Club 80-90 Forums

I have managed to stop my oil leak but it seems my turbo is now playing up (1.6TD JX). The van has always been smokey on start up, but after 5 mins or so it normaly clears. Lately its been getting worse and worse and even worse! What I have noticed is that when I first start up and drive I get loads of white smoke, this goes when the temp gauage gets to halfway, but on short trips when running temp takes a while it never stops smoking and its really bad and embarising! In the last week or so I have noticed that the turbo when under load is making a very high pitched scream, my wife discribes it as if we have large moszito in the engine bay. The turbo is 18months old and only done 10k. The sream stops when I get past 3k on the rev counter and goes back to the normal turbo sound.

Could the white smoke and turbo be linked? Is there a way of testing the turbo side of things without removing it etc? Or is it a case of remove and send back to who I bought the turbo from?

Thanks again for your help

Joe

Sounds like your oil seal has failed, be aware I know 2 van owners who's turbo oil seal failed in a big way, when this happens if the engine is anywhere warm it can cause the engine to run away un-controllably and the only way to stop it is to stall the engine using the brake and leaving it in gear. This can right off the engine through over reving and component failure and it is very frightening. The reason this occurs is that if the oil flow through the turbo starts leaking into the air side of the turbo the oil mist produced becomes fuel, the engine speed increases because of this and so does the oil pressure up to a max this causes the engine to scream out of control until one of 3 things occur 1. You stall the engine quickly as turning the key off will not stop the engine! 2. You jump out of the cab and watch your van disappear in a cloud of smoke then a component fails at high revs and the engine is written off or 3. The engine survives the high reving and it runs out of oil and wipes the bearings. I know this sounds frightening but as I have said I know 2 people that this has happened to Luckily one knew how to stop the van by stalling, the other tried to strangle the air suction pipe to the filter and the engine starved of air eventually stopped, most people would not think of doing either and as it is frightening how much noise an engine can produced when reved to the point of destruction most exit the vehicle quickly and watch from a distance.

What I'm trying to say is don't let this go on too long if you think its the Turbo get it put right you do not want the destroy the engine as well .

Crikey that doesent sound good! It seems one way or the other this JX engine is destined to die In the few yrs we have had the van its been one problem after another with it ... We are hoping to get it thru this summer and then upgrade to something with a littleb more power.

As for my turbo what would cause an oil seal to fail? We payed a lot for a new turbo and I would have hoped it would be capable of more than 10k miles? Is the only way of checking whats wrong to remove the turbo? I think it is still under warranty but would like to be armed with a little knowledge before they say its my fault etc. Plus I will have to send it to the company so will lose the van for a week or two

Thanks for the info.

Joe

joe75 wrote:Crikey that doesent sound good! It seems one way or the other this JX engine is destined to die In the few yrs we have had the van its been one problem after another with it ... We are hoping to get it thru this summer and then upgrade to something with a littleb more power.

As for my turbo what would cause an oil seal to fail? We payed a lot for a new turbo and I would have hoped it would be capable of more than 10k miles? Is the only way of checking whats wrong to remove the turbo? I think it is still under warranty but would like to be armed with a little knowledge before they say its my fault etc. Plus I will have to send it to the company so will lose the van for a week or two

Thanks for the info.

Joe

The turbo noise could be something as simple as a split turbo inlet pipe....check them all and make sure there are no splits. Has it lost any turbo power?
As for the smoke, well yes could be turbo seals. But im sure you would notice the amount of oil its was using.
The more I think about it, it sounds like the bearings are knackered in the turbo which in turn have knackered the seals..
Like Bert2 says if it is a seal/bearing and the engine does pick up and starts running on its own oil, you have to act very fast or the engine will be scrap in no time . Seen it loads of time at work, especially when intercoolers fill with oil..
IAN

One reason for seal failure is long hard driving then stopping without allowing the turbo to cool, oil in the turbo can carbonise, this causes the oil ways to block in the turbo and bearing wear to occur the seals will harden quicker as well, after a period of high speed driving or prolonged motor way driving you should allow the turbo to cool a little by allowing the van to idle for a few mins to allow the oil to cool the bearings before shut down a lot of high power machines have an oil pump that starts on shut down to allow the oil to circulate and cool the hot engine. Modern cars use very high spec oils to over come this problem. The only way I know to see if a seal has failed is to monitor oil usage and when a turbo is removed to check for play in the bearing and the sign of oil carry over. These van engines work extremely hard on modern high speed roads.

