i think my turbo bit the dust

[Sephroth57]

cliff notes at bottom of post =P

what a wonderful weekend.... lets start at the beginning. well i walk out of work on friday, to notice that one of my tires is completely flat and it had a nice big nail right in the middle of the thread. i had to be somewhere 40 min away in an hour so i was pissed already cause i wasnt gonna make it. so i go back in and my friend has a plug kit he said i could use, we jack up my car pull out the nail, plug it with some weird rubbery sticky stuff, and it seemed like it was holding. so i drive home and when i get out i hear a hissing noise and its still leaking... ok so i say screw it tomorrow morning ill pump up the tire and drive it to goodyear just down the street and have them patch it from the inside.

saturday... so i bring them my car and i couldnt find my wheel key so i had to have them break off the lugs on my one tire.... so that costed extra but at least they had nice lookin lugs that matched my other ones almost perfect. so i left the car there they do the patch job, and i pick it up a couple hours later. when i pick it up i instantly notice the check engine light is on when it wasnt on when i brought it there... so im like OK.... i drive around a little, drive to my house it feels normal. so i get home pop the hood looks good. so later on i drive about 20 min to an arcade cause im bored.. well i get there and park and smoke is coming out of my hood , so i pop the hood and my T belt has smoke coming off it and i notice part of my timing belt cover is TOUCHING my timing belt, and i could see it was wearing it a little cause on the small part that was touching it was a discolored strip compared to the rest, the top part of my timing belt cover was removed because it was cracked and stuff, so anyway i just rip off the piece that was touching the belt and i was like well i guess that was the problem and go inside. oh and after i fixed that i started the car to see if the check engine light went away but it didnt..

so i drive home later and it seemed pretty normal. when i got home i pop the hood to check on things and theres a lot of white smoke coming off of my turbo from under the heatshield. it smoked/steamed for a good lke 5 min befroe it stopped after the car was turned off. now ive known my turbo was shitty for a while cause it pulls like shit when i boost and it makes a whining kind of noise like the wheel is hitting the sides sometimes, and it has shaftplay and some oil inside last time i felt it which was like 2 weeks ago. so is my turbo finally completely dead? i still drove it to work today but i try to keep it from spooling.


--cliff notes
got a nail in tire
patched it temporarily
took to goodyear to fix it
got it back and check engine light was on
found piece of my timing belt cover touching my timing belt and rubbing on it
ripped it off, after some more driving got home and my turbo is smoking like a bi*** and pulls like shit


so basicly, would my check engine light still stay on if it was my turbo that was dead or could that be something else?

 

[nine5raptor]

About the only thing I can comment on is, when you get a check engine light, it won't shut itself off. You need to go to an auto parts store (advance, oreillys, etc) and have them pull out the OBD-II reader. They can tell you what threw the code and also clear it.

Alternatively, a buddy with a pocketlogger can do the same thing.

 

[Sephroth57]

umm anyone else have some input?

also i can reset my ECU by taking off the negative battery terminal for 15 min right? should i do that to see if the check engine light goes off?

 

[hostile]

Why dont you see what the light is and fix it instead of reseting the ecu and hoping it wont find it again.

And smoke from your turbo doesn't mean anything.

It is just that, smoke.

Dont get worried over nothing, find out whatt he check engine light is, and check out the turbo and make sure you dont have a big exhuast leak or something.

 

[Sephroth57]

well im pretty sure its the turbo , cause ive been driving around for a couple days now since this and making sure i keep it in vaccum, which is very hard with the T25. and it hasnt smoked since then, i dont want to run it hard and make it smoke again but i bet that will happen. come on people many views and no replys!

 

[Defiant]

What did the damned tire shop do to your car to turn on the CEL?

 

[Sephroth57]

i dunno unless it was a hell of a coincidense that something decided to die/break that day that they repaired my tire. also i installed my SAFC the other day and had to disconnect the negative terminal, when i was done and put it back on the CEL still comes on =\

but anyway im getting my L2R turbo next week so when i replace my dying T25 hopefully it will go away

 

[blackNboosted]

Just a thought on your white smoke problem........I JUST had the same thing happen. Are you leaking any coolant at all? Every now and then I would get huge puffs of white smoke coming from the turbo (or so I thought). Turns out it was a coolant pipe rubbing against a bolt behind the turbo. If I babied it when i drove it never smoked. First time I get on it hard...white smoke. Like I said, just a thought.

 

[Sephroth57]

actually that could be it too, cause when i first bought the car it was leaking a tiny bit of coolant and it eventually just stopped. and i havent noticed anything leaking recently, i checked the coolant and oil levels and they both seem fine. which hose was leaking on yours?

 

[blackNboosted]

I don't know exactly which hose it was ,but it was a metal hose(pipe)almost directly behind the turbo. We ran pressure through the whole system for almost 3 hours and couldn't figure out what the hell was leakin. Finally saw this hose baaarely rubbin up against a bolt. The reason we couldn't find it at first was b/c when the car was off or I wasn't runnin it hard, the bolt was actually plugging the hole. It only smoked when it got really hot (.....heat expands). The hose was $25 from the dealership. I'll see if I can get in touch with the guy that helped me and ask him exactly which one it was.

 

[hostile]

It was probably the line going to your turbo or the line going to the oil cooler.

Either way you can fix it with fuel hose from autozone.