Dead 14b, could it have been a balancing problem

[talontsi01]

My old 14b went bad, so I found a working 14b and bought it. My old 14b was polished, so I used the old housing with the new 14b's "insides".

This turbo then went bad about 500 miles later. Could this have been from not getting it balanced? Would I need to of had this turbo balanced?

 

[project_tsi]

It should not have died from being inbalanced. What you refer to as the "insides" is actually called the CHRA, and as long as you did not remove the turbine or compressor wheels, then it does not need to be balanced again. You don't need to have a turbo balanced simply because you swap a housing. When a turbo is balanced, only the CHRA is balanced w/ the wheels.

It seems to be more likely you have a oiling or cooling problem with the turbo. Perhaps a restriction in the feed or drain is causing you to have oiling problems.

 

[Stapl3]

Hey Spencer. Balancing issues occur when you start taking the wheels off the CHRA. If all you did was swap the compressor or turbine housing, you did nothing wrong and just had back luck.

Time for another 14b.

 

[talontsi01]

Thanks guys. I have another turbo on the way. Hey Beamer.

 

[project_tsi]

Thanks guys. I have another turbo on the way. Hey Beamer.

Spencer, since this is the 2nd turbo that has died, you need to look into WHY the turbo failed. As I stated before, I would suspect some type of oiling problem. Its common for the drain lines to get gummed up w/ debris and restric the flow of the oil, and can cause exessive pressure to build inside the CHRA, thus blowing seals and killing the turbo.

Don't just keep replacing the dead turbo's. Find out what is wrong and fix the reasoning why.

 

[oldman]

To add to Dan's list, boost leaks causing turbo over boosting, excessive crankcase pressure resulting in poor oil return capacity, are also common causes of early turbo failures.

 

[talontsi01]

Thank you very much for the input. I analyzed everything before, and honestly didn't find anything out of the ordinary. All the lines where clear, so I thought that maybe it was just bad luck.

Now that another turbo has gone bad, I do want to find out exactly what went wrong and ultimately fix that problem so it dosn't cost me another turbo. The current (bad) turbo is still on the car. So, when I take it off, besides checking the oil lines for debris backup and checking for boost leaks, what else can I check to diagnose what the problem was?

 

[Stapl3]

That's pretty much it man.