Looking after your Turbo!!

[davesimmons]

Liked the swimming platform post - more please /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

On another note gerbil pointed me towards a very helpful group on Yahoo regarding turbo diesels and someone mentioned some pointers on maintaining them including letting the engine turn over a few times with the "stop engine" button pressed to allow some oil to the turbo bearings and to let the engine heat up sufficiently before putting under load and more importantly to cool down after a good run (5 mins at idle).

Any other useful hints and tips I've missed? Would not like to lose my turbo (or engine for that matter) /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[Coupe]

What works for me...

1. When leaving port, let the engines and oil etc get to temperature before letting loose with the throttles. In my case it takes...
Ticking over while I sort out lines, shore power, fenders etc.
Run out the estuary and about two miles down the coast. When temp reaches about 70c then off we go.

2. Let it all cool down again on tickover before killing engines.

+ usual maintenance, regular oil changes etc.

 

[Remmington]

After my request for engine oil from other than marina sources I found 15/W40 VDS3 in 20 litre drums at £2.51/ltr
Local Volvo Truck centre in Southampton.
Same gunge in Chandelry around £8.00/ltr

 

[peterb26]

Sadly - you cant turn over the new Volvos with the stop button pressed, as there aint one!

This is definitely a backward step. When engines have stood for a while (2 weeks or more) its a damned good idea to turn them over like this until the oil pressure guage just starts to move. That way you know that the oil is back where it needs to be before you fire them up.

But on the new ones - not a chance. Thats progress for you.

 

[sailorman]

How many Diesel cars have Turbos these days & wot do you do with them :- start n go then STOP & TURN-OFF without allowing cool down /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[Oen]

Turbo wear is a complex subject...

Unless you've got turbo RPM and boost indications, you don't really know what yours are up to. However, normal boat procedures (start engines before singling up, proceed slowly from berth, enter destination slowly, leave engines idling whilst making fast, etc) will provide a good deal of that which makes turbos happy. Blasting off straight to high power after start is bad for them, as is pootling about on rivers.

I had a small sports car some years ago with a huge Garrett turbo on it (1397cc, 208 BHP at the wheels!!) and took care of the turbo by various means, and it never gave me trouble. I had turbo RPM, boost pressure, exhaust temperature, and turbo oil pressure indications (it had its own oil pump). Head gaskets and brake sets were a different matter!!!

 

[Gumpy]

I have bot a TDI and an MX5BBR turbo
I always leave them for a couple of minutes to cool when I have been driving them hard.
I also have friends who ignore this rule one has an Audi TT and he is on his third turbo, the other a VW TDI and he is on his second. all cars except the BBR are under 5 years old.
You may draw your own conclusions from this.

Julian

 

[peterb26]

[ QUOTE ]
How many Diesel cars have Turbos these days & wot do you do with them :- start n go then STOP & TURN-OFF without allowing cool down /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

But how many cars are left unstarted for 2-3 weeks? Not many at a guess.

But yes they are all switched off on the driveway without any cool down period. Personally I think this is less important as most boats have to be taken into a marina area on low revs before berthing. I always turn mine off the minute a couple of lines are secured.

 

[Andrew_Fanner]

>>>
But yes they are all switched off on the driveway without any cool down period.
>>>
Surely that last mile or so at 30mph is an adequate cool down period. The turbocharger is not doing anything significant but is happily windmilling along and cooling down with full oil flow. Wht they really don't like is to go from working speed, or close to it, to still working, no gas flow and no oil being pumped as you shut off the engine.

 

[[2068]]

The highest thermal & oil stress will be if you pull off the motorway to refuel. 80mph down to 20 or 30 for a few seconds, follow the sign that says "Cars" and ooops, you're in the Travelodge, back round and loop to the Filling Station and turn the key off: and that red-hot turbo cooks the oil in the bearings to be caramel.

dv.

 

[hlb]

Back in the days when I drove a 56 ton truck. The wort thing you could do at it, is set off cold from a Mway services, you could feel it very tight as you excelerated down the slip road, it did not like it. Having said that, it was still driving like new, 250,000 miles later.

Last I remember, having blown two in the boat, it's about £350 each, so not that big a disaster. Less you have a marina that you can zoom into at WAT, I would think the normal setting off, comming in process. Would be quite enough, cooling down,heating up, period.

 

[[2068]]

From Sparkes, the routine pretty much matches what you should do anyway.

Cast off, a minute or so at trundle in gear out of the marina, then throttle up a bit (1000rpm) as swmbo gets the fenders in. Dodge the dinghies, maybe increase to 1500rpm and get the temp gauges into the middle as you go up the channel. Then out at sea towards West Pole, all nicely warmed up to go whoosh and off...

Come back, reverse the process: sometimes the engines smoke again if I've cooled them down too much!

dv.

 

[RogerRat]

[ QUOTE ]
someone mentioned some pointers on maintaining them including letting the engine turn over a few times with the "stop engine" button pressed to allow some oil to the turbo bearings

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting that one, as that was a noted procedure on the Mercruiser 4.2Ls' in my BMB but as Ancient M said, you can't do that on EC Volvos'

The uprated Mercruiser 4.2 D-Tronics I don't think will allow it either. Seems a bit of a pity cos the only time I forgot to do that after a 3 week no go a Turbo jammed, fortunately, WD-40 came to the rescue.