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It's me again Margaret... want a bad turbo?

2K views 23 replies 8 participants last post by  marjamar 
#1 ·
Got around to taking off my turbo this 2004 Ford F350 6.0L powerstroke this past Monday. Thought I was going to find some carboned up and stuck VGR vanes and exciter ring. I did, but also a whole lot more.

Evidently, at some point this turbo has been really hot. The exhaust turbine wheel has been breaking little pieces off the tips of the blades and shooting them into the vanes. It looks like thousands of sand sized and smaller pits bombarded the vanes. So much so, some of them have small holes in the faces adjacent to the turbine blades. Most of them have dents in them as well from the projectiles hitting them over and over.

If you remember reading my previous posts I had recently installed the SCT Livewire ST and had remarked how much better the turbo was working, stuck vanes and all with the street setting. It was working so much better, I almost thought I'd wait on doing the turbo cleaning job. Glad I decided not to wait, this turbo could have had a massive failure if a big hunk of blade let loose.

So, that's the bad news.

The good news is I found a brand new exact replacement turbo cheap and will be installing it today. I am seriously thinking of installing a EGT pyro sensor and coupling it to the SCT Livewire TS. Don't want this kind of damage happening to the new turbo. Anyone do this? I need to do some research on it, as I don't seen anything in the manual about it. I would think this tuner should have a method of working a EGT pyro sensor to keep the temps at a safe level. I'm hoping the Livewire has an option to de-fuel at a certain EGT temp.

Thanks for the helps along the way to getting this truck made into an 5th wheel hauler.

-Rodger
 
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#3 ·
If you had a camera mounted under the hood while you pulled a 3% grade hauling a load, you would see the turbo actually can glow red under normal towing circumstances.
 
#4 ·
When I get to the shop, I'll take a couple pics and post them. It seems obvious to me the blades are heat damaged over time and have become too stressed to hold together. Only other thing would be particles coming from the engine itself causing damage to the blades. Engine is fine and has good compression, good oil pressure and always starts right up. So unless the engine has been rebuilt, which I doubt, what else can cause this?

-Rodger
 
#5 ·
Hard to say but its not from heat. They are designed to be under extreme heat. I rebuilt mine at 165k miles and all I found was a bad oil ring. The wheels looked great.
 
#6 ·
My 03 truck had the exact same thing with the exhaust wheel and veins. It's like someone went in there and chewed them up.

My engine runs fine too so I never figured out the root cause. I just replaced the turbo and all is well. I was told something came out of the engine and through the turbo... But the truck runs great just like yours...


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#7 ·
These wheels can spin in excess of 100k rpms (yes, 100,000) and one "tiny" piece of debris from the engine hitting the wheel will do just exactly this. A piece of carbon the size of a grain of sand.....
 
#9 ·
Who's pryo are you using? The only one I have found for the Livewire is on Amazon. It's very expensive and works with a USB dongle or something to connect to the Livewire. Seems like too much for what it is to me.

I'm going to keep looking. I'd like to keep it under $100.

-Rodger
 
#12 ·
I've never had a cooling issue in the 2 years I've owned this truck -- At least not indicated any heat issues on the gauges.

Here's a couple of pics. Seems like alot of carbon crusted over alot of the damaged areas on the turbin wheel and on the vanes. This makes it seem to me that it's damage done some time back, not recently.

-Rodger
 

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#11 ·
Wrong turbo shipped...

Now I have a downed truck waiting for another turbo. Bought this from buyautoparts.com. Phoned in and made sure (more then a couple of times) the turbo was the EXACT part number and brand of my original turbo. The sales person was very explicit he had the exact same turbo in the store and would ship it out that same day. Well, he did ship it out, but it was not the exact turbo, not even close. It was a generic part number that was suppose to fit, but the part number on my turbo was not listed on the matches it could fit -- This was from their own website!

When I called the guy back, he said that it was strange it wouldn't work as most of these turbos will work!?!

He said hold on and I'll transfer you to customer service! He was right, that "hold-on" was the beginning of a 2 hour phone call.

As it turns out, the shipping department told the customer service guy they didn't have the exact turbo, so they sent this one out instead? Is everything always so confused these days -- Sure seems that way to me.

The customer service guy was supportive, seemed concerned about what happened, but long story short, I don't have the turbo I ordered and paid for to install, and won't until next week. Next Monday I was going to use this truck on some work, guess not now. Ch-Ching! That's the sound of more of my money lost.

Interesting thing about this seller is their spiel about guarantees, and all US (no overseas) phone support. I don't think it helped me much. Also, the support guy said he needs to charge my CC again for the new (hopefully correct) turbo to be sent to me when they get it in. I guess I'm the crook here, or at least I am being treated like it. How hard is it to hold the CC number and if no return turbo comes back in 30 days, charge it?

So, don't know of others luck with buyautoparts.com, but I will steer clear of them in the future. Hope they do come though with the right turbo -- Eventually!

Word to the wise should be sufficient I hope.

