Luke

Can somebody please point me in the direction of a good "turbo removal" page?
I am having a heck of a lot of trouble with mine.

Do you have to drop the oil pan to remove the cross over bolt that has the welded nut?

Any help or expiriences would be much appreciated!

Steve Lavigne

No, that one needs to be done from underneath. A 15mm box end wrench with a ratchet mechanism works VERY well for this. I think it may also help to have a box end wrench which is not angled.

'86 951
-Steve

Luke

OK. That's what I was attempting, Im off to buy a decent ratchet. Mine is 30 yrs old and has a big bulky head that wont even fit in there.

Danno

ALso you don't need to remove the crossover pipe. Take out the turbo AND the downpipe as a single unit. Then separate them later. There's a bolt near the engine that you can't reach.

Luke

what is the name of the pipe with the o2 sensor in it? That is the one I am talking about

Steve Lavigne

I doubt you will find a ratchet that will fit. What you need is something like this:



Danno is right on the downpipe thing. Also, if your new turbo isn't perfectly indexed, install it with the compressor and turbine bolts loose, bolt stuff together and align, tighten accessible compressor and turbine bolts, then remove and tighten all of them, then re-install. Sounds like a PITA, huh. May not be necessary if SFR indexes it perfectly.

'86 951
-Steve

Steve Lavigne

That is the crossover pipe. The downpipe that Danno mentions connects the turbocharger to the exhaust.

Luke

$46!!! LMAO

How'd you find that so fast?

So I need to disconnect the pipe that runs out of the "direct" back of the turbo.

Steve Lavigne

Don't buy the snap-on one unless you need the best. I was just showing that as an example. I bought one for $15 from Ace hardware that had an open end on one side and a closed ratchet on the other. Additionally, a propane torch will work wonders. You can buy these for about $10.

I tried posting a link to the snap-on stuff, but UBB doesn't like very long URL's.

Here is a non-clickable link to the snap on wrench:
http://buy.snapon.com/catalog/pro_det.asp?qt=1&INV_ONHAND=&FREIGHT=&qty=1&Item_id=5013&PartNo=RBM1415A &Price=46.00&ListPrice=46.00&FORMNAME=8&Desc=Wrench%2C+Metric%2C+Ratc het ing+Bo x%2C+Standard+Length%2C+0%B0+Offset%2C+14-15+mm%2C+12-Point&SUB_Cat_ID=858104&SUB_Cat_NAME=Box+%2F+Ratcheting+%2F+Flank+Drive& Cat_ID=857414&Cat_NAME=Wrenches&group_id=543&group_NAM E=Standard+%2F+0%B0+Offset%2C+mm%2C+chrome&store=snapon-store&dir=catalog

Steve Lavigne

No. Leave that connected till you actually have the turbo removed from the car. Disconnect the three nuts that hold the exhaust to the downpipe and then remove the bolt that holds the downpipe to the block.

The two bolts that hold the turbo on are very difficult to get to. Luckily I had my steering rack removed when I did my turbo, so they were very easy to access.

Link to fairly good turbo r&r procedure

Luke

So I went out to buy a "ratchet". I stopped at the local Target for their ATM machine. I asked the door person (a cute girl around my age (18))

"Do you have an ATM machine?"
She pointed right behind her and smiled. I walked over to it and noticed that their was a twenty dollar bill in the money slot!!! There was nobody else around except the cute door person. I approached her a told her what I found.
She told me that nobody had used the machine for a while and nobody had come back looking for it. I offered it to her, ( to keep if the owner didn't come for it) She wouldn't take it.
Sorry to say that this ratchet I bought today was the first "real" tool that I have bought on my own. I'm about to leave for Kettering (mechanical engineering) and I "just" bought a ratchet.

AND IT WAS FREE!!!!!!!!

gonna go finish the job. Thanks for the help Steve and Danno!

Danno

A couple of tips:



Try to set the indexing of the new turbo as close to the old one as possible. You can do it visually by lining the two of them up next to each other. In the photo above, you can see that I've index my new Huntley Turbo-2 to aim upwards just a little more than the stock one. That's to give it a straighter shot towards the intercooler pipes.

To get the turbo lined up with the mounting bolts from below, it helps to bevel the hole a little on the bottom of the turbo. Also grind the tips of the bolts into a bevel as well. This lets you wiggle the turbo into position when it's mis-aligned, rather than having to have it perfect before the bolts would even engage. I also made a little holder out of cardboard to keep the bolts in place as I lower the turbo down.

Then when you try to put the bolts back into the turbo and exhaust pipes, use a small screwdriver that'll go through all the flanges. Then you can wiggle to line up a second hole where you can stick a bolt in. Don't tighten any of the bolts down until you have them all inserted. That's it, piece of cake, eh?

Luke

Bottom LEFT hand side pic

- are those the two bolts I still need to remove? I have the exhaust bolts out and the down pipe bracket's bolt out.

David Salama

Yes,

Those two bolts are actually holding on to the center section of the turbo. I believe they are 6mm allen head bolts, and are a real bitch to remove. Make sure you tap your allen thoroughly into the bolt before trying to loosen, as you definitely don't want to strip them !!!

Danno

David is putting it mildly. IF you strip the allen-heads of those bolts that hold the turbo on, be prepared to add another 10-hours to your work. Because you're going to be removing the intake-manifold, fuel-injectors and exhaust cross-over pipe. Then you're going to remove the front suspension and the air conditioning compressor and the engine-crossmember. All that to get to those stripped bolts. So be very, very careful.