Ever seen a hole in a turbo housing? I'm a newbie who just got his first Benz a couple of weeks ago. The car is an '87 300D Turbo. It has 162k mi, No rust (a miracle up here in Massachusetts), a new injector pump and exhaust parts, new vacuum pump, and has been maintained by the same shop for the guy who has owned it since '88. I bought it from the shop, which is a used benz guy who has been in the same place 25 years. They seemed like a reputable place...
I thought the car was a bit pokey when I test drove it, but I figured some simple stuff would fix that. On the highway headed home, I had the famous loss of power on hills. I read up on this forum, ordered some filters, diesel purge, etc. (thanks, dieselgiant for your time and technical advice) While I was waiting for my parts I started looking the car over. I took off the plastic splash shield/pan(?) under the tranny and engine to check things out, and was looking at my turbo from below when I saw a slit on the bottom of the turbo housing The slit is on the bottom of the cast iron part of the turbo which houses the vanes which spin in the exhaust. The slit is about 3/8" long and 1/16 to 3/32" wide. I would post a pic but don't know how. If someone who does wants to send me a message on how to do it, I will gladly post the pic. I started the car and got under it, and sure enough I could feel exhaust blowing out of it. Could this explain my power loss on hills? Any advice on changing turbos? I hear these turbos never go bad, has anybody done one?
In fairness to the guy I bought this from, he is not a diesel benz guy and may not have known about the hole. I think he told me someone else put the injector pump in for him. When I bought the car the guy told me verbally it was "as-is", but I don't see "as-is" written anywhere on the purchase agreement. It does say "This vehicle carries an express warranty. Purchaser may obtain a written copy of the warranty from the dealer upon request. Purchaser will receive the written warranty at time of delivery". I received no written warranty at time of delivery. Anybody think I have any recourse with the dealer? I'm going to give it a try...

i know in florida dealerships.. big or small are required by law to have a full coverage warrenty on the car they sell you for 90 days.. after that its all you.. but thats fl

that is a strange thing to have happen. probably a flawed casting. i bet it has been that way for a long time. if your paperwork has a warrenty mentioned i would think that would supercede a verbal condition.

i bet the injection pump was innocent. they were chasing a power loss. the injection pumps rarely give trouble,in my experience. of course the turbos rarely fail either.

they may be happy to participate in the repair. a good used turbo will probably solve the problem. they probably would have fixed it if they had known what the cause of the power loss was. they also probably paid a pittance for it with the power loss.

btw, good thing you are a newby. a more experienced person probably would never have thought to suspect the turbo. we all know they hardly ever go bad.

good luck on getting them to fix it. it is worth a try.

tom w

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

If you want to e-mail it to LNewcomb99@cox.net , I can work the picture to size for posting.

Plan B. You may be faced with making a decision, instead of the seller repairing or offering to they may just take it back.
I would probably look for a used replacement turbo on Ebay or in a junkyard
and do the job myself.
Turbo replacement has to be one of the easier jobs, couple hours, no really unusual tools needed.

For under a few hundred dollars you'll have that car in tip-top shape.

Just my opinion.

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80 300D 340K Owned 30 yrs
83 300SD 440K Owned 9 yrs - Daily Driver 150mi/day
02 Z71 Suburban 117,000
15 Toyota Prius 2600 miles
00 Harley Sportster 24k
09 Yamaha R6
03 Ninja 250

It sounds as though you have a very nice car. If the agreement was as is, I would hold up my end for such a simple repair. You just have to find a junk turbo to canibalize.

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green 85 300SD 200K miles "Das Schlepper Frog" With a OM603 TBO360 turbo ( To be intercooled someday )( Kalifornistani emissons )
white 79 300SD 200K'ish miles "Farfegnugen" (RIP - cracked crank)
desert storm primer 63 T-bird "The Undead" (long term hibernation)

http://ecomodder.com/forum/fe-graphs/sig692a.png

Here is the picture. Underside of the turbine housing. Almost looks like corrosion from the inside out.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Oh I was getting ready to respond to this and I saw that it was the same turbo. Was wondering if 2 turbos in 2 days could have had a hole in them.

I got your phone message and will call you tommorow.

