Rebuilding a T3 Turbo Yourself - progress / write-up

[84z31]

well i got my kit for rebuilding my turbo. i thought i'd show what it takes to do this. i skipped all the tear down of the housings. if you can't figure out how to do that, you shouldn't try this. it is pretty easy. the hardest part it getting the housings off if the bolts won't come apart.

heres what i got for $77. this includes a free balance when i get the kit together. i'll be taking it to the guy personally on friday. he sent me the wrong seal for the backing plate.

heres the kit.



first you need to disassemble the bearing housing. if your turbine wheel was ground off for balancing like mine, put a good set of vice grips on the nut. then on the comressor wheel you'll need an open ended 12-point 10mm wrench to get the nut off. then take your compressor wheel off. grab a rubber mallet and tap the shaft from the compressor side. then your shaft and turbine wheel will be free. you will need a good set of c-clip plyers. remove all the c-clips and the old brass bearing. there are 4 c-clips and two bearing.

heres a picture of the compressor wheel, shaft and turbing wheel.



this is the first c-clip going in.



this is the first brass bearing going in. i lubed all the bearings with lithuim grease just to be safe. you probably don't need to but its always good to be safe.

here is what the brass bearing looks like.



here it is installed



installed c-clip



now do the same thing on the other side. your now done with the hard part.

now you need to replace the piston ring on the turbine shaft side of the shaft. i used my razor blade knife and a screwdriver. its pretty easy.



now that you have that done, reinstall the hat that covers the turbine side of the bearing. and stab your shaft into the bearing. you'll need to compress the piston ring with a screwdriver as you push it in.

now there is a little rubber o-ring that goes on the compressor side. pull the old one out. stick a little lithum grease on the new one and intall it.



next you'll install the trust collar and thrust collar bearing. i put a little grease on them as well.



thrust collar and bearing installed.



next you'll need to remove the old carbon seal on the bearing plate. then install the seal with a press so you don't screw it up.



then bolt the backing plate on with the 4 supplied bolts. after you do that install the thrust spacer on the shaft, then the compressor wheel and nut. your done. send it off to be balanced. then reassemble the rest of the compressor and turbine housing.


here is a blow up of the asseble of a standard T3 turbo.



hopefully that'll help some of you out. its pretty easy.

[84z31]

if you order the kit from Ron, make sure you tell him you need the carbon seal for the backing plate if you have an 84-85 T3 turbo. otherwise you'll get the wrong seal like i did. thats why i haven't put mine altoghter yet, when i take it down friday we'll install the seal and balance it. i'll try to take a picture of the balancing machine. to show how its done.

[84z31]

okay i got my crap balanced and put back together. i watched him balance it. i've never seen how they do it. they have a machine and they balance it while each wheel is on the shaft. so if you take one apart you will want to balance it.

heres the state its balanced in.





now before you take your shaft apart for reassembly make to sure to make a mark showing the alighnment of your wheel to the shaft. otherwise you just wasted a bunch of time getting the assembly balanced.



heres a few pictures showing how he ground it to make it balance out.



heres one more assebled picture. put the thrust washer on and thrust plate. put your shaft through. then pput your backing plate on. then take your compressor wheel and put it on with the nut using a 10mm wrench. don't tighten it down very hard. then tighten your backing plate bolts. there are 4 of them.



i still have a 3 broken bolts to extract from the exhaust turbine housing. i'll do that sometime in the next two weeks. i'm moving so production will be shutting down.its not assembled in final position. yes i know its not clocked properly yet. :roll:

[got boost?]

So basically getting it balanced is a huge waste considering you could have marked it before taking it apart and been in the same situation. Great info though.

[84z31]

it was, except the guy decided to file a couple of my blades, and screwed it up pretty bad. but he got it to almost a perfect balance. the better its balanced the longer it'll last.

[84z31]

also there is alot of crap that builds up on a 20 year old turbo's wheels.

after you sand blast the wheels i'm sure they go out of balance. i was looking into do this on the side. its not very difficult. and i kind of like it.

after research balancing machines, at $13000 i almost pooped. i'm going to continue looking though.

[Liam86t]

Thanks for sharing your experience, thats some helpful info.
How was your bearing housing? When i had my turbo rebuilt and high flowed by garret, they called me up and said my bearing housing was shot. The turbo was working fine before hand just leaking a bit of oil, No shaft play. I still wonder whether i was scammed on that, i got my old bearing housing back and couldnt tell if it was bad or not.
Oh well at least it made the turbo look nice and new.

[84z31]

the housing was really dirty inside. if you could spin or turn the wheels by hand you shouldn't need to replace the housing. mine barely turned. it was due to burnt oil inside the housing. after i cleaned it up it works great. the only thing to worry about are the bearing surfaces, if they are marred or scratched badly, you will need to replace the housing. i can get the housings from turbonetics for about $60. if you go to the junkyard you can probably get a good core for under $100.

[Dweezil]

Jason84NA2T wrote: I think most machines do to 1/4gm.

Most modern turbos are specified to a quarter gram dynamic, others are down to a tenth of a gram.

[Liam86t]

the housing was really dirty inside. if you could spin or turn the wheels by hand you shouldn't need to replace the housing. mine barely turned. it was due to burnt oil inside the housing. after i cleaned it up it works great. the only thing to worry about are the bearing surfaces, if they are marred or scratched badly, you will need to replace the housing. i can get the housings from turbonetics for about $60. if you go to the junkyard you can probably get a good core for under $100

I think i paid about AU$80 so that sounds reasonable.

[verbatim]

I did this same thing from parts from the same shop. I did not send mine for balancing, I just marked everything 100% before disassembly. I have had no problems after driving for about 5000KM.

Cheap and good insurance against having failure, which could deystroy the engine if enough oil is lost.

I found it fun, rewarding and CHEAP!

[Slideways]

are there any places that i can send it in to have this done? I could probly do it myself but but would rather have it done.

[buffer]

OK Satan, I'm assuming I'm the person that did not make sense. On Friday, Feb 9th, 2007 at 4:13pm member 84z31 wrote quote:
alright. i finally got a turbine section and got this thing together.

assebly is really easy. so heres a few pictures of the finished project. i just need to chip my computer, and i'll be ready to slap this thing on. unquote:

Since there has been no response as to results of the re-build I was wondering how this turned out. Was the re-build of the turbo successful or not worth doing. Has anyone else tried this with results ? This is a great thread on re-building the T3 turbo, just looking for the ending if any. I hope this is clearer for all if I was the " misunderstood person " and if i was not forget all this "JIBERISH" that I have posted :lol:
P.S Merry X-mas

[ZDaddy]

From what I gather, it didnt turn out good. This is the turbo with huge shaft play right? Sold to someone else on this forum and now that person just wants to get rid of it because he can't use it. Am I right?

[OrionMCP]

I rebulit one after reading this thread. The biggest problem I ran into was the bearing section in mine was out of spec and the rear seal didnt really seal much. I guess there was too much play between the ring-clip seal and the housing. I wish I knew what the tolerance should be there so I could have measured it before wasting my money to rebuild it. If anyone knows it might be good info to pass on for others.