Rebuilding Turbo
 

Does anyone have any info about rebuilding the turbo on my 300D? The bearings are most likely shot since the impeller shaft is pretty lose and I'm leaving a bluish white smoke cloud behind me. The prices I've seen for buying a rebuilt one are out of control. Any suggestions?

Thanks

They are cake to rebuild (both the triple-K and the Garrett's), but you'll need some basic parts. Two plain bearings, one thrust, seals/gaskets and two rings ("shaft seals") - Remember to get the mounting gaskets before you do the build.

If you get stuck during the rebuild, email me, should only take about 40mins for the build, not inlcuding cleaning time.

Tips:

Take the intake manifold off and have it boiled/cleaned out while the turbo is off. Do an egr block-off plate while you're at it also.

Pull the oil drain tube out of the pan and replace the seal there (get that seal before you do this!)

Use an awl on the snap rings (only need to remove the outers that hold the bearings into the cartridge) if you don't have tips that small, works fine.

Don't use thick grease for re-assy, it can plug the oil passages for a short time and allow the shaft to overheat.

Clean ALL the coking off the shaft and be VERY careful with the shaft and turbine/compressor. Just one good bump on the turbine and it's HX.

Remember, index the shaft/nut/compressor fan BEFORE removing and remember it is LEFT-HAND THREAD!

Clean the housings and paint them while apart with stove paint or header paint (rust looks awful on a new rebuilt ANYTHING.)

Torque the nut to a max of 18inlbs and use locktite on it. Once on, put a SMALL peen on the edge of the nut next to the threads to keep it from coming off.

Here's a pic of a compressor fan from the turbo that was on my Cummins when I bought it (there was this "ringing" sound coming from the compressor), looked like the nut came off and all hell broke loose (don't let this happen to you!):

http://home.comcast.net/~tomj/images/turbo2.JPG

On my spare turbo, I pulled the compressor and impeller fans off the shaft before I realized that I should have indexed them. Can I balance the assembly later like one balances a model airplane prop?

Turbo:
 

There is a post in the archives that list a company in Houston that will sell you parts.
Or will rebuild the unit for you, at a lot more money.

Don't worry so much about the fans, they are independantly balanced, it's just that I like to put the assy back EXACTLY as it was to remove any possibility of grief. Also, no reason to remove the turbine fan from the shaft (not sure how you did that anyway?), just the compressor so the assy can be removed.

ANOTHER TIP:

Chamfer the turbine side hole of the housing where the ring (seal that looks like a piston ring) goes into it with a large enough angle that the ring can compress and not pinch (polishing the chamfer while the cartridge is apart is also a good idea, you'll understand when you get to that point) and don't forget the heat shield (cup thingie) BEFORE you install the shaft.

Thanks for the info. Before I get the turbo rebuilt, couldn't I just disconnect the oil intake from the turbo and cap it off. This way I could avoid the smoke problem and still use the car. I realize that without lubrication the turbo blades won't spin, but I wouldn't do any further damage to the turbo, would I? When I first got the car it didn't have a turbo (engine had been replaced) and besides it being slow, there didn't seem to be any problems.

WHOA!!!! STOP!!!!! You will DESTROY your turbo by doing that. It will likely grenade without oil and send pieces into your intake. There is a reason it has a pressurized oil line - IT NEEDS IT!

The exhaust will still spin the turbo up, but without oil the shaft will be destroyed and will wipe out the bearings and allow the fans to touch their respective housings and all hell will break loose (see my earlier pic for what you would likely see.)

There is little you can do until you can take the turbo off and replace the bearings or at least the seals. If you were close, I'd offer to do the work just to keep you from destroying it D/C'ing oil lines and such.

You say it didn't have a turbo when you bought it, is this a turbo engine, or a turbo kit on a non-turbo engine?

Thanks Tom. I thought maybe the blades would just seize up and the turbo would effectively just shut down. I guess I'll have to pull the whole turbo off this weekend. The car is a 300SD that was repowered with an engine from a 300D. Somehow or other, the turbo was misplaced and never re-installed up until about a year ago. I drove the car turbo-less for about 6 months or so.

If you have the non-turbo manifolds, you could just swap those in so you can drive the car while rebuilding (the actual build shouldn't take more than an hour or so, but waiting for parts, cleaning, painting, etc., could take some time.)

