Thread: turbo rebuild?

Hello
Looks good but how are you going to balance it once you have rebuilt it ?? When mine went I looked at the same thing, but then found out the turbo shops around Perth would not balance it if they had not rebuilt it. The catch was a rebuild was as much as a NEW VNT so brought a new one.
Ian

i put one of those kits through and it worked fine, didnt know about balance and it wasnt an issue for me, however you can buy a cartridge[new turbine assembly] instead and fit it in your turbo manifold, last time i looked they were around $200ish on ebay

Originally Posted by justfishing

Hello
Looks good but how are you going to balance it once you have rebuilt it ?? When mine went I looked at the same thing, but then found out the turbo shops around Perth would not balance it if they had not rebuilt it. The catch was a rebuild was as much as a NEW VNT so brought a new one.
Ian

I ran into the same load of cods a few years ago. I bought the bearings and changed them out on the garage floor. I carefully marked the turbine collar and the shaft end nut positions and counted the turns as I undid the and removed the nut. Then when I was putting it all back together again just did the nut up the same point again. Turbo ran without any issues after that for about 140,000kms before I then sold the car (4.2 Nissan GQ Diesel) still going strong.

I've found United Diesel near the airport brilliant to deal with a few years ago, when I swapped the same turbo from the GQ into a GU. Did you talk to them? (I did the swaps at home and got United's to reset the injector pump timing on both vehicles). I really struggled with the other business further along the Great Eastern Highway even to just buy the bearings. They tried very hard to refuse to sell them if I wasn't getting them to do the rebuild! No nice words to say there!

Originally Posted by justfishing

Hello
Looks good but how are you going to balance it once you have rebuilt it ?? When mine went I looked at the same thing, but then found out the turbo shops around Perth would not balance it if they had not rebuilt it. The catch was a rebuild was as much as a NEW VNT so brought a new one.
Ian

sounds like the usual bs the turbo places spin.

Balance is easy. Mark the shaft, nut and wheel position, reinstall in the same orientation and balance is preserved.

That said. I've built many turbos without balancing. Some are noisy and that's it.

Thanks Guys I might give it a go. My turbo isn't noisy, I don't know how it's not with the amount of movement it has.

I only just got the 300tdi Disco the other week, first turbo diesel I have had.
I have been going over it looking for problems, seems to be ok so far.
A good surprise I found it has a dual battery system (just no second battery)

I put a new turbine/shaft and kit through my turbo before fitting it. 40K km's later and no issues. Individual parts are balanced anyway, so the final assembly balance should only be very small.
I've spoken to a large injection/turbo place in melb and they refuse to do VNT's as they don't have a VSR rig to balance them. Small independent guy said it wasn't ideal, but he'd done plenty with his normal balancing gear and not had any issues. He did make the comment that some used turbine/compressor combinations just don't balance up and need replacing.
I didn't quiz him further on it but assume its probably an erosion issue.

Originally Posted by knicko

Thanks Guys I might give it a go. My turbo isn't noisy, I don't know how it's not with the amount of movement it has.

I only just got the 300tdi Disco the other week, first turbo diesel I have had.
I have been going over it looking for problems, seems to be ok so far.
A good surprise I found it has a dual battery system (just no second battery)

Journal bearing turbos do have what appears to be an alarming amount of play. But generally as long as the wheels can't touch the housing, they're good. In use the journals fill with oil and nothing actually touches. It's only if you lose oil (or oil pressure) that you wear the bushings out. I have done that.

Turbos get noisey when the compressor is damaged or out of balance and starts to spin off-centre.