This is my first time actually pulling the turbos myself. Does anyone have any useful or insightful tips for me? I figured somebody out there has done it enough to know the ins and outs and any potential troublespots. All suggestions welcome.

 

There's a great book out there that helps a lot of seven owners out whenever they are doing a mod. Do you want to know what it is called?
- Steiner

 

the bible

 

 

Joke. Like haha that's funny. Yeah I know I won't give up my day job.

 

Do you have a shop manual?

 

It is not too hard, just a little tricky to get them out after they are unbolted. The worst part is getting the oil lines bolted back in the proper place when putting everything back together. I guess I don't really have any tips, just keep things organized enough that you don't lose any bolts/nuts.

 

Make sure and take it to the dealership if you get too confused

 

The shop manual will help, but the procedure isn't very good in my opinion. It *does* show you where the nuts are, though. Basically just start taking stuff off until you can get to the nuts that hold the turbo onto the exhaust manifold. All the intake tubing, y-pipe, actuators (I think), downpipe... has to come off.

Some tips that come to mind:
1) Drain your coolant; probably a good time to change it while you're at it.
2) Replace all the old vacuum lines if you haven't already.
3) Everyone always says to use penetrating oil on the dp studs and let them soak for a few hours. I'm not convinced that it helps, since the studs don't rust at all. If you have high miles, like I did, you might run into problems.

 

I will disagree with you. No lubricant = increased friction, and increased heat.
If I knew what I know now when I first broke a turbo manifold stud I would not have broken it. Here is my tip to you. If you get to a nut/ stud that begins to get harder as you back it off, stop. Spray the lubricant and start threading it back in. Spray more lubricant, and then start threading it back out. Keep doing it and you will prevent the stud from stretching and welding into the manifold. Use copper base anti-seize with new studs (if stretched IMO)

 

Absolutely! This will help dis-assembly if you need to in the near future.

 

I'm not sure what was going on when I took off nuts, but I sprayed them down with penetrating oil, let them sit for only like 10 minutes or so, then went at it. They all started to come off pretty easy, but after maybe 1/4 of they got really hard. I tried tightening them back, spraying more lube on, then loosening them again, etc. Eventually, with two or three of them, I just muscled the rest of the way off. They ended up taking most of the threads off the stud on the way out. Maybe I should have let them soak longer... I don't know. The same thing happened to the dp to cat bolts.