Early Banks, water cooled turbo

I have an early Banks, non wastegated turbo on an 85 6.9. There is a "24025" stamped in the bottom of the compressor housing and a "11318" is all that's still legible on the tag. Square filter box Works great, not much play in the shaft. I will try to get pics in the daylight tomorrow.
However it is liquid cooled, which I have never seen on any idi turbo kits. Cooling ports plumbed into the heater hoses. I am getting a leak from one of the pipe fittings on one of the coolant ports on the back of the turbo. No way to access the trouble area at all without either removing the turbo, removing the engine, or lifting the cab.
So I would like to know if it would be safe to bypass the cooling entirely on this unit to eliminate the need to address the leak that can't be accessed.

Thanks

Here is a picture of it. Showing the water inlet right up front, and the other port is on the back. The wire/sheet metal around the inlet was possible for protection against rubbing on the air box, don't know. Im in the process of tiding the engine up and putting it back into service.

That’s a very unique setup. I wonder if it’s a ball bearing cartridge that’s been machined for the banks housings since it’s water cooled. Journal bearing turbos typically aren’t water cooled. More than likely the threads are regular npt, so I would adapt it to run all an line so you don’t ever have to worry about leaks again

A water cooled turbo needs to be water cooled, so don’t bypass it

If it’s a garret center section it’s probably a metric straight thread for a face seal or banjo bolt.

If it’s a gtx series it will be, the older t series is npt

don't bypass it, it needs coolant flow , but it will last forever if you keep up the coolant flow. Hino uses coolant to cool all their turbos, failures never happened at all until electronic controls came in. well over a million km no problems, usually outlast the trucks.

Good to know thanks. Will have to pull the turbo off to get at it I guess. The picture of the engine out of the truck, is an older photo. Unfortunately one of the coolant ports is at the rear of the turbo, not easily accessed at all.

I suspect you wound up with someone’s project and that’s not oem banks. Not sure, but I’d bet you can pretty easily assemble a wc t3 housing with the banks housing and make what you have there.

Having never heard of a banks using wc turbo and the water side plumbing in the pic sure looks like mechanic cobble rather than oem - both point to custom fab to me.

I’d bet you can bypass the water cooking with no issues. Wc journal bearing turbos are internally identical to non wc aside from the water passage, so should still work just the same as any other regular turbo. No reason you need water cooling on an idi.

jaluhn83 said:

I suspect you wound up with someone’s project and that’s not oem banks. Not sure, but I’d bet you can pretty easily assemble a wc t3 housing with the banks housing and make what you have there.

Having never heard of a banks using wc turbo and the water side plumbing in the pic sure looks like mechanic cobble rather than oem - both point to custom fab to me.

I’d bet you can bypass the water cooking with no issues. Wc journal bearing turbos are internally identical to non wc aside from the water passage, so should still work just the same as any other regular turbo. No reason you need water cooling on an idi.

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If a turbo is water cooled, it needs water cooling. Doesn’t matter what engine it’s on, someone would have had to put a very old turbo cartridge for it to be a water cooled journal bearing, more than likely it was someone’s stab at a ball bearing upgrade using a t series cartridge which would bolt right onto the banks housings.

Thewespaul said:

If a turbo is water cooled, it needs water cooling. Doesn’t matter what engine it’s on, someone would have had to put a very old turbo cartridge for it to be a water cooled journal bearing, more than likely it was someone’s stab at a ball bearing upgrade using a t series cartridge which would bolt right onto the banks housings.

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This^^^^

If it has water fittings it needs water. All of Garrett’s literature I’ve read reinforces this. If it’s done right, a ball bearing turbo should have MUCH less oil going through it than a journal bearing. The oil is the coolant on the journal bearings. The ball bearing turbos need the water to take up the cooling slack or they will coke up. Part of the reason the ball bearing is “better” is less drag from the heavy weight oil. I can tell you, I can downshift on a hill and not sweat loosing much boost to spool down and I’m no speed shifter.