I am installing some maintenance goodies, and upon inspection of my OEM turbos, they seem to have some shaft play. I purchased a used set from an ebay member and they are much worse than mine, and the turbine housing is terribly cracked, and is black and oily looking inside the turbine housing, while mine has 2 harline cracks and is clean inside. I have looked everywhere for a shaftplay spec when moving the shaft up and down-not front to back and canot find anything. A friend says it has about 30 microns of play by guessing (he works in a quality control lab) and I know there is 1000 microns in a millimeter. So I am wondering if this is acceptable and I removed my turbos for nothing!!! Please post any info you have.....Ill post pics of the turbos tonight for further review by those with experience with turbos. Thanks
frank

 

microns usually have to do with the size of a hole (like in a air filter)
what he is probably thinking of is shaft play in thousands of an inch,
but usually you do not want any shaft play in a turbo (I could be wrong)

Adam G

 

Up and down play is fine to a point with wet bearings, when the engine is running there is oil between the shaft and the brass bearing. It works the same way as a crank bearing.

Aslong as the wheel doesn't touch the housing it should be fine. But if you have backwards and forwards play your thrust bearing is on its way out. Which isn't good.

You can buy a re-build kit to sort the problem depending how bad it is.

 

Holding the end of the shaft and pulling up and down is not the way to check the play .You should go in the oiling hole with a dial indicator and zero on the shaft at rest .Then lift both ends of the shaft at the same time ,note the measurement .

 

Here is a link that I hope will be helpful to you.

http://www.autosportracetech.com/RX-...adialAxialPlay

-Cliff

 

well, I checked the turbos and looks like there is really little shaft play up and down, and cant feel much of anything from front to back. I guess they must be ok?? I guess I will do some more checking and verify they are OK before reinstalling them. I am not upset that I did it thought cause I found that the previous owner had broken a stud in the manifold and didnt bother to fix it! So I am taking care of that and then will decide what to do with these turbos. Ill post some specs if I get the turbos check at the QC lab.

fraNK