Exhaust Turbine Removal???

[Dirtleg]

O.K. so to say the least my exhaust turbine won't come off the center section of my turbo. Bolts are stuck. Go figure. I have been spraying them regularly with Aerokroil for over a month. Only 1 of the 6 broke free. I guess I'll be seeing if Kroils money back guarantee is just lip service or not.

I then took an acetylene torch and heated up the turbine housing on the area outside one of the bolts. No luck doing that. But I kept trying on the other four and nothing else broke free either. Now I am debating on whether or not I got it as hot as necessary but I don't want to damage the housing in the process as I am sure you can imagine.

I am considering just cutting the bolt heads off and sending the housing to a machine shop to remove what's left. One of the bolts has already joined the adult entertainment industry. It's still got 4 sides left though so it's not a complete loss yet.

Any advice here. This is all that's keeping me from rebuilding the turbo at this time. I was thinking about getting it really hot and spraying it with kroil hoping that as it cools it will pull the kroil down into the threads.

I am just grasping at straws now.

Oh and I just had to say; Damn those engineers who made the center section so narrow you cannot get a box end wrench on most of the bolts. Considering the application this should have been a given IMO but then I actually work on things not just design them. I mean would another 1/16 of an inch really have screwed the whole thing up?

 

[6 Nebraska IDIs]

When I pulled my 088 ATS turbo apart my exhaust was so carbon' d up that I bent the turbine pulling it apart. There's a reason why the cartridge is so close to the bolts, thats because the bolts are supposed to press it apart as they come out. Its a good idea in theory but doesnt work for a damn.
To get the bolts out of mine, the ones that were REALLY stuck, I had to heat the bolts up cherry red (yes the bolts). This pops off all the crap holding them in there. Then let them cool and try removing them again.

 

[Agnem]

A while back I had an exhaust housing that I swapped out (when I upgraded the Lady Moose to a pulse turbo), and sold the housing and pipes to the same guy who rebuilds my pumps (he does turbo's too). I handed it to him sans bolt heads, which were torched off. He said it wasn't a problem. I asked him how he gets them out, since he does it all the time there must be a trick to it. He said there were a variety of techniques that he had developed to work with those miserable SOB's and he could get one apart in a few minutes. Unfortunately, he didn't elaborate. I'd say torch the heads, so you can at least get it apart safely, then deal with the studs after the fact.

 

[Dirtleg]

Thanks for the quick responses.

I'll try Nebraska's advice first. If still a no go then heads are gonna melt.

 

[typ4]

Heat the bolt heads cherry red and then let them cool completely, this shrinks the entire bolt a bit and may help. Done hundreds this way.

 

[Dirtleg]

O.K. so I got all but 1 off by heating the bolt heads like Nebraska and type4 suggested. Thanks very much. I then cut the head off the remaining bolt as it had stripped after the 2nd time I heated it and let it cool.

Getting the turbine housing off was no fun either but I managed to get it done without much cussing. At that point the turbo came apart very easily. After I had the compressor wheel off it only took a very light tap with a plastic hammer to pop the turbine and shaft out. Let me reiterate how it took essentially no effort to pop the shaft out. I would not recommend hitting it with a hammer if you aren't exactly sure how lightly to do so. If it had been in any way difficult I would have pressed it out instead.

One interesting fact is that the bushings in it spun freely inside the housing. That's not a good sign. I hope it doesn't need larger bushings than I currently have. I'll have to measure them and see. The bushings in it have a -1 stamped on them. I am hoping that means they are undersized externally not internally.

Overall the guts of the turbo are pretty clean. No carbon buildup on the shaft whatsoever. A little around the seal area for the turbine side. The turbine and housing however have a good bit of carbon on them. Too much in fact. It must have been leaking oil into the turbine.

The inside of the center section is not very dirty at all. I am glad because it looks like it would be tough to get all the crap out if it were. The turbine fan is not scarred in any way fortunately. After the wear on the compressor wheel I was skeptical about it's condition.

All in all it seems that it should be a straighforward job as long as I make certain that all of the parts are in spec.

Now I just have to get the last remnant of a bolt out of the turbine housing.

I am open to suggestions. I don't think an easy-out is going to cut it however. I could probably blow it out with a torch as it shouldn't cut the cast turbine housing but molten metal has a way of messing up threads so I am not willing to try that.

