cast iron and that stuff is quite brittle. If you break the flange you're buying a new hotpipe, and while they're not terribly expensive they can be VERY hard to find. If you find yourself having to drill the studs center-punch the stud and drill a pilot hole 1/2" deep or so with a very small carbide bit so the drill doesn't jump on you. I have about a 75/25 record on being able to drill those out if necessary without breaking the flange - if you do break a stud and manage to drill it successfully consider removing the other studs (PB Blaster will allow you remove them if they're intact, again, taking your time), drill the threads (carefully - again, if the drill grabs you can snap the cast iron) and then use the turbo bolt and nut sets that Caterpillar has - they make a special high-temperature bolt set for turbos that is IMHO a much better solution and avoids this nonsense in the future. I've never broken a stud taking my time, but I've fixed a half-dozen of these for friends over the years who have snapped 'em by being impatient. Oh, and if you do snap a stud it is GUARANTEED to break flush with the flange or worse - just slightly proud (much harder to drill!) but not high enough to get a tool on it - you know Murphy, right?

The nuts are castellated and should not be reused in any event as they will not properly lock a second time. For obvious reasons (1000F temperatures!) you can't use Nylocks or similar. Some guys use high-temp anti-seize on the studs on re-install; I find it doesn't really make much difference down the road if you do or don't but it probably doesn't hurt - either way you're going to take your time and use lots of PB on subsequent removal.

Once you get the studs out the flange surface should be checked to make sure its true and not eroded; minor imperfections can be cleaned up with a flat sander; stuff a rag in the pipe so dust doesn't go back into the engine. Make real sure you're not sanding the flange out of true!

When you reinstall the new turbo check the drain pipe on the bottom for the oil and make sure it is not obstructed in any way (it must drain freely to work properly), and use a new gasket on that connection. If the oil feed line hasn't been changed in five years or more, change it now and use the proper hose for it. On the first start make very certain the turbo has oil before you allow the engine to fire as the bearing HAS TO be flooded before the turbo is allowed to spin. Hold the STOP and crank until oil pressure is achieved so as to insure that the bearing has oil before the engine is started for the first time.

That's pretty much it - its not a difficult job, just one that requires patience with the flange bolts to avoid making the job take about 5x as long

[MikeP]

When dealing with recalcitrant fittings, TIGHTEN them first rather than trying to loosen them. This will usually break the bond and allow them to be removed with little drama. It only requires the slightest bit of fastener tightening movement to break the bond - if it moved at all, then that's sufficient. If fittings are badly corroded, you may need to tighten a fraction/loosen a turn or even less, tighten it again, loosen to a bit beyond where it was before, and repeat this process until the fitting is removed. It takes far less torque to tighten a fitting than to loosen it if there is any corrosion/whatever and all you need to do is break that bond.

Personally, I have had very mixed luck with any of the penetrants as far as releasing badly seized fittings but they do work fine IF the penetrant can actually penetrate through the corrosion. I know a lot of folks swear buy various brands like PB, Kroil, etc but I haven't found any of them to work any better (or worse) than MMO or WD 40 and I have never seen a boat without WD40 on board!

[MikeP]

Sorry - should have added this to the previous post...

One of the best ways to handle seized nuts is with a nut splitter. If access permits, it's the easiest and fastest way to deal with them. Takes maybe a minute to break the old nut without damaging the threads at all. Afterwards, wire brush the threads and install a new nut. Obviously, if you are dealing with bolts, this won't work.

We worked on many old engines and, in many cases, we'd use a nut splitter without even trying to loosen some of the nuts. You could tell by looking at the fittings that it wasn't worth the trouble to try and remove the old ones and we wanted new fittings anyway...

[John Dickson]

Ok, got some pics of my airboxes
due to limitations I will post in several posts
here are the first three

[John Dickson]

Here are the last three cylinders, actually 4, 5, 6 going to forward from aft

[John Dickson]

Ok, check out number 5 in the previous post, looks like it could be missing a ring. Here also is the intercooler and turbo vanes

[Genesis]

Airboxes don't look bad. The parts of the skirts I can see look ok, and there's no carbon obstructing the ports. The oil film in there is normal. Believe me, I've seen some NASTY airboxes in the past. The way to check the rings is to roll the engine by hand until you can see them in each individual port, then press on them with something wood like a skewer stick. They should have a "spring" to them - if they don't they're broken somewhere in their circumference.

The intercooler is badly fouled as is the turbo compressor wheel. Since you're going to R&R the turbo anyway, that's no big deal. The Intercooler should be removed and the air side cleaned - brake cleaner (several cans) will do the job quite well. Its a hella-messy job - don't even think about trying to do it in the boat.

Looks like you dodged serious damage and have some cleanup work to do - I'd clean the intercooler, replace the turbo, and run the boat.

[captddis]

Take some pics of the rings, It looks like a broken and missing ring in the pic. The airboxes are nasty. The soot has mixed with the oil in the airbox and made the black mung.. I would consider kits at this point. If you do kits, remove the blower and clean the airboxes until a white rag passes through and comes out white. Check the exhaust side turbine for damage from the ring[s]. Good luck.