turbo is tight

[Flip90gsx]

I took the airbox side tube off the turbo to get the wastegate off. I ran into two potential problems. The first is it took a lot of effort to get the rod on the actuator to move. Should it be that difficult to move? And the other is I had to get a socket on the turbo to get it to move. I should be able to turn it easily. What would be a cause of this? The car sat for seven years so I don't know if this has anything to do with it or if there is something I can do to free it up. I originally bought it with a snapped timing belt so I'm pretty sure the turbo was functioning when I purchased it.

 

[Lofty]

I took the airbox side tube off the turbo to get the wastegate off.

What.

I ran into two potential problems. The first is it took a lot of effort to get the rod on the actuator to move.

Normal

And the other is I had to get a socket on the turbo to get it to move. I should be able to turn it easily. What would be a cause of this?

To get it to move? To spin the compressor wheel?...

It sat for seven years so I don't know if this has anything to do with it or if there is something I can do to free it up. I originally bought it with a snapped timing belt so I'm pretty sure the turbo was functioning when I bought it.

If the "blades" don't spin freely it's bad.

 

[bryanwheat]

If the turbo doesn't spin freely it is junk. And yes the wastegate actuator should be very hard to move.

 

[ILL122]

You had to use force to turn the wheel?

 

[daplatano91]

Any time the blades don't spin freely its bad. Chances are you got a bent shaft.

 

[KirkMKIV]

Chances are your turbo has a lot of coked up oil internally which is keeping the parts from spinning freely. In some cases it is rebuildable, in many cases you will have to replace the turbo and break out of bad maintenance habits .

Changing your oil more frequently and letting the oil temperatures drop down before shutting the car off should prevent this from happening in the future.

 

[Flip90gsx]

Bought it with a snapped timing belt. The car was in pieces since he had tried to fix it. Overall it seemed like he took pretty good care of it but i'm slowly running into problems. I have a t-25 sitting in my garage. What would it take to swap that on until i either replace/rebuild this one?

 

[bertrenolds]

If your current turbo is a 14b then don't bother with the T-25 since the hot sides are different. I would break down your turbo and see just how bad it is. It's not hard to take it apart to see if there is just a bunch of cooking on the turbine side that is not letting it spin. read this Turbo Rebuild
And then tear down the turbo and see what you find, rebuild kits are pretty cheap and if you can save the shaft and compressor wheel you can scribe a line and not need to have it balanced to save money. Otherwise you can get a decent shape 14b for around $100. And once you have the actuator off make sure the flapper on the hot side moves freely, I'm guessing everything is rusted up and will need some wd40 to soak in and break up the rust, had to do this to get the hot side off the big 16g I just bought for a rebuild.

 

[tcbikerguy6]

I would take the turbo apart and inspect it to see if you can find the reason it is seized. It might be rebuild-able.

 

[Flip90gsx]

The flapper moves freely. I'll take it off tommorrow and tear it down to see what i'm working with. Any suggested rebuild kit sites? So far I've found G-Pop Shop.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110741933571&fromMakeTrack=true&ssPageName=VIP:watchlink:top:en

Also found this and others similar to it. I'm a bit sketchy about ebay stuff though. Anyone used one of these before?