Bert2 wrote:One reason for seal failure is long hard driving then stopping without allowing the turbo to cool, oil in the turbo can carbonise, this causes the oil ways to block in the turbo and bearing wear to occur the seals will harden quicker as well, after a period of high speed driving or prolonged motor way driving you should allow the turbo to cool a little by allowing the van to idle for a few mins to allow the oil to cool the bearings before shut down a lot of high power machines have an oil pump that starts on shut down to allow the oil to circulate and cool the hot engine. Modern cars use very high spec oils to over come this problem. The only way I know to see if a seal has failed is to monitor oil usage and when a turbo is removed to check for play in the bearing and the sign of oil carry over. These van engines work extremely hard on modern high speed roads.

Thanks for the info. We always allow the engine a few minutes to cool down as I have seen turbos glow red/white after climbing high mt passes in the Andes ... I will check for oil usage but until a few days we had a big oil leak from the rocker cover gasket so its hard to say if we were using any more than normal?

I have checked all the turbo pipes and can not see any splits. When I removed the air inlet pipe from the air filter I noticed that the impeller on the turbo had a fair bit of lateral movement, should it have any?

Thanks for the help.

joe75 wrote:

Bert2 wrote:One reason for seal failure is long hard driving then stopping without allowing the turbo to cool, oil in the turbo can carbonise, this causes the oil ways to block in the turbo and bearing wear to occur the seals will harden quicker as well, after a period of high speed driving or prolonged motor way driving you should allow the turbo to cool a little by allowing the van to idle for a few mins to allow the oil to cool the bearings before shut down a lot of high power machines have an oil pump that starts on shut down to allow the oil to circulate and cool the hot engine. Modern cars use very high spec oils to over come this problem. The only way I know to see if a seal has failed is to monitor oil usage and when a turbo is removed to check for play in the bearing and the sign of oil carry over. These van engines work extremely hard on modern high speed roads.

Thanks for the info. We always allow the engine a few minutes to cool down as I have seen turbos glow red/white after climbing high mt passes in the Andes ... I will check for oil usage but until a few days we had a big oil leak from the rocker cover gasket so its hard to say if we were using any more than normal?

I have checked all the turbo pipes and can not see any splits. When I removed the air inlet pipe from the air filter I noticed that the impeller on the turbo had a fair bit of lateral movement, should it have any?

Thanks for the help.

The impeller shouldn't have any lateral movement of note, tbh I think its shot mate....

I agree with fullsunian there should be very little play in any direction I would check to see if its still covered by the guarantee and get it changed.

Bert2 wrote:I agree with fullsunian there should be very little play in any direction I would check to see if its still covered by the guarantee and get it changed.

cheers guys. seems you have answered my question. once home from Spain I will remove it and send it back. Lets hope we are still covered?

joe75 wrote:

Bert2 wrote:I agree with fullsunian there should be very little play in any direction I would check to see if its still covered by the guarantee and get it changed.

cheers guys. seems you have answered my question. once home from Spain I will remove it and send it back. Lets hope we are still covered?

Please don't tell me you are going to try and drive back from Spain

My turbo impeller has a small amount of end float and seems ok and quiet,however when i first got the van the turbo was a lot noiser and the impeller had a tight spot [cured by running a lot of oil through the turbo and working the impeller back and forth untill the tight spot went!!].