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Turbo Failure
Posted by Ramblerdrver (more from Ramblerdrver) on Thu, 26 Jul 2001 23:18:54
In Reply to: , Kok Chen, Sat, 17 Dec 1988 12:00:00 

Recently the turbo in our 1993 9000 failed at only 82,000 miles.  :(   Wife 
came home and said, 'The car doesn't seem to have any power and the turbo 
gage doesnt seem to move like it use to' (this car must have been built on a 
Monday morning...in the last year we've replaced the alternator, ACC fan and 
control, timing chain, water pump, ignition cassette, and now the turbo).  
Sure enough, the power was way down and the gage didn't go into the boost 
area.   A check of things soon revealed the turbo was 'stuck'...the rotor 
wouldn't turn.  This is the first turbo we've had that has failed. Had an 86 
900 with over 200K on orginal turbo.

To save money, and maybe have a chance to disassemble it and find out what 
and why it failed, I decided to change it myself.  Pleased to say, the job is 
relatively easy, even in 90F weather. If anyone out there is facing the same 
job, a couple hints:  get the service manual section covering the turbo( 
Section 2.4,part # 359414 for 1986-95), it's helpful in telling you the basic 
steps: along with the turbo, get an exh manifold to turbo gasket, an oil 
drain flange gasket, and four turbo-to-exhaust manifold studs (the old ones 
shouldn't be reused and can't hardly be removed from the old turbo anyway).  
The re-man unit for my 93 CDE listed for $840.  I checked one aftermarket 
source and they were slightly higher.

Unfortuanely, I wasn't able to learn much from examining the failed turbo.  
The oil passages were clean...not caked with carbon deposits.  Exhaust 
turbine and compressor wheels looked good with no foreign material found that 
might have caused the seizure.  I was able to remove the exhaust and 
compressor scrolls, but was not able to remove the compressor wheel nut 
(lefthanded thread I believe) without fear of possibly doing obvious damage 
to the exhaust turbine while trying to hold it from turning, so wasn't able 
to get to the bearing and seals.  There's a 'core charge' when you get the 
re-man unit...it's $450!!!!  So obviously I didn't want to jepordise that by 
clamping anything in a vice and distorting it!  I could get the shaft to turn 
stiffly by using a wrench on the compressor nut.  A scraping sound could be 
heard, seeminly from the exhaust end of the turbo, probably indicating the 
seal or bearing there was the part that seized.

Car now runs fine again.  We did drive it a couple weeks with the seized 
turbo (there was no blue oil smoke with this failure,which might have 
contaminated the and added to the expense of repair).  To give a little more 
power during this time, I disconnected the wastegate solenoid linkage so the 
wastgate could open and decrease the backpressue casued by the stuck turbo.

Steve Parsons
88 900s, 93 900CDE, 98 900S
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