Had my turbo apart and it looks like it might be leaking oil into the the exhaust side of the turbo. There is quite a bit of play in the shaft too. Any opinions?

 

 

 

If it's not smoking, don't worry about it. They just use a cast ring for an oil seal much like a piston ring on the exhaust side. There will be a lot of side to side play as they use a floating bushing for a bearing (shaft spins in the bushing, bushing spins in the housing). I believe the spec is something like .018-.030 or something like that. As long as it's not hitting the compressor housing, it's fine. You just don't want end to end play.

 

 

Last time it was on the dyno it was smoking some when my tuner let off the throttle, it's started using some oil like it never did before, and I'm also smelling burnt oil occasionally. I was just thinking the engine was get tired but it would be better if it's just the turbo. I'll probably take it off and see about getting it rebuilt.

 

No, journal bearing turbos turn very high rpm and need a floating bushing to split the shaft speeds between the 2 surfaces. I've had many people open up a brand new BW turbo and call me saying the turbo is junk cuz there is so much shaft play and I have to explain to them that it's supposed to be that way, lol

Most motors will smoke a little on the dyno when you let out of the throttle after a pull. There is a huge amount of vacuum and rpm and it tends to draw a little oil past the rings. All my trucks do it too. Those BW turbo's are built for 500k miles on a diesel. You've never worked it as hard as the MFG ment for it to be ran, lol.

 

Just a little update. I took the turbo off and decided to have some one check it out. The bearings were shot and turbine was just barely starting to rub the exhaust housing. Had I waited any longer the guy said I would have need to replace a lot more. Anyways I asked him what made some turbos last a long time and some not so long. The guy told me it all has to do with your oil. If your motor is breaking down and has a lot of metal floating around in it, it will eat up your bearings real quick. Initially when I put my turbo on we did heads, cam, timing chain, and oil pump. I remember my first oil change after all that having a lot more metal chips on my drain plug. The guy was telling me one of the best things you can do for your turbo is to put a separate filter on the feed line and one of the worst if not the worst thing you can do to a turbo is to run it through the break in of a freshly built motor. Not sure if all that is true but it's what I was told and it made sense to me.

 

If you put a filter on. And it clogs kiss the turbo by.
Most turbo failure we hear about. Is shutting off the engine to soon after a heavy pull.
Or boosting before the engine has warmed up.

 

All filters I've seen are able to be cleaned. I'll be putting one on my turbo once I get it back. I'll check it a lot at first just for ***** and giggles to see if it's catching much. My turbo didn't even last 20k miles, far from 500k like what was mentioned earlier.