Result of Turbo Seal Failure
 

This is the result of driving about 6 city blocks. A huge blue cloud of smoke coming out the exhaust. Upon disassembly, there was about a 1/2 pint of oil in the headers....yet to find out how much accumulated in the IC and muffler. The pic below shows how carboned-up the cylinder heads are.
Any ideas on a painless (i.e. no cylinder head disassembly) way to clean all this crap off the combustion chambers?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1466551999.jpg

Maybe someone can recommend a solvent based solution. What about a walnut shell blast? My wagon is a twin turbo direct injected engine. The blow by funks up the intake over time as there is no fuel to wash it away. The walnut blasting cleaned it right up.

Good luck

I have found this product really effective at removing burned on carbon from combustion chambers :

CRC Carb Clean

05379 -- Clean-R-Carb™ Carburetor Cleaner (50 State Formula), 12 Wt Oz

I am not sure if the USA formulation is different to my local version (NZ), but spray on, leave to soak for a little while and then will be quite loose to remove. Wear gloves, its pretty harsh stuff but fine for the aluminum and valves.

Second best might be some oven cleaner.

Buy a gal. of Berryman's Chem Dip. Put the head in a big enough container then fill with the Berryman's up to the valve seals. leave overnite then scrub with a toothbrush and red scotchbrite in the am.

Did the seals only fail on the intake side? Typically a blown turbo pukes out the exhaust, oil doesn't go inside the engine (not THAT much anyway).

^^^

I use Berryman's Chem Dip all the time on ancient carburetors that have varnished beyond belief - always amazes me how when left to soak overnight, the parts come out looking almost new (little to no scrubbing involved) - can get it at most autoparts stores in the gallon can that boost mentioned (around $30 or so).

Hi Brian,
The backside of the intake valves have no carbon buildup and appear to be very dry. Backside of the exhaust valves have some carbon buildup. One thing I did not mention is the plenum below the metering plate has probably a couple tablespoons of oil in it. All six combustion chambers appear exactly the same as the pic above. Likelihood of all valves seals going out exactly at the same time seems very remote.
The thing that surprised me the most is the amount of oil that poured out of the B&B headers when I pulled them off the engine. It literally poured out onto the garage floor.

Also, the pistons are out and there are no broken rings or cracked pistons. Cylinders show no signs of Nikasil breakdown.

Could a blocked engine breather port do something like this? I noticed the breather line going from the oil tank to the oil separation tank appears to have collapsed.

I wondered about that stuff. I did buy a container of it...but not a gallon. I'll go out and get some more. Is it safe to immerse including the valves guides or should I keep the solution just below them?

It won't hurt the guides, not sure about the seals. It works.

Dave, the Chem Dip is a lot different than the fuel additive (I think that is called Berryman's 12 - comes in standard type cans for pouring in gas tanks) - just wanted to make sure you were aware of that.

Thanks. Fortunately, I guessed right and got the right stuff....just not enough. :D

I'll be dipping the whole assembly (3 heads and cam tower) into a plastic bin big enough to hold everything.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1466564470.jpg

...

Please post pics of your results, I've always been skeptical of that stuff, so have never used...

Thanks, and Good Luck!

Maybe you should air gun the cam oil spray bars afterwords so there is no residue left.

^^ Good idea. Will do.

I had the same thing happen.
filled my muffler with oil.

man what a cloud of smoke. scared the crap out of me when I put the new turbo on.
I even tried to wash out the muffler but in the end just smoke screened the woods down from my house til it was gone.

Remove the cams and then remove the heads from the cam tower. It's the only way to clean all that without problems afterwards. There's no gaskets or anything to replace, just need some Hondabond or 574 to reseal the cam tower to the heads..

^^^
Jim,
I'm keeping the cam towers attached to the heads just during the cleanup process. After I clean up the combustion chambers, the valves & guides are going to be individually inspected after that. It's easier for me to work on the entire assembly with the valve spring compressor than the heads individually. I should have clarified this in earlier posts.
Once everything has been checked out, the heads will be separated from the towers and a thorough cleaning will follow.

Just so everyone knows, I originally thought the turbo sump pump broke the drive pin because there was zero oil being returned to the oil tank. After inspection found the sump pump to be working properly off the cam, it became apparent something far more serious had happened. I've looked at both the compressor and turbine and while the compressor looks intact, the turbine blades at the tips look ragged, very ragged. I'll try to get some pics and provide for your input. That would certainly explain the turbo seal being shaken to death from the imbalance.

I saw an episode of "Wheeler Dealers" where a Lotus Espirit had a turbo failure. Ed China took acetone and poured it into the IC, with one end plugged, sloshed it around and let it soak. Since acetone evaporates at room temp fairly quickly, he drained out the oil-contaminated acetone and let it air dry for a while.

