Housing/Rotor Question
 

Hey, started looking closer at my housings/rotors getting ready to do some extra cleaning on them and it looks as if carbon build up has basically fused itself to the sides of the internal parts.

The car it came out of sat for 3+ years in a guys field with no start ups or anything. Its an 87 TII

The housings have some on them but nothing major but the rotors were covered and it was stuck on very well.

Main question is when one of teh rotors cleaned up it had some small craters on it. Would this make the rotor bad? as far as the housings go I assume any craters would runing them but I havent seen any type of damage to them yet.

Opinions or experience in this?

Mike

small craters on the face or sides of the rotors wont creat any problems really, since they dont actually come in contact with anything ( unless you have a drastic engine failure! lol)
main thing to watch for on rotors is if the clearences on the seals and gap inbetween seals and the rotor stays correct, ex if its pinching the seal then its no good,

craters on the housings would be a bad thing tho since seals ride around them all the time!

Pics would help answer your question easier. Do the craters look like they were caused by rust?

Well, I guess you could say it looked like rust. I have some pics I took when I first got it apart. I can take some better ones if needed.

The housing as of right now do not have any craters and all seem to be very smooth.

These are before pics. I only have 1 rotor cleaned off just havent got pics yet.

Mike

Did this motor have water sitting in it? The rotor faces look ok, but the gears look like they are rusty. How are the bearings, e-shaft and irons? A rusty e-shaft or pitted irons are usually a no go.

Once you get everything cleaned up, post those pics.

I would seriously reconsider using those.

Better pics would help... but I think I can even see some of the edge of the rotor missing... that is not good.

And that stuff isn't carbon, it's rust as far as I can see on the housing.

--Gary

You wont be able to use those rotors. Not because of the rust per se, but as a result of it. The side and corner seals appear locked in place, which is common to rusty engines. Since 90% of the depth of the side seals are inside the rotor, and there's only .5mm seal sticking out above the rotors surface, there is no way to get them out much of the time. When you take apart an engine, the seals are supposed to get pushed out of the rotor by the springs underneath. Due to the rust theyre locked in place, and most likely cannot be removed, making the rotor unuseable.

The housing looks like it has some hope. Take a can of wd40 or something similar along with a lightly-abrasive scotchbrite pad and, using *LIGHT* pressure, clean off that chrome surface better. Then we can tell more about it.

Thanks for the help guys.

Luckily I don't need to use these parts as when I got the car I just got a jspec engine and tranny and just dropped it in.

These are just the original motor and wanted to look to see if it was good or not.

There wasnt any water and as for the eshaft there isnt a bit of rust or anything on it.

Main points the rust/carbon is on is the rotors and housings. The seals I am uncertain of as I havent even tried to see if they will budge or come out. They dont appear to be rusted together but honestly you would know better than I would on that one.

Here are pics of 1 of the rotors that I did most the cleaning on so far. Only thing not cleaned up is the gears and the grooves for the rings.

Thanks,
Mike

Yup we can tell you cleaned it.

Otherwise someone would have killed you by now for putting it on the white carpet! :)

you can get the sideseals out with some effort Kevin, usually you can get under an edge and rock a side until it snaps off, then i use a torch and a piece of remaining seal and pry the rest of the pieces out.

kind of a pita but with turbo rotors i think it is worth the effort to try and save the rotors.

i do this after putting the rotors in a parts washer for about an hour to try and get rid of some of the rust.

Really for the most part I am just trying to sell the housings and rotors but do not want to sell them if they are bad.

Wouldn't want to do that to another member nor would I want that to happen to me. The rotors seem to be good and the housings looks good besides a few chips along the edges.

Now the front, middle and back housing or intermediates might be another story. They have some of the rust/carbon left on them and you can tell where the rotor used to sit. I havent tried cleaning them yet so it might come off but thats how they sit now.

Mike