Oil Leak, blown seals?

digss

New Member
Joined
Aug 1, 2022
Howdy y'all. Newbie here. While I was chasing down a vacuum leak (brake pedal to the floor - something else I get to dive into!) I noticed some nice smoke coming from my downpipe. PO ditched the stock turbo for a ta49 right before I purchased. Supposedly very little use. Not really any shaft play. Trying to cover all of my bases as I store the car a few hours away and can only get to it on the weekends - along with being new to this platform.

Wouldn't say it's a slow drip nor pouring. Steady seep seems to be the words for it. From what I can tell it's coming from where the exhaust side of the turbo mounts to the downpipe, but in some of the attached photos it almost looks like both sides of the exhaust housing may be contributing.

I would like to assume it's pretty obvious that this would be due to bad seals, but with the PO saying this was a rarely used turbo - made me question if there are other avenues to check before shipping this out to have it rebuilt. I did take him saying that with a grain of salt. Poked around on the web and noticed people talking about clogged return lines.. Not sure if that's a viable option as well. I've included a few pics. Any thing to further look into/test is appreciated.

Learning a lot and have a long way to go, any input is appreciated.

Cheers.

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Pull that turbo off. With that much oil on the housing it needs gone through. Definitely the turbine oil seal ring or the center housing has a problem. It is
worth looking to the drain for any obstruction or collapsed line too but I'm certain that isn't a problem.
 
Pull that turbo off. With that much oil on the housing it needs gone through. Definitely the turbine oil seal ring or the center housing has a problem. It is
worth looking to the drain for any obstruction or collapsed line too but I'm certain that isn't a problem.
Just the information I was looking for. Thanks for elaborating.

I'll do more research as far as who to turn to for a rebuild. So far leaning towards G-Pop shop, unless others recommend differently here.
 
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