Turbo rebuild recommendation

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exmed wayne

Well-Known Member
Posts
250
Location
On my way to Scotlandshire
Hi all,
Thought I'd tell a story with a happy ending.
It all started one day when I decided to look inside my inlet pipes. The intercooler to inlet pipe was really black and oily inside - This led to me taking off all pipework from turbo to clean the pipes out and wash out the intercooler, the pipes and the inlet manifold.
Whilst checking the intercooler I found a big lump of black gunge squashed into the front of the fins and the rest of the fins either blocked with dried mud or bent in....There's feck all airflow through this thing thinks me and proceeded to clean and straighten the fins.....Ah, the black gunge was placed there on purpose by a previous owner, to plug up the big hole.!
I'm going to treat myself to a nice new intercooler, thinks me....if I'm getting a new one I might as well get a good one....Alisport were just moving to a new factory and had a 12 week wait, so I spoke to a nice man from Allard and they made me a new front mount one and delivered it within 5 days. Briiliant.
Before fitting the new intercooler I decided to clean all the bits out and drive it for a few days with the old one plugged up again to see what happens. - spotless pipework was wet with oil again within 100 miles.
More thinking - I'm not putting a shiny new intercooler on and filling it with crap, so I decided to get a new turbo CHRA (as the old turbo was obviously pishing oil into the intake).
Bought an uprated billet CHRA from a company called turbo rebuild up in Lancastershires....decent price and a straight forward swap for the old leaky turbo. Again, when it arrived, I was chuffed to bits with the quality look and feel of the thing. However - I've got a 20 year old Tdi, so after getting the manifold off (not too much hassle) ...there was just 4 bolts holding the turbo on - Heat, lube, swearing and prayers got one of the bolts off intact. The other 3 snapped clean off.
Having just one day left at home before disappearing off to work for 3 weeks, I phoned up the guys at turbo rebuild for advice / help / sympathy.
They were great, I boxed up the posh new CHRA I'd just bought from them, with my old rusty manifold and sent it up to them.
3 days later, I phoned them to check if the parcel had arrived - it had arrived, been fixed and would be with my Mrs the next day...for a very reasonable price...wow.
My Mrs opened the parcel and took a couple of photo's for me....Oh my life.....it looks better than new.
I'm chuffed to bits and can't wait to get home to fiddle with my tools.
I really can't recommend these guys strongly enough.... I'll let the pictures speak for themselves - once I work out how to upload them.
 
Hi all,
Thought I'd tell a story with a happy ending.
It all started one day when I decided to look inside my inlet pipes. The intercooler to inlet pipe was really black and oily inside - This led to me taking off all pipework from turbo to clean the pipes out and wash out the intercooler, the pipes and the inlet manifold.
Whilst checking the intercooler I found a big lump of black gunge squashed into the front of the fins and the rest of the fins either blocked with dried mud or bent in....There's feck all airflow through this thing thinks me and proceeded to clean and straighten the fins.....Ah, the black gunge was placed there on purpose by a previous owner, to plug up the big hole.!
I'm going to treat myself to a nice new intercooler, thinks me....if I'm getting a new one I might as well get a good one....Alisport were just moving to a new factory and had a 12 week wait, so I spoke to a nice man from Allard and they made me a new front mount one and delivered it within 5 days. Briiliant.
Before fitting the new intercooler I decided to clean all the bits out and drive it for a few days with the old one plugged up again to see what happens. - spotless pipework was wet with oil again within 100 miles.
More thinking - I'm not putting a shiny new intercooler on and filling it with crap, so I decided to get a new turbo CHRA (as the old turbo was obviously pishing oil into the intake).
Bought an uprated billet CHRA from a company called turbo rebuild up in Lancastershires....decent price and a straight forward swap for the old leaky turbo. Again, when it arrived, I was chuffed to bits with the quality look and feel of the thing. However - I've got a 20 year old Tdi, so after getting the manifold off (not too much hassle) ...there was just 4 bolts holding the turbo on - Heat, lube, swearing and prayers got one of the bolts off intact. The other 3 snapped clean off.
Having just one day left at home before disappearing off to work for 3 weeks, I phoned up the guys at turbo rebuild for advice / help / sympathy.
They were great, I boxed up the posh new CHRA I'd just bought from them, with my old rusty manifold and sent it up to them.
3 days later, I phoned them to check if the parcel had arrived - it had arrived, been fixed and would be with my Mrs the next day...for a very reasonable price...wow.
My Mrs opened the parcel and took a couple of photo's for me....Oh my life.....it looks better than new.
I'm chuffed to bits and can't wait to get home to fiddle with my tools.
I really can't recommend these guys strongly enough.... I'll let the pictures speak for themselves - once I work out how to upload them.

