Removing the Turbo on an ALH

[Toby]

Is it feasible to remove just the turbo cartridge and leave the manifold / turbo exhaust housing in place. I have a big oil burning/oil vapor issue on my wife's new to her 2000 Jetta. Just did "rings in the driveway" and it is a real smoke generator. I do not think it is passing the rings but leaking past the turbine seal. It does not smell like burned oil, more like water vapor. I will take it and run it hard tomorrow in the hope that it is just crap burning out of the exhaust system.

If possible I would like to just swap out the cartridge since she is chopping at the bit for her new car.

[the caveman]

I would think that changing the cartridge on the car would be harder than changing the rings.

[the caveman]

Did you put the rings in wet or dry? For the last 1/2 dozen engine builds I have done, they have gone in bone dry, and all have seated right of the bat.

[Toby]

Well, I've done close to 100 of the RITDW jobs over the years, so I doubt that it is a ring seal issue. That being said I have not driven it but 5 or 6 miles yet, so I can't be certain, especially since the bores were not perfect. Blowby is pretty low for 20 minutes running time. I am headed out to get the exhaust system good and hot to be sure that I have burned out any oil residue from its previous incarnation. There is most likely a lot. I have seen Mazda rotaries that would take 20 miles or more to burn all of the gunk out of the exhaust system after a motor change. I had one RX4 that I did for a car lot in Burien about 20 years ago that was particularly bad. It was like those pictures of dust storms during the Depression with me on the leading edge. So much smoke that it stopped traffic in both directions until I had gone a couple of miles flat out. Sure glad I did not pass a cop until it quit smoking.

[the caveman]

When the turbo on my previous TDI went, it smoked like that. It blew just after the last exit for a while and ended up having a highway maintenance truck follow me until I could pull off,very very bad.Did you check the play in the shaft?

[Toby]

I did check the compressor side when I had things apart and it did not seem excessive. The oil smoke diminished over the next 15 miles or so, so I expected that I was still burning crap out of the exhaust. I went out on a run and put my foot in it and it ran away. I have had a number of fresh motor runaways on blowby, so I was carrying the hose clamp pliers to pull the elbow and choke it out if I got a blowby runaway, but I had just vacuumed out the inside and left them on the bench. This one is the first runaway I have had in an automatic.

Anyway it was like those YouTube videos. Tremendous amounts of smoke. Luckily as I sat in a driveway with it in drive, trying to decide how to proceed, the RPMs gradually dropped and it died. Walked back to the shop to the hose clamp pliers and drove it home after I pulled the hose. It was soaked with oil. At least I know how the motor got wasted in the first place. No wonder they dumped the car so cheap.

I suppose it could just be oil in the IC, but I am betting the turbo is wasted. I will start pulling it sometime tomorrow.

FWIF I wasn't sure the flapper vale would shut off enough air to kill a runaway, but upon inspection that would definitely do the job.