TurboClunker (a.k.a. cheap-ass slaps a turbo on his LX)

[DARKNESS]

nicely done, keep up the good work!

 

[Heckraiser]

Tapped the hole last night, but the pictures came out crappy and blurry. But anyway, follow the same process (slather your tap in grease to catch shavings, feel around with magnet afterwards). Tip: remember NPT fittings have tapered threads, so even though the pan is only a few mm thick, you will have to turn your tap pretty much all the way in to get it to thread properly for the NPT fitting. When inserting my fitting, I used a little copper gasket maker on the top threads (not the threads that will be inserted clear into the pan, but the ones that will engage with the hole when fully inserted--if that makes any sense). Not sure if it will make any difference, but I thought it might help with leak prevention. As you can tell from the previous photos, leaks aren't really my top priority

Once you're done with drilling, tapping, placing the drain line fitting, THEN you can drain your oil. Probably a good idea to run a few extra quarts through with the drain plug out just to make sure any incidental filings make it out of the motor.

 

[Notch]

You have a magnet that picks up aluminum!

 

[Heckraiser]

I didn't know it was aluminum, but yes, the magnet did pick up a few flakes after drilling and one or two more after tapping.

 

[bigfj62]

The oil pan is steal not aluminum.

 

[AaronM33]

I think the confusion is the lower "pan" is steel but there's an upper portion that is Al.

 

[Heckraiser]

The upper pan is what was drilled, but the magnet did indeed pick up a few flakes. This unicorn magnetic picker upper can be purchased at Advance Auto parts for $4.99

 

[Heckraiser]

Work has been interfering with this project. I'm really getting bogged down and I have thought multiple times now "why the fawk did I get into this." I'm hoping the end result makes me forget what a drag this has been.

Just for documentation purposes, I'm at about 8 hours wrench time... best guess.

Baby steps:

I moved last summer and the new house doesn't have 220v for the welder. So this morning I did a little home improvement project.

Then I got the oil feed line plumbed. It just tees off where the oil pressure sender goes into the block. The Treadstone fail continues ad nauseum. Every part that is threaded seems to have their own proprietary "almost metric" thread. I have had to chase or tap just about every fitting I received from Treadstone. And to top it all off, their -3AN feed line appears to actually be -4AN, so more shopping adapters and bull****.

 

[Heckraiser]

I don't have any bolts the right size for the oil drain fitting to the turbo center housing, so I'm calling it quits for the day.

Drain line assembled on the bench.

Those little allen head bolts were included with the treadstone drain kit, but don't fit in this turbo. Thankfully they were a perfect fit for the wastegate, so I used them there. Wastegate in its final resting place (gonna need a non-twin scroll gasket, this one wont seal:

 

[scottryana]

Dude you need to call Treadstond out on all their issues! Seriously write a good email documenting all the problems and send it to them. They have usually been good with me with any customer service problems. But I can think of like 4 things you have had problems with, with their stuff.

 

[roachman]

Trailblazing is always rough. keep it up. sub'd.

 

[LandCruiserPhil]

With out deviation from the norm progress is not possible - Frank Zappa

Keep it up!

 

[Heckraiser]

Thanks for the encouragement guys. I think better planning would have circumvented most of my speed bumps. I get frustrated and post up on the thread when I'm still in facepalm mode, but I think posting up those moments might help the next guy that comes along to do a better job.

I got the block side of the tee to thread in OK, but I'm not super happy with it (only went in a few turns) and I'm not real happy with the feed line as a whole. In the interest of getting the truck back on the road sooner than later, I think I'll try to make what I have work with adapters, but I'm formulating a plan to replace the whole feed line.

I think I figured out the problem with the oil feed kit (other than the fact it's advertised as -3AN and it's actually -4AN). After some digging on MUD, I think the oil pressure sender is threaded 1/8" BSPT while the tee adapter is 1/8" NPT (this is just a theory), can someone confirm?. That would explain why nothing was fitting together even though the threads looked pretty much identical to my naked untrained eye. For future reference, I think autometer makes a BSPT to NPT adapter.

Can someone who has gone down this road (@scottryana @2KCruiser) confirm what they did for their oil supply tee into the block?

 

[Mud crawler]

Awesome build! I was looking at doing something very similar to my 80 but it's my main vehicle and I can't have it down for more than a day or two. Maybe someday I'll get a second build and try your ideas out.

 

[2KCruiser]

I just removed the oil pressure sender, installed the T fitting in it's place, then put back the oil sender on one side of the T and the other goes out to the turbo oil feed. Don't remember the exact sizes but it was the same thread as the one on the block side for the original oil pressure sender.

 

[2KCruiser]

Just looked at the pics above, basically you did the same thing on yours. Sorry, haven't had a chance to read through.

 

[tweeek]

Pressure sender is indeed bspt. Its very close to npt, but not quite.

 

[Heckraiser]

Thanks for the confirmation! I may have buggered it up enough that I'll have to re-tap the hole if/when I re-do the feed line. I guess for now I'll just try to make it work and keep an eye on it for leaks.

 

[Heckraiser]

semi-rediculous stack of adapters to mate up the oil feed to the top of the turbo. Could all be replaced with a single 1/4" NPT to -3AN adapter (preferably with a 90* bend) if my supply line was actualy -3AN and not -4AN.

-1/4" NPT to -3AN male adapter
-3AN female to female 90*
-3AN male to -4AN male adapter

Also for the record, the tapped holes for the oil drain on the turbo center housing are 3/8" standard thread.

 

[Heckraiser]

I bolted up the turbo, which was a pain because the upper two nuts are really hard to reach, and then tried to screw my oil drain line onto the bottom of the turbo. It would not go on. So pro tip: put the drain line on the turbo first, then bolt down the turbo. Much easier that way. Then you can screw the bottom of the drain line onto your oil pan.

The flange on the turbine housing had to be clearanced a little bit because it interfered with the big fitting on the drain line.

flange ground down and drain line screwed on:

The whole shebang finally installed. I hope I don't have to take this turbo off again for any reason!

Another tip for anyone else doing this: the drain line is stretched really tight to reach the whole way. If using a kit like the treadstone kit, you will benefit from a longer drain line--I would recommend 20" (not including the length of the fittings, so probably more like 25" total). Drilling my oil pan further to the front of the motor would have helped too.

If I were to do it all over again, I honestly think I would use a brass NPT fitting with a hose barb on the oil pan, and a similar drain fitting on the turbo and then just use a length of rubber hose with hose clamps on either end and maybe some heat sleeve or something. The treadstone drain line is bling, but I think installation would have been a lot easier just sticking a rubber hose in there (not to mention cheaper!) It was also very difficult to get the turbo side fitting torqued down properly--I'm still not sure if it's tight enough.

:edit: something like this:

and this:

More baby steps.