Pleased that you are pleased. But your post might be verging on spam.
To be fair, you haven't posted any links, but you have mentioned the company twice in the text, and given their product and service a very glowing review,
 
Sorry mate, not spam. I'm nothing to do with the company.
It's just that I am genuinely chuffed and think it would be useful to others if I recommended them.
I spent ages on the internet umming and ahhhing over which turbo cartridge to buy and from where.
ps. how do I upload pics?
Cheers,
Wayne
 
Use the upload a file button, bottom right of the new text box.

upload_2018-12-2_20-54-9.png


Cheers
 
I wish I'd taken some before pics, for posterity.
I can't believe that's the same rusty bits I sent them.
Anyway, I need to go off and do some work.
I'll update this thread in a couple of weeks, when I get home and get hands on :)
 
I've got a 20 year old Tdi
So apart from this info do we actually know what you have? So did you get the bits and fit them? If you did then pics are always a great help on here for others
And I know it ain’t in the bike.:)
I took my turbo to turbo technics same day turn around and have no complaints (not LR though)
And I guess there is a late welcome to the loony zone too;)

J
 

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Hi all,
Thought I'd tell a story with a happy ending.
It all started one day when I decided to look inside my inlet pipes. The intercooler to inlet pipe was really black and oily inside - This led to me taking off all pipework from turbo to clean the pipes out and wash out the intercooler, the pipes and the inlet manifold.
Whilst checking the intercooler I found a big lump of black gunge squashed into the front of the fins and the rest of the fins either blocked with dried mud or bent in....There's feck all airflow through this thing thinks me and proceeded to clean and straighten the fins.....Ah, the black gunge was placed there on purpose by a previous owner, to plug up the big hole.!
I'm going to treat myself to a nice new intercooler, thinks me....if I'm getting a new one I might as well get a good one....Alisport were just moving to a new factory and had a 12 week wait, so I spoke to a nice man from Allard and they made me a new front mount one and delivered it within 5 days. Briiliant.
Before fitting the new intercooler I decided to clean all the bits out and drive it for a few days with the old one plugged up again to see what happens. - spotless pipework was wet with oil again within 100 miles.
More thinking - I'm not putting a shiny new intercooler on and filling it with crap, so I decided to get a new turbo CHRA (as the old turbo was obviously pishing oil into the intake).
Bought an uprated billet CHRA from a company called turbo rebuild up in Lancastershires....decent price and a straight forward swap for the old leaky turbo. Again, when it arrived, I was chuffed to bits with the quality look and feel of the thing. However - I've got a 20 year old Tdi, so after getting the manifold off (not too much hassle) ...there was just 4 bolts holding the turbo on - Heat, lube, swearing and prayers got one of the bolts off intact. The other 3 snapped clean off.
Having just one day left at home before disappearing off to work for 3 weeks, I phoned up the guys at turbo rebuild for advice / help / sympathy.
They were great, I boxed up the posh new CHRA I'd just bought from them, with my old rusty manifold and sent it up to them.
3 days later, I phoned them to check if the parcel had arrived - it had arrived, been fixed and would be with my Mrs the next day...for a very reasonable price...wow.
My Mrs opened the parcel and took a couple of photo's for me....Oh my life.....it looks better than new.
I'm chuffed to bits and can't wait to get home to fiddle with my tools.
I really can't recommend these guys strongly enough.... I'll let the pictures speak for themselves - once I work out how to upload them.
You say your d turbo was pishing oil through. How often were you having to top the oil up?
 
You say your d turbo was pishing oil through. How often were you having to top the oil up?

