Blown turbo cause of bad motor? WTF Now?

[Outlaw1]

Originally Posted by ecoli

When something goes through the turbo and does that kind of damage, it often blows the seals also since the shaft gets so tweaked when the wheel slams into whatever.

I think the majority of the people (excluding yourself, ecoli) have a misconception that the turbo has a standard seal like you'd see on an engine somewhere. This "seal" gets blamed for lots of turbo problems. It's kinda hard to visualize, but a typical turbo shaft is supported by two bearings and has two oil control rings, a bearing and oil ring on the compressor side and a bearing and oil ring on the exaust side. That's basically the whole turbo as far as moving parts go. If the bearings are still tight and keep the shaft spinning on a single plane, the oil rings typically don't let much oil get past them. They don't really "wear out". Now if trash goes through the oil system causing the bearings to wear, bearings get sloppy, the shaft wobbles around and the oil rings don't have a constant surface to seal against. Oil will spew past them. There's not really many parts inside a turbo to mess up. Keep fresh clean oil to them and don't shut the engine off (shutting the oiling system down) while the turbo is spinning 100,000 rpms and your turbo should have a long happy life.