Sounds like turbine wheel touched off. How many miles on it?

^^^^ 77K miles

Good time to move up to a modern turbo.

Here are pics of the turbine. Pretty bad. Judging from the scoring on the housing, the turbine may have jammed. btw, this is the original K27-7006 supplied by Porsche when they modified the 3.3l engine for increased BHP.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1466799620.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1466799645.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1466799669.jpg

That's toast. I'm looking at a Borg Warner for my 3.3 CIS.

Hi,

I had a similar looking head recently that looked like that due to consumption, and what actually worked nice was we screwed in spark plugs to prevent galling threads, left valves closed so that seats would be ok and used an air screwdriver with a light abrasive wheel (soft wire) and lots of brake clean and compressed air. cleaned it up real nice with no issues.

Only thing is, be very careful around the sealing faces. You do not want to take metal, and just the oil/carbon.

Sounds scabby, but worked well for me, and engine runs well.

JS

Mark,
Thanks for the tip. I was thinking of using a rotary brass wire brush. Something softer than the aluminum alloy heads, but going to try bead blasting first. Won't breakdown the oiliness, but if it breaks up the carbon, then I can clean up the combustion chambers with a scotchbrite pad.

I used the Berryman's on the pistons. Soaked for 1 hour, then soaked in Dawn hot soapy water. Used a plastic scraper, then a green scotchbite pad to scrub carbon off, rinsed with warm water, dried with cotton cloth. Came out great!

The Berryman's is great stuff. I thought you were going to soak the heads? Do the same thing you did to the pistons only soak longer. A lot less work and mess than the mechanical method. Try putting the plugs in and fill the chamber with the B'man's, if the seats are good it shouldn't leak out.

Pat,
I soaked the cylinder bank 1thru3 in Berryman's 30 hours with the results shown in the pic below. While the solution did a very good job of removing oil and grime from the other parts, it had very little effect on the carbon buildup in the combustion chambers. Berryman's could not soften the coked oil in the combustion chamber. Maybe dino oil would be a different story, but coked synthetic oil is some tough crap.

Note: The areas around the valve seats I cleaned with a brass brush. It's off to the bead blaster on Tuesday......

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1467499440.jpg

Much better
 

Picked up the heads from the machine shop. Much better results with bead blaating.

Before - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -After

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1468205335.jpg

Werk1: Looking at your turbine pictures, that damage to the inducer is from FOD, and it came from somewhere upstream of the turbo. Make finding out what caused THAT priority one. It can be anything from slag that broke loose in a header to a broken exhaust guide or worse. I assume from the plugs in the head pictures that the air injection nozzles are long gone?

^^^I don't know how the turbine wheel suffered its demise. It could have happened when the turbine wheel came in contact with the turbine housing or if it's from FOD. The B&B headers were put on when I rebuilt the engine in 2002 (15K miles ago). The air injection plugs were put in the ports at the same time. Hard to believe the headers gave up so soon, but anything is possible. Anyway, everything upstream, fortunately, looks tip-top.

I hate the B&B's. Craftsmanship isn't all it's cracked (and there are plenty of those) up to be. That's why I just purchased a set of Fabspeed's. I may lose 10 or so horses, but their craftmanship is so-o-o-o much better than B&B.

It isn't from contact with the housing, that causes a different kind of damage. When the tips of all the turbine blades are broken off like yours are, it means something came down the pipe and hit them. Whatever it is may still be stuck somewhere in the scroll of the turbine housing. I'd be relentless in finding out what did it.

I have been "relentless" and I am telling you can not find anything wrong with the heads. Nothing wrong the valves. Nothing wrong the guides. Nothing wrong with seats. Nothing wrong with pistons. You can not ignore the scoring on the turbine housing. I sure as hell did not put it there.

Dave, what an improvement after the blasting! I'm surprised the Berryman's didn't do more with the coke, butt you're right, that shart is harder than Paul's, beef-jerky-like rear end (:eek:) once it's baked on like that!!!

Maybe Paul needs a referral to the machine shop that did my heads. :D

^^^

Nothing like a good bead blasting to address one's personal hygiene and/or grooming needs (so I hear)!!! Expect a PM contact from Paul in short order!!!

Sorry, I sure didn't mean to imply you weren't being thorough. Sent you a PM.

Absolutely, no harm, no foul.

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Gents/Ladies,
We have another turbo expert in our mist. Speedfab (Tracy) pm'd me with his background in turbochargers.......30 years! Welcome aboard Speedfab. Hope you enjoy being on the forum. Great group of people, almost human, and fanatical in their love of 930's.