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turbo cleaner

I don't know what would be the reason to clean a turbo intake other than a good air cleaner.

Save your money IMO.
 
Can see where the compressor wheel will collect oil deposits from the crankcase vent. Even with that source of contamination, have not seen a need to clean the compressor wheel as I am not seeing any reason to from a performance / fuel economy perspective.

On the turbine side, have seen the effects of wet stacking, but a WOT run or two fixes that :)



So question back to tammlyn: Is there any driving reason to clean the turbo other than seeing a product available for sale?
 
I believe he's referring to the variable vane turbo vanes getting sticky and not cycling properly. They will set a couple of codes every time they go through a self diagnostics cycle. P003A, and P2573 IIRC. I have not done anything to clean mine but I'm damn sure interested if there is something that works. I do know that a good hard highway run of some distance with synthetic oil in the crankcase will reduce the amount of codes. In my case, I don't see any reduction in performance.
 
i seen one on you tube where the guy drilled two small holes at the top of turbo housing on the hot side then he injected turbo cleaning in those holes,the holes where threaded and he put in two small bolts,the theory is probably good but i don't know how much clearance is there between housing and vanes,would there be enough thickness of material on housing to thread properly and hold those small bolts,has anyone taken one apart and can give me an idea how thick is the housing
 
In dealerships for vvt I have seen thorough disassembly, cleaning and reassembly. Also seen connections taken apart to fit a hose and a small copper line fed via bottle to introduce some cleaning liquid and run engine (truck stationary) to clean turbo.

Technicians say from too much grandma driving, not working high power engine as designed- I’m not sure about that.

But drilling into the housing?!!? Ummm...
I did that on different turbos to inject propane. It was the demise of the turbo eventually. The hole, not the propane. Expansion and contraction will start to crack where the threads are cut. Maybe if you did a cryo treatment afterwards it would help. No way would I do it to a normal street rig.

Wmi people. It cleans the crap out if everything.
 
If you want to keep oil out of the compressor housing covert to a down draft tube. A few aftermarket companies sell kits for it.

As far as the vgt side. The only way to clean it is to pull the turbo and disassemble it. Usually people who baby their truck end up a stuck unisom ring. These trucks need good WOT driving every once and a while.

Tech tip. The turbo can be removed without pulling the cab or even the up pipes. I've got them down to a half day job.
 
I did the PCV conversion and EGR block at somewhere over 200k ago and didn't see any trouble with the vanes sticking until after I retired and was no longer driving 60 miles one way to work on the highway.
 
I believe he's referring to the variable vane turbo vanes getting sticky and not cycling properly. They will set a couple of codes every time they go through a self diagnostics cycle. P003A, and P2573 IIRC. I have not done anything to clean mine but I'm damn sure interested if there is something that works. I do know that a good hard highway run of some distance with synthetic oil in the crankcase will reduce the amount of codes. In my case, I don't see any reduction in performance.

I sheepishly went back and looked at the sig line, YUP, we are not dealing with a 6.5 here. LOLOLOL
 
hey rockabillyrat where are you i would like to find someone to do the job,i'm in ontario canada,even if someone knows a mech in southern ontario i would like his contact # my health does not permit me to do this, its kind of frustrating but that's how it goes
 
hey rockabillyrat where are you i would like to find someone to do the job,i'm in ontario canada,even if someone knows a mech in southern ontario i would like his contact # my health does not permit me to do this, its kind of frustrating but that's how it goes

I'm in NE Ohio. 30min south of Cleveland. Sorry I don't know anyone in your area to refer you too.

Any diesel shop should be able to help you out. The lbz/lly were known for unisom problems so most techs that work on these truck know how to fix them.
 
unfortunately there is only one diesel guy in my area and hes a ford guy and he's not interested in trying this job,can you tell me a few of your tricks to do this job,and maybe what kind of issues i should look fore, its kind of frustrating to find someone to do the job thanks mike
 
The trouble is the VGT, their is a place in them where soot gathers and no amount of wot runs will remove it once it gets caked, it's not the vanes them selves it's the rear hub/boss area that gets sticky..

Cure is to take it apart, clean it, then apply a ceramic coating to the area, this particular coating prevents any buildup of soot.. very common on VGT's...

The turbo will need re calibrating once it's reassembled...
 
Most of the ones I do are not stuck because of soot. Usually I find the unisom ring is rusted stuck. Or the vanes have grooved the turbine housing causing them to stick or reduce there ability to go full travel in either direction. Gm fixed this issue by programming the PCM in the lml and lmm to cycle the vanes after you shut the truck off.

The best trick I've figured out was if you remove the oil drain pipe nuts and the studs you can slip the turbo out with out removing the up pipes. You still have to remove the down pipe and the 6 bolts connecting the up pipes to the pedestal which are a bitch with the cab on but can be done with a long 1/2" flex head ratchet. Everything up top is easy to remove and should not give you problems to get it apart.

The only reason I leave the up pipes on is because I've broken alot of manifold to up pipe bolts due to our lovely salted roads in Ohio.

A scanner is needed to calibrate the vane positions to the PCM. Honestly if your just cleaning it and not replacing any parts you don't have to recalibrate it.
 
thanks for the tricks,where still under 3ft of snow but hopefully spring will come and i'll toss a coin to see if i'll do it myself or find someone who will do it, we also have lovely salted roads,-40 for two months now but its finally warming up -20 lol ,spring a couple of months away ,all is good thanks
 
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