Hi all -

Hooked up a gauge on my 85 300TD and checked boost, 9PSI max, KKK turbo, adjusting the wastegate has no effect whatsoever, but removing the wastegate hose from the manifold certainly does I noticed that I can blow air through the hose, seems to be leaking out of the wastegate housing somewhere - shouldn't this hold air?

Thanks!

No. There are vents on the housing.

Maybe a quick rundown on how the wastegate operates would be helpful. If there are vents, then how does it sense when to blow off boost?

I don't know much about the intricacies of the wastegate. And adjusting it looked a whole lot harder than to chicken out like I did. I found it much easier to install a boost controller with the boost guage than to adjust the wastegate. The unit I got is a Voodoo found everywhere on ebay--$12. But if you're handy and know your way around a hardware store, I bet you could put one together for a couple of dollars. I even heard of a guy wrapping the hose with a worm style clamp and just applying pressure to the hose as a boost controller.

__________________

1998 E300D, 287k, barely broken in.

From the web somewhere: How does a Wastegate work?
A Wastegate is simply a turbine bypass valve. It works by diverting some portion of the exhaust gas around, instead of through, the turbine. This limits the amount of power that the turbine can deliver to the compressor, thereby limiting the turbo speed and boost level that the compressor provides.

* The actuator is calibrated by internal spring pressure to begin opening the Wastegate valve at a predetermined boost level.
* When this boost level is reached, the valve will open and begin to bypass exhaust gas, preventing boost from increasing.
-----------

Here is a picture of the vent hole. It prevents oil from pooling in the wastegate.

Attached Thumbnails