With everything finally back together it was time to give it a test run.
It drove great, dare I say better with the intercooler now fitted but it’s hard to say with a self imposed rpm limit of 3.5k due to the lack of mapping beyond this point.
I was now seeing inlet temps of -1*c (!) but it was in the middle of the recent cold snap.
Returning back home and checking things over I heard the distinct sound of a bearing death rattle coming from the front of the engine.
Looking around I spotted it, due to a lack of air filter, the impeller of the turbo rattling around in the inlet housing. 😔
I know it’s a Chinese turbo but I’d expect it to last a little longer than this!
Switching off, I could rattle the shaft considerably.
Before getting too excited some investigation was needed.
First port of call all the pressure oil feed. I knew this was flowing as I’d checked it when I initially primed the engine before the first fire.
Undoing the banjo bolt had the oil line spring off and catapult the copper sealing washers across the garage… Cue 20 mins of NOT finding one of them making me twice as curse word off now.
Anyway, the oil port in the housing wasn’t dry but wasn’t over flowing with oil either.
Kind of stuck now I went to bolt the oil line back on with the banjo bolt when I thought I’d blow it through, nothing.
Some prodding produced this, the smoking gun.
The banjo bolt was for a turbo with a restrictor built in but it was so small it had blocked up with something, maybe debris from when the original crank and thrust face got destroyed, remember that drama?!
The restrictor did seem a little on the small side for a journal style bearing, it was under 1mm.
Stepping down to the pin drills found it to be 0.95mm!
Question now is, what size should it be?
There doesn’t seem a magic number but general consensus is as big as the seals will tolerate but a journal bearing turbo like I have should be 2mm upwards at least.
I drilled it out to 2mm and then later 2.5mm with no ill effects but now I’ve been told I should be starting at 3mm and going up from there!
Bolted back up the death rattle had gone and the turbo was running true again, maybe I’d got away with it?
Yeh, right…
I slept on it and had a better look at things with a fresh head the next day and straight away I could see the impeller fins were damaged from hitting the housing.
Off it came…
Removing the housing showed the true extend of the damage as all the fins were worn and burred over.
The housing was scarred.
The exhaust was even worse.
All the fins were rolled over from making contact with the housing and the wetness showed the seals were finished as well.
Quite simply it was scrap and a miracle it hadn’t self destructed in use.
The only silver lining to all this was it was only a £140 turbo and not a proper £1k Garret Jobbie.
I dug up the original Ebay listing to order another and apart from a small price increase there was now an uprated version available for a little more outlay again which included a billet wheel among other ‘upgrades’.
I put my order in late Sunday afternoon and it arrived 10am the next morning! 🤯
I had to re-cloak the new turbo and when I went to bolt the down pipe back on nothing lined up. I couldn’t get the bolts in the flange and it wouldn’t line up with the v-band on the wastegate.
I eventually decided to take it off again and compare the new exhaust housing to the old one.
It was obvious to see that the flange drillings were off on the housing.
The quick fix to this was to swap out the new exhaust housing with the old one as they are the same.
The old one wasn’t perfect because it had the scaring from the knackered bearing causing the fin contact but I’ve given up caring at this point.
I cleaned it up as best I could with emory cloth and bolted it all back together.
I quick check that I hadn’t lost the clearances and back on it went.
I now have my suspicions the oil feed may have been blocked or severely restricted for some time.
A job to address was the turbo oil return line which was leaking at the sump connection.
I had noticed that the leaking oil had accumulated behind the swivel end of the -10 and after stripping it down i found it was completely dry around the olive where the hose seals to the fitting.
I wondered if it could just be a faulty fitting? Luckily I had a new one in stock as mall the spare -10’s I’d sent back as they were so expensive to have them sitting in a draw. I just swapped out the barbed/swivel part rather than remake the whole line and so far it has stayed dry.
Attempt number two for the rolling road.
Strapped down and hooked up ready to go I just wanted to double check wether the injectors were sized correctly and as I covered earlier, they weren’t.
Four hours later not a wheel had turned and I drove back home with yet more hurdles to overcome.
