Bad Seals Or Gasket On Turbo?

[SuperSleeper]

Cuz I can't see a difference... maybe there's something one of you guys can pick out that would point towards the more likely situation.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v70/SuperSleeper/DSC02160.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v70/SuperSleeper/DSC02165.jpg

Just trying to figure out if I should get it replaced, or just a new gasket, or what... Thanks.

[john]

Looks like the return line gasket may have been leaking but I am not sure about the big oil stain on the turbo. Does the car smoke? It appears that the return line gasket could have been leaking as there is some oil on the bottom of the return line waiting for gravity to catch up with it. I see there is coolant on the turbo but I assume that it was probly spilled when removing the turbo. Is there a lot of shaft play? That would indicate if there are bad seals.

Is there any sign of a oil leak on the top side of the turbo? Does the feed line look like it was leaking?

[SuperSleeper]

The feed line didn't really seem to have oil around it. There is some shaftplay, but maybe not enough to ruin it's ability to make boost effectively. The turbo does smoke as the oil burns off it, and when I checked the oil level after it was driven to me, the motor was very short on oil. Is it worth putting on a new return line gasket and trying it out again before I try to replace it?

Oh, and there's no leaks of oil on the top of the turbo from what I've seen.

[john]

Depends how willing you are to pull the turbo again. If you would rather work a bit to possibly save money, clean the turbo off, get new oil return line gaskets and slap the bitch back on. If it leaks or burns oil again, replace it. It appears that the oil could be coming from somewhere else though. That is quite a bit of oil spread out quite a bit. Have you done a compression test yet? Maybe a blown HG could be pushing the oil and coolant onto the turbo. You could also waste your money replacing the turbo and having a suposedly bad turbo be good. Your choice. If it were me, I would clean it and toss it back in with new gaskets. Money is more important than time to me now.

[Jacek]

did it smoke out of the exhaust? as for the shaft play, the plain bearings should have a very minimal amount of shaft play because the oil floats between the bearings and the shaft.