Bad turbo?

[PSD_rookie]

Ok so I have a 95 f250 with 223k miles on it, and after the truck sits over night, roughly 8+ hours, when I start it up, it puff out a cloud of smoke and kinda lopes for 10-15 seconds. The smoke has a rather blue hue to it, it doesn't smell like straight oil, but I've truthfully only smelled burning oil on gassers. It smokes a little bit for roughly 2 minutes or so, til everything gets nice and lubed up I guess. It also has the same smoke if I rev it to 2500 rpm in park/neutral. I haven't noticed any power loss, doesn't smoke while driving, no other symptoms I can think of. A buddy of mine said the turbo is probably about to go out... any ideas/input would be greatly appreciated.

[chevy joe]

im not to knowledgeable about diesels but my buddys truck has bad turbo seals and it smokes blue under accel pretty bad. goes through oil pretty good to.

just first impression of your symptoms makes me think you have a few non-functioning glow plugs, as unburnt diesel fuel comes out the tailpipe blue/white and that would explain the loping/rough idle on start up.

[PSD_rookie]

The glow plugs were changed out by the previous owner roughly 20k miles ago, and that was my first thought was excess diesel burning off the start, but the smoke has a bit more of a burnt oil smell than regular diesel.

I pulled my intake and it had oil inside the piping from the crankcase breather hose. So I started it for a very short bit without the intake and it was puffing out a good bit of smoke from the hose. I am now thinking that I have some blow-by, but the odd thing is that I don't have any power loss that I would expect from any compression issues. any ideas?

[Radcustoms]

U will know if the turbo is about to go mine made a squealing noise in the down pipe. Fired the bearings inside and had alot of shaft play. If u have oil coming out of the exhaust then its prob about to go cuz that means the seal is shot. Did u check for shaft play when u had intake off? some smoke will come out of the crank case breather but i dont think its anything to worry about. Sounds like it could be something else maybe an injector issue or weak HPOP.

[PSD_rookie]

I ended up runnin some lucas fuel injector cleaner, and the big plume of smoke at start up is gone, but it still smokes lightly for about 2 minutes roughly. I didn't feel any shaft play when I took the intake off, but a buddy that knows a lot about the 7.3 engines said that the turbo is probably about to go. I am thinking about buying a rebuild kit for it with new seals and new intake wheel, do you think that will be good, or probably whole need a new turbo?

[Radcustoms]

If there is no shaft play the turbo should still be good. Cuz only thing that can ruin it if it dont get oil to the bearings or the thrust bearing goes but then u would have shaft play. No shaft play and no oil out the exhaust i would say ur good to go. unless ur not building any boost what numbers u seeing? Its up to u if u wanna do new turbo its not to hard to rebuild one there is a write up out there on it. what kinda wheel do u wanna put in it?

[PSD_rookie]

what numbers would you be referring to? I haven't ran a dyno yet, no aftermarket gauges yet. As far as wheel, probably stick with oem, anything with better spooling time/louder spool is welcome, not sure what wheels would do that though.

[Radcustoms]

sorry i was wondering what u were seeing on ur boost gauge. but u said u dont have one.something to look into doing gauges help with alot of things. The stock wheels are pretty good the way they are. Just dont let anyone sell u on a wicked wheel cuz ur truck has that already obs trucks came stock with them. Some people say the SD wheel in the obs trucks move more air not sure how true it is.

[PSD_rookie]

I plan on either replacing the wheel with like an x-wheel or getting a direct replacement. I am going to get gauges as soon as I get the income again.
*Also, what did the squealing sound like, was it almost like old brake pads, just slightly muffled?

[96F350KID]

If you replace the wheel you need to get the turbo balanced otherwise the turbo shaft will shake, kills bearings, and turbo seals. You might just have oil settling at the bottom of the turbo housing and when you fire it up it sucks it in.