Toasted the turbo on 2004 Baja!

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joedavex
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Toasted the turbo on 2004 Baja!

Post by joedavex »

Was getting funny sounds from the turbo and got a P00011 code. Decided to remove the banjo bolt filters from the oil lines to the turbo and AVSC solenoids. One thing led to another and ended up pulling the turbo because I found the intake impeller nut in the air intake tube. Good thing I took it out when I did, not sure how much longer it would have lasted!
https://youtu.be/iuPOj5FV0R8
Looking for a TD04 turbo in good shape if anyone near CT has one cheap.
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20Baja06
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Re: Toasted the turbo on 2004 Baja!

Post by 20Baja06 »

Just a little bit of play on the compressor wheel there. Yikes!

And that's the original turbo? I've not been around long enough to know, but I can't imagine this being a common occurrence.
-Brian
joedavex
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Re: Toasted the turbo on 2004 Baja!

Post by joedavex »

I don't know if it is the original turbo or not, I've had the car for about 20k miles and it's currently at about 220k miles. I'm not sure how "normal" turbo failure is on most cars but in my small sample of 3 turbo bajas I have I've had 2 failures. Both had a lot of play in the shaft, this one worse than the other and both had the nut come off the intake impeller shaft. In this case I found the nut sitting in the fresh air tube by the MAF sensor, see attached image.
I don't know the order of failures but wonder if the lack of oil because of the banjo bolt filters causes bearing failure which then leads to vibration which subsequently shakes the nut off the impeller. Fortunately in neither of my cases did I have anything go into the intake and thus destroy the engine.

I did manage to find a used TD04 turbo on FB marketplace that seems to be in great condition. I have to replace 2 bolts on the downpipe flange and I'll be putting it in this week and hopefully be back up and running shortly.
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20Baja06
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Re: Toasted the turbo on 2004 Baja!

Post by 20Baja06 »

Thanks for the reply. Not gonna lie, that's a pretty scary dataset! Ultimately, I want to convert my N/A one of these days so I'm glad to know some of the failure modes that could be expected. I'm not new to turbos in general, but turbo Subarus are not something I've dabbled in much. In other worlds, I haven't regularly seen the impeller nut come off like that.

You say "banjo bolt filter" - is this an original (designed, not necessarily the original from the factory) part? Again, I've seen inline filters for oil feed lines before but typically only when the turbo is being upgraded or the oil feed location has changed.
-Brian
ZUBAJA
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Re: Toasted the turbo on 2004 Baja!

Post by ZUBAJA »

One of the failure points on turbo Subarus is a small filter screen that is inside a banjo fitting where the turbo picks up oil from the engine pressure system. The filter screens are often overlooked in maintenance and result in oil starvation to the turbo. I find it unusual that there were TWO turbo failures reported here within a week where the impeller nut came loose and damaged the impeller. Of curse this could also be where the turbo was oil starved and the shaft seized causing the impeller / nut to keep spinning with the nut coming off.
One more reason I DIDN'T want a turbo (extra maintenance, extra failure areas). I had my turbo stuff with Chevy Corvairs back in the '70s. Dennis
20Baja06
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Re: Toasted the turbo on 2004 Baja!

Post by 20Baja06 »

Thanks for the explanation, Dennis!
-Brian
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