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1981 300D 147k
1998 VW Jetta Tdi 320k
2001 Dodge Ram 2500 141k
1979 300D 234k (sold)
1984 300D "Astor" 262k(sold)
Mercedes How-To and Repair Pictorials
I love the smell of diesel smoke in my hair

Any tips for replacing the turbo? Rhodes, sounds like you are familiar with this process. I have the old turbo off, and acquired a scavenged one. I am replacing the oil return and supply line gaskets/o-rings to avoid leaks. I am replacing the charge air tube gasket where the tube hooks to the intake. Any other gaskets I should replace? How about the huge green o-rings that go from the compressor to the intake (turbo to short transition tube, transition tube to mixer pipe, mixer pipe to air charge tube)? What are the "turbo seals" that people talk about going bad? I have cleaned the crud off the outside of the turbo. Should I flush it out with some kind of solvent? Should I run some oil through the oil supply holes so it doesn't cook itself before any oil gets to it? Also, while removing the turbo I stripped the head of the allen screw that holds the mixer pipe with the egr to the head. You know, that screw that is in the impossible to reach place under the exhaust manifold? Argh. So, I took out my trusty welder and welded an allen wrench into the screw. It came out like buttah. While trying to access this screw, I loosened my exhaust manifold nuts. While retorqueing, I checked a bolt that I didn't think I had loosened, just to be sure. Good thing I did, because that sucker broke right off with VERY little torque. The end of the stud was only hanging on by a thread for a long time, The broken end was all covered with soot except for the tiny thread that broke when I turned it. OK, I'm glad I found this broken stud now, rather than having to take the turbo out again later. In removing the manifold, I broke another stud, and found one already completely sheared off some time ago. The gasket is all covered with crud on three cylinders, indicating to me that this car has been losing exhaust in these areas for some time. This would also contribute to lack of turbo function! I am having the manifold resurfaced since it rocked when placed on my tablesaw table to check it for flat. I am currently trying to get out the busted studs. Drilled and tapped one out successfully so far, have a nicely centered hole started in a second. The third is the one closest to the firewall, and it's pretty tight to get in there. I bought a $20 craftsman right angle attachment, and have been using it. I will have to shorten a drill bit to get to this last hole. I tried some craftsman powered screw extractors, which immediately broke. I will be looking for some real ez outs today. Also put some small scratches on the head in this process. How serious is this? Should I apply some type of sealer to the gasket to compensate? Should I polish the scratches out with fine sandpaper? I have up to 2000 grit. What an adventure! The pressure is on a little to get this job done since my dad already thinks i'm silly to have bought a 20 yr old car and i don't want him to see it in pieces in my garage if he comes around. I'll keep updating as the saga continues....

Ok, so I got the busted studs out. It took about 12 hours all told. I broke a drill bit off in the last hole, the one that was really hard to get to up near the firewall. I then ordered some carbide burrs from mscdirect.com and used those and some aluminum oxide grinding points to sloooowwly grind the broken drill bit out. I had to bend over and stick my head into the engine compartment next to the coolant expansion tank. I spent hours in this position. I had to use a flashlight and a dental mirror to check my progress since the work was mostly done blind. Thank God , I finally got the thing drilled out and tapped and it held up when I torqued down the manifold. When I installed the turbo, I got everything together and went to install the trap oxidizer pipe between the exhaust manifold and the turbo.... the pipe didn't fit, it seemed too short. Since it was 2am, I decided to sleep on it, and today I went out there and loosened the bolts on the support brackets for the turbo. The turbo was able to slide back toward the exhaust manifold, and behold, the trap oxidizer pipe was no longer too short! So all went together fine. While working on the car I also noticed that the alda housing is cracked, so I was not surprised when my test drive still produced a zero to sixty time of about 50 seconds and loss of speed on hills. My mityvac silverline plus hasn't arrived yet, so I have no way to measure boost as of yet, and with a cracked alda, there is no way to tell if the turbo is working by the seat of the pants. I changed my fuel filters today, and will run some diesel purge soon. Will update when I get a boost reading or a new (used) alda.

good work.

tom w

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

damn

If it were my car i would have cleaned the surface with a metal brush, put a small strip of aluminum tape over the hole and covered that sucker with as much JB Weld as i could.

I am ghetto like that. God i love JB Weld

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1984 300D / The only Benz I have

Completed weekend projects

1. R/R front crankshaft seal
2. R/R nearly the whole vacuum system
3. Converted to WVO www.greasemachine.com
4. Upgraded to electric power locks
5. Upgraded and rewired stereo/amp/speakers
6. Installed 2.88 differential

"Out of the mouths of babes."

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"Buster" in the '95

Our all-Diesel family
1996 E300D (W210) . .338,000 miles Wife's car
2005 E320 CDI . . 113,000 miles My car
Santa Rosa population 176,762 (2022)
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . 627,762
"Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."
-- Janis Joplin, October 1, 1970

Wonder if you can actually weld her back?
Probably have to take out the turbo, bearings as the heat may F it up.

Try some experience weld shop.

Or buy another housing on Ebay ot junk yard.
Your impellers should be OK, I hope.

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what that hole looks like to me is when the trap oxidizer goes bad,over time it shoots a bunch of debris into the turbo and errodes it from the inside out creating the hole. does your 300D happen to be a california model? if it is then mercedes will cover the repair and not only remove the trap oxidizer and replace it with an oxidizing cat, but replace the turbo with a new one free. not sure if it is too late, hope you read this, i cannot believe someone didn't catch this before me.