 

[typ4]

The bushings are loose in the housing, they turn with the shaft but in theory I was told at half speed. The shaft should slide right out except for buildup.
The shaft to bushing clearance is .0015, the bushing to housing is up to .0035, this translates to a lot of play when assembled, put some oil in it and it tightens up considerably. Hope this helps.

 

[oldmisterbill]

Exactly Russ -The turbo shop that did one of my turbos years ago showed that to me.The way he explained it is that the shaft floats suspended in oil.I thought that was a good way to explain it.He also said "if the turbine spins smoothly-doesn't hit the sides it should be good to go".I was amazed at how much slop or play there is in a good turbo. It still amazes me how they go thousands of miles at the speed they run and still hold up,yet it makes sense.IN Viet nam we ran out of motor oil for our generators (Big 6 cylinder deisels 1 cat,2,IH 100KW)all that was available was GO-90 (90W gear lube)& there was plenty of it.They ran 23 hrs a day 7 days a week. So in went the gear lube.I ran them on it for a month or so.While they were on a gear lube diet I wrote General dynamics (the manufactor of the units)told them what I was doing.They had an engineer reply he wrote me that the bearings will wear to a given clearence (I forget what is was) that is determined by the oil viscosity and not to switch back till we had parts ready-Big joke (parts in Viet nam ) 1st is it was a repair out of our maintainence level (depot maintainence) and we would loose them for Only God knows how long and they all had been on a 90 weight diet .I wrote him back.He sent me gaskets-bearings -Plastigauge,shim stock and what ever else he felt would be needed .He was on the money the bearing clearence was as he said it would be.New bearings and they were running again,no shimming required.still going strong when I went home. It was a good lesson for me.That is why I am passing this on. My biggest regret is I never personaly thanked him when I came home he was only 150 miles or so from my home.I was so thankful to have his support over there. Mr Bill

 

[6 Nebraska IDIs]

Hey Mr Bill, what branch of service were you in? My dad was over there from like 65-67 or 66-68... something like that. He was in the Navy.

 

[oldmisterbill]

I was in the ARMY March 68 to March 69 in Vietnam. Went to Germany out of AIT then to Nam then discharged when I got back to the us.Never served in a Stateside unit except schools. I had a good 3 years made E-5 in 16months-went to a lot of schools in Europe. Most important it made me grow up a lot faster. Spent over 2 1/2 years over seas.
I still love my country and the people in it. I dislike bosses , certian authority,hate politics,yet have a strict conservitave vew.Keep America for Americans - Take care of Americans first.And don't let anyone screw with our country. If you can work and don't work -don't eat ( I hate BUMS)

 

[typ4]

I still love my country and the people in it. I dislike bosses , certian authority,hate politics,yet have a strict conservitave vew.Keep America for Americans - Take care of Americans first.And don't let anyone screw with our country. If you can work and don't work -don't eat ( I hate BUMS)[/QUOTE]


Thats kinda how I feel. I knew there was something about you I really liked!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[6 Nebraska IDIs]

I still love my country and the people in it. I dislike bosses , certian authority,hate politics,yet have a strict conservitave vew.Keep America for Americans - Take care of Americans first.And don't let anyone screw with our country. If you can work and don't work -don't eat ( I hate BUMS)

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I tell you what (sorry Dirtleg I hate it when people hijack threads) I HATE it when I see all these people sucking our country dry on these programs and their driving around in NICE cars with those rediculous 20"+ wheels etc. Its like, if you can afford to have a car like that, then you can get a job to support it, you know.

 

[Dirtleg]

The bushings are loose in the housing, they turn with the shaft but in theory I was told at half speed. The shaft should slide right out except for buildup.
The shaft to bushing clearance is .0015, the bushing to housing is up to .0035, this translates to a lot of play when assembled, put some oil in it and it tightens up considerably. Hope this helps.

Thanks Russ. That helped tremendously. I checked over and over the measurements for the bushings and the housing and shaft. The new bushings to housing clearance is .0025". The new bushing to shaft clearance is right at .0010". This works out to a total of .0035". I have already sanitized the center section and installed the bushings. Just working on getting the turbine spotless so I can reassemble the center section.

I was fortunate that this turbo had been gone through sometime fairly recently as everything is cleaning up nicely. I imagine that the original compressor wheel that was worn down must have been just thrown back on as there wasn't enough play in it to have done the damage that was done.