It drove great, dare I say better with the intercooler now fitted but it’s hard to say with a self imposed rpm limit of 3.5k due to the lack of mapping beyond this point.
I was now seeing inlet temps of -1*c (!) but it was in the middle of the recent cold snap.
Returning back home and checking things over I heard the distinct sound of a bearing death rattle coming from the front of the engine.
Looking around I spotted it, due to a lack of air filter, the impeller of the turbo rattling around in the inlet housing. 😔
I know it’s a Chinese turbo but I’d expect it to last a little longer than this!
Switching off, I could rattle the shaft considerably.
Before getting too excited some investigation was needed.
First port of call all the pressure oil feed. I knew this was flowing as I’d checked it when I initially primed the engine before the first fire.
Undoing the banjo bolt had the oil line spring off and catapult the copper sealing washers across the garage… Cue 20 mins of NOT finding one of them making me twice as curse word off now.
Anyway, the oil port in the housing wasn’t dry but wasn’t over flowing with oil either.
Kind of stuck now I went to bolt the oil line back on with the banjo bolt when I thought I’d blow it through, nothing.
Some prodding produced this, the smoking gun.
The banjo bolt was for a turbo with a restrictor built in but it was so small it had blocked up with something, maybe debris from when the original crank and thrust face got destroyed, remember that drama?!
The restrictor did seem a little on the small side for a journal style bearing, it was under 1mm.
Stepping down to the pin drills found it to be 0.95mm!
Question now is, what size should it be?
There doesn’t seem a magic number but general consensus is as big as the seals will tolerate but a journal bearing turbo like I have should be 2mm upwards at least.
I drilled it out to 2mm and then later 2.5mm with no ill effects but now I’ve been told I should be starting at 3mm and going up from there!
Bolted back up the death rattle had gone and the turbo was running true again, maybe I’d got away with it?
Yeh, right…
I slept on it and had a better look at things with a fresh head the next day and straight away I could see the impeller fins were damaged from hitting the housing.
Off it came…
Removing the housing showed the true extend of the damage as all the fins were worn and burred over.
The housing was scarred.
The exhaust was even worse.
All the fins were rolled over from making contact with the housing and the wetness showed the seals were finished as well.
Quite simply it was scrap and a miracle it hadn’t self destructed in use.
The only silver lining to all this was it was only a £140 turbo and not a proper £1k Garret Jobbie.
I dug up the original Ebay listing to order another and apart from a small price increase there was now an uprated version available for a little more outlay again which included a billet wheel among other ‘upgrades’.
I put my order in late Sunday afternoon and it arrived 10am the next morning! 🤯
I had to re-cloak the new turbo and when I went to bolt the down pipe back on nothing lined up. I couldn’t get the bolts in the flange and it wouldn’t line up with the v-band on the wastegate.
I eventually decided to take it off again and compare the new exhaust housing to the old one.
It was obvious to see that the flange drillings were off on the housing.
The quick fix to this was to swap out the new exhaust housing with the old one as they are the same.
The old one wasn’t perfect because it had the scaring from the knackered bearing causing the fin contact but I’ve given up caring at this point.
I cleaned it up as best I could with emory cloth and bolted it all back together.
I quick check that I hadn’t lost the clearances and back on it went.
I now have my suspicions the oil feed may have been blocked or severely restricted for some time.
A job to address was the turbo oil return line which was leaking at the sump connection.
I had noticed that the leaking oil had accumulated behind the swivel end of the -10 and after stripping it down i found it was completely dry around the olive where the hose seals to the fitting.
I wondered if it could just be a faulty fitting? Luckily I had a new one in stock as mall the spare -10’s I’d sent back as they were so expensive to have them sitting in a draw. I just swapped out the barbed/swivel part rather than remake the whole line and so far it has stayed dry.
Attempt number two for the rolling road.
Strapped down and hooked up ready to go I just wanted to double check wether the injectors were sized correctly and as I covered earlier, they weren’t.
Four hours later not a wheel had turned and I drove back home with yet more hurdles to overcome.