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Well, based on my diagnosis and Simon's concurrence, I succeeded in pulling the turbo from a '96 CS in the local junkyard. Car showed 84,000 miles, so I'm trusting that it will be good. Cost: $20 plus plenty of time.
There from 11:30 to 3 p.m. and the rain held off till cleanup time. Started off well, and I was sure I'd be done way sooner than it turned out. Someone had removed the exhaust from it and had the AC compressor off and I could tip it out of the way. I then pulled the fan too - two 8mm head screws at top and one nasty oily one at a bottom corner
Four 13mm nuts to manifold were stiff to crack but then almost spun off. I turned a MAPP torch on two of them for about a minute, but tried the rears and they came off without heat. I got the box end on one of the front nuts, used just the open end on the others. I couldn't come up with my flare wrenches.
Took coolant return line off at the head, which was already drained, and coolant feed line off at water pump, leaving them attached at turbo. Got a container under the thing, then let it drain system, plus blew into reservoir while holding thumb over hole in head, to get more out.
But the second coolant banjo bolt stuck in my 12 mm socket and I wasted a lot of time trying to get it out.
Then it turned out the oil feed line banjo bolt at the filter housing, where I wanted to remove things from, is I guess only 11 mm. It was a rusty mess and rounded off when I tried to loosen it. So I decided to cut that line, crimping it first with vise grips but couldn't get a good enough grip on it to twist and bend it to breaking, so hacksawed it.
Squeezed together clips on the oil return hose, slid them up steel line.
Then discovered the bracket holding turbo to block, with a very rusty T-40 torx M8 bolt. Couldn't get a bit in it, couldn't get 10" vise grips to hold on head's rounded shoulders, couldn't fit a hacksaw up in there.
Car was without wheels, pancaked on its belly in the mud, had to work from above.
I tried prying the turbo downwards. The oil return line successfully pulled free, but I could only get the top down far enough for turbo's studs to clear the exhaust manifold, wouldn't budge further enough to pry it forward by bending the cussed bracket.
So as closing hour approached I figured, why not pull the manifold. I got lucky, all but two of the studs came out of the head instead of the nuts coming off them, and one of the others just spun out by hand too. So I was able to pry the manifold forward off the last (short) stud, and out, and got the manifold out of there.
Then it was easy to reach the offending bracket with the hacksaw and victory was mine, as the rain began in earnest and just before the 3 p.m. deadline.
Key up victorious march music here, and show our hero in profile from behind, striding off into a glorious sunset with his prize trailing behind him from one greasy paw.
I do think keeping the coolant and oil lines attached at the turbo and releasing them at their other ends is the way to go, since space is so tight at the turbo itself.
Stay tuned for the next episode in our continuing saga...
posted by 71.173.8...
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