-Rodger
 
#13 ·
Yeah that doesnt look like heat caused it. That looks like either something got sucked through it or theres some shaft play
 
#15 ·
Wow dude that's sucks...that doesn't look like heat damage....If u Google glowing hot turbos you'll see pics of them bright red hot as hell...something got suckd in to cause that
 
#16 ·
I had a customer in the shop today who was a retired diesel mechanic. Showed him the truck and the turbo. He is of the opinion that there is internal damage to motor that has passed though the exhaust into the turbine. I can't say I disagree as it has occurred to me just about every time I think about this. Since I have only had this truck for a couple of years, I really have no history to speak of on it. The engine could very easily have been broke and fixed at some point in it's life and I would never have know about it. If so, I may be good to go getting a this new turbo installed. But then again if the engine is right now breaking, this is not good. Especially since I can have another brand new damaged turbo shortly after installing it.

What to do?

I suppose I can do a compression test on the cylinders, but I would most likely farm that out. I guess I could just put it together and cross my fingers. What else? Anyone good at this stuff here (that is a pun obviously)?

-Rodger
 
#17 ·
what i would do is put the new turbo back on it and drive the truck. When you have down time take the "new" turbo off and make sure the wheel looks good...
 
#18 ·
Yeah, I could. Problem is, it might cost me a lot more then finding out now if I have a damaged piston/rings or chipped exhaust valve or something. I need to see what my mechanic would charge me to do a cylinder compression test I suppose. That would tell me if I have a problem in one or more cylinders.

-Rodger
 
#19 ·
I am wondering if anyone has ever found, made, or used any type of exhaust inlet filter on their turbocharger. Seems there should be something available to keep broken engine parts from getting into the turbo. Even a simple stainless mess screen built into a short expansion chamber in front of the turbo should work I'd expect. Something with an inspection/clean-out port maybe. I know this would restrict flow, but maybe if designed right with a large enough expansion chamber, it would be OK.

Anyways, just wondering. I would really like to not break a brand new turbo if I have engine parts still coming out.

-Rodger
 
#20 ·
No such screen that I know of.
If I woke up in your shoes, I would get the compression test done like you mentioned, maybe even pull the heads and inspect the valves. Depending on what was found, fix it and go on. Good time to stud it and delete the EGR if you have not already.
 
#21 ·
I can get a cylinder compression test done pretty reasonable, so I'll check the engine for internal damage this way. Hopefully it will be good. I might see if they can do a visual inspection thought the injector port as well. I wouldn't mind them doing this, just in case there is some damage that doesn't show up with the compression test.

Maybe I need to invent a turbo inlet screen. I'll give it some thought.

-Rodger
 
#22 · (Edited)
Well finally got the new replacement turbo in and installed. No real problems putting it in except a leaking exhaust inlet at the turbo/up-pipe connectors. Alignment may have been the issue, even though I had everything aligned within less then 1/8" together and concentric as close as eyes can see. Tried all kinds of things to close the 1/8" gap, but nothing really worked. Figured the V-band clamp might close it when tightened, so I used a small squeeze bottle of 15w 30 to "wet" the connectors and some anti-seize on inner surface the clamp and clamp threads.

Got the clamp in place and tightened semi-snug where I could still rotate it to make sure it "felt right" on the connector flanges. Using a 3/8" ratchet, begin to tighten and lightly tap on the up-pipe a bit at the same time. Got it where I felt it was tight enough and put everything back together. Truck started real nice, but Andy could hear a leak. My bad ears would never have heard it, but sure enough, putting my hand back behind the clamp, there was a leak hitting my fingers. Trucked it back in the shop and decided to snug up the clamp a bit more. I did and it still leaked. Snugged it up twice more and on the third try the clamp broke.

I have rebuilt a few diesels on my equipment over the years, so I am not too easily persuaded that I dork stuff much. But, sure felt like I did this one.

Got a new V-band clamp and this time we actually connected a nylon retching tie-down to the "y" juncture on the up-pipe, and put about as much tension on it as we could. We pulled it at the same angel as the turbo inlet and closed that gap to maybe a 1/16 inch. We also took off the 3 bolts holding the turbo to the mounting plate. Figured maybe the turbo could snug-up a little to the up-pipe flange this way.

Well, did the same tightening routine as before and as before we still had a leak. I was starting to think something must be holding these flanges from mating properly. Took the clamp off and inspected it closely. Andy noticed that angle on the clamp seemed to be spread apart a bit from how it looked before. I couldn't really see it, but I could tell there was an abundance of width to that clamp, much more then would be necessary to reach around the flanges as they looked nicely fitted together. So, Andy had the idea to use our press and squeeze the v-band, thinking it will "pull" those pipe flanges tighter together. So we squeezed it some -- Maybe 3/16th or so.

Put the clamp back on and started the same routine on tightening. Seemed about the same, but then I hear this loud (bad ears and all) crack/clunk. Figured I broke another clamp, but looking at it in-place, it looked OK. So started tightening again and could "feel" the clamp was looser then before the clunk. Maybe 2 or 3 turns more and it snugged up really nice. Started the engine and no leaks at all.

So, what I am figuring is, these V-band clamps maybe have a bit to much width and can't fully seat the flanges together at times. I suppose it could be a combination things we did, or just dumb luck. There was something holding those flanges from seating properly and there was a really loud clunk when they finely did seat, so I don't know.

Anyways, it back in operation. Now I just have to make sure the engine is not spewing out bits and pieces into the turbo exhaust inlet. Have an appointment tomorrow to get some testing done.

-Rodger
 
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