I've had Dave (my defender 300Tdi) for about 5 months, but only done about 500 miles or so.
In that time, I've topped up about 2 litres of oil.!
I know that's a lot, but most of it was pishing from the diesel lift pump (found the source eventually) - that's a story for another thread :)
Anyway, since I've stopped all visible external oil leaks (parked over cardboard for 3 weeks with no drips) I've probably done 250 miles total. 150 of them since cleaning out intercooler and old pipework.
Not seen any noticeable difference on the dipstick, but what I considered to be a lot of black, sticky oil in the previously spotless pipes - considering I'd only done 150 miles.
I know it's from the turbo, as the only thing going in is clean air from the new air filter. I blanked off the re-circulation inlet from the crankcase breather, which currently vents to air via a plastic milk bottle - soon to be replaced with a cheapy oil catch tank from the fleabay.
 
So apart from this info do we actually know what you have? So did you get the bits and fit them? If you did then pics are always a great help on here for others
And I know it ain’t in the bike.:)
I took my turbo to turbo technics same day turn around and have no complaints (not LR though)
And I guess there is a late welcome to the loony zone too;)

J

As it seems endorsements are the order of the day. I have always found Turbo Technics to be excellent as well, and would recommend them to one and all! :)
 
So apart from this info do we actually know what you have? So did you get the bits and fit them? If you did then pics are always a great help on here for others
And I know it ain’t in the bike.:)
I took my turbo to turbo technics same day turn around and have no complaints (not LR though)
And I guess there is a late welcome to the loony zone too;)

J
Hi Marjon...

I've got a 1998 Defender 90 300Tdi
no pictures yet as I'm sat on the work computer.
 
Morning, Turboman :)
I've read some good things about Turbo technics too, but I haven't had the pleasure of dealing with them....yet

They are very good, they not only recondition and make Turbochargers, they also make the machines that balance the spools for them.
And they are very helpful, if you have an old unit, they will usually find one out the back, recondition it, and send it in advance of receiving your unit, so there is no lengthy wait while yours is reconditioned.
 
Nice.
Now scare us with the price ;)

Hi mate, hope putting prices up doesn't go against the forum etiquette -

£254 delivered next day, for the uprated billet turbo originally. - which I think is quite good.
£23 from royal mail for me to send the manifold etc. back (after I'd fecked it up) 13.5Kgs medium parcel
£100 + VAT for them to do magical things -
- drill out and replace 3 snapped bolts
- clean up rusty manifold and housing (which now looks fab)
- new vacuum pipe and clips (old pipe was perished at one end)
- new circlip on actuator (there wasn't one on as it had rusted away)
- fit the new Billet CHRA
- pretty sure they've put a new actuator on, looking at the pictures (the old one looked fecked when I sent it in)
- next day delivered back
 
Another happy Turbo Rebuild customer. I recently installed their CHRA hybrid billet cartridge to my TD5 D2 as my turbo was showing signs of wear - though not blowing oil. Very happy with the quality of their work. I followed the instructions closely and so far all is working very well.
Two points I would make:
1. When you disassemble the original mark the relationship between the three parts really carefully - I mean so that you can rebuild to the mm. I found that as I was a mm or two out, the top oil feed pipe would not fit and I had to remove, loosen, rebuild and refit.
2. Fitting the bottom oil pipe is a right PITA. It took at well over an hour to get both bolts to bite, by which time the supplied paper gasket was trashed. Fortunately the original gasket was solid plastic and could be reused. So far no leaks.
 
Two points I would make:
1. When you disassemble the original mark the relationship between the three parts really carefully - I mean so that you can rebuild to the mm. I found that as I was a mm or two out, the top oil feed pipe would not fit and I had to remove, loosen, rebuild and refit.
2. Fitting the bottom oil pipe is a right PITA. It took at well over an hour to get both bolts to bite, by which time the supplied paper gasket was trashed. Fortunately the original gasket was solid plastic and could be reused. So far no leaks.

Thanks Si,
always good to get advice from someone who has actually done the job.
1. As it's been put back together by the "experts", I'm hoping the new feed pipe will fit fine.
2. I plan to fit the new drain pipe and gasket to the turbo while its out (2 13mm bolts IIRC), then attach it to the block using a crows foot spanner. - Unless anyone has a better suggestion?
(I've got another thread asking about the size needed, I think its 27mm?)
 
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