Try a cartridge..
 

I just "rebuilt" my turbo by buying a complete "cartridge" from East Coast Turbo, LLC out of Locust, North Carolina. The cartridge contains all the working "inards" of a complete turbo, balanced and ready to drop into your housing. The cost was $250 with free shipping, plus $60 core....very reasonable....I don't remember their price for a complete turbo, but it was reasonable (maybe another 100 dollars).

I found these folks very helpful and very nice to deal with over the phone...very friendly, very down to earth, and very willing to answer your questions and help out.

The cartridge replacement job requires removal of the turbo (obviously) which is not so easy...some bolts hard to access...I removed the entire manifold then took the turbo off of that when out of the car. Once the turbo is out, you remove the intake and exhaust housings on each end...each held in place by several bolts. As is usually the case with these types of things, all bolts EXCEPT ONE were very easy to remove. One was difficult due to close proximity to housing and difficult access (I had to grind down a box-end wrench) ....even then, it was very difficult to remove due to limited room for the arc of the wrench. It took me over an hour to get this one bolt off!!!

Re-assemble is a little tricky, but nothing my simple mind couldn't figure out. You want to mark the orientation of the two housings to the cartride BEFORE you dissassemble then mark on the new cartride so that the "mating faces" (manifold to block, turbo to manifold, etc.) match up. Its also a little tricky getting one of the housings off then putting it on the new cartridge...like one of those mechanical puzzles that first looks like it cant be done.

To make your life easier during this project (whether you use a cartride, complete turbo, or attempt rebuild), I would remove the battery and battery and battery tray, and the heat shield between exhaust header and wheel hump. You also need a manifold gasket set. Also, replace the gasket, o-rings and rubber grommet to the turbo oil drain tube (from turbo to oil pan) and the air cleaner oil drain tube (from air cleaner housing to oil pan). When replacing the gasket between turbo and oil train tube, make sure mating surfaces are very clean, and use a gasket sealant to make sure this doesnt leak!! When I did mine, I did not use a sealant and the f#$&^+g thing leaks...now that its all together, I can't access the bolts!!!

Another hint....when I detached the exhaust header pipe from the turbo, I moved it back out of the way, and the flex portion of the header pipe collapsed due to rust....so before you do this job, check this, otherwise like me, you will be trying to locate a header pipe on the day of the project.

Another thing, to remove the manifold/turbo assembly, you need to bend the auto-transmission dipstick tube out of the way....after I did the entire job, I had a major leak of ATF...this was caused by moving the fill tube and distorting the seal where it connects to the pan housing. So, replacing the one simple o-ring at the base of the fill tube is another good general maintenance thing to do while the manifold is out....much more difficult to do as I did after all put back together.

Finally, when handling the turbo cartridge, do not get grease on the blades, and be VERY CAREFULL with it...one slip and you can break/bend the turbo blades and you will need another one.

If I were to rate the level of difficulty of this job, I would call it "advanced amateur"...lots of tricky "PITA" things, but no special tools required. It took me a full day...much longer than I anticipated, but I ran into a few unexpected problems.

Good Luck,

Mark

Where are the gaskets for the turbo located? Do any have a pin size hole? The reason I'm asking is that I have a very load whistling sound coming from mine and was told it's due to a pin size hole in a turbo gasket and I have no idea what gasket they are talking about.

Thanks,

Scott

I would like to also rebuild the SDL's
 

Ive seen quite a few kits that have all the "goodies" but is this ok?
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=TURBO+REBUILD+KIT+GARRETT+T3&_sacat=0&_from=R40

that pinhole is not supposed to be there....its a leak that formed in the gasket....the gasket between the turbine housing and the rear backing plate....

or the intake/exhaust manifold gasket....sort of like when you put a blade of grass between your thumbs and blew through it as a kid.....

For what it has, that's a good price, I'd buy a few if I could afford to have inventory just for stock. The price is good and if I needed one, I'd buy this rather than kitting it myself as I've done in the past.

Does anyone have an exploded diagram for the T-3? I have revisited my "project" and I forgot where all of the bits go and the orientation of the thrust washer..

mea cupla.....


Thanks