Turbo Oil Supply Screen Cleaning

[SuckSqueezeBangBlow]

I'm told the inlets on the ball bearing turbos have a restrictor anyway, so the test won't indicate a partiallly blocked feed line. I replaced my stock one with ETM's kit, and feel much better knowing its ok now. I haven't cut the stock one open to suss it out yet though.

[XF Falcon]

No worries

Well I got the new screen and "housing" from Coventrys. The filter inside this one is about twice as long as my old one, which is a good thing I guess. The circlip in the new one is only a few mm deep inside whereas my original had a shorter filter, with the circlip about like 20mm deep inside it. I couldn't pull the filter out without damaging it (once the circlip) was removed, but it didn't look like there was anything really stuck onto it which is good. My regular oil changes must be doing something I guess. I also have one of those magnetic sump plugs which works too, because every oil change there is a little bit of extremely fine metal stuck onto it.

I'll hack up my old oil supply line as soon as I've fitted the new one, just in case I have dramas with the new one

Edited 07/12/09 07:31 AM by XF Falcon

[Sir20B]

Hi Guys

Im only new to the site and am no expert on this topic but can add with an experience I had...

After 173,000km of moderate driving, my 430 rwhp, April 06 Manual BF XR6T (ive owned since new) Turbo

charger ground itself to a grinding boost-less hault whilst coasting down the M1 on a sunny qld sunday.

On the day and 30km prior to the event, there was a slight rattle, (not pinging rattle) but more like

a loose heat sheild rattle. Driving cautiously applying lite throttle only as I listened to try and identify

where the noise was coming from...In less than 30km of highway driving and slight boost the car stopped

making any boost at all...

I pulled over, switched the car off and wrestled and removed the turbo air intake hose..

The front wheel of the turbo I discovered was the source of the lite rattle as it ground away on the inside

of the turbo compressor housing!! The movement up and down was 3-4mm , not to mention the debris (as a result

of this grinding) that had now just been consumed by my poor Engine...

Towed the car to home. Rang ford for a Price on a new Turbo.. I forget the amount (I think was 3500 or something).

Rang a known Garret dealer and they said 1500 (I think) and asked how many km did I have on my car? I said 173k.

Their reply is where I nearly fell over.. "oh youve had a good run".... "the rest of them fail at about 120k!!!!!"

They went on to tell me the Inline filter gorse blocks solid at about 120k and as far as they are aware Ford

dont have aservice interval for this gorse.... all of this I was pretty suprised to hear (and in my mind I

was saying if only I had known!!)

Anyway I ordered a new Turbo from them to be here the following morning... In the mean time I set out to find this

gorse and throw it as far as I could! I also wanted to see for myself and confirm it was oil supply that caused my

turbo failure...

I removed the turbo feed line from the turbo charger itself. I bent it up lightly and had it pointed into a 10 litre

bucket (I wanted plenty of capacity in the bucket incase our theories were wrong should copious amounts of oil

come out the pipe at engine oil pressure! Nice mess!). Anyway after some 30 seconds of idling not a single drop

of oil came out of the turbo feed line. Ill also mention the turbo charger was not turing a rev during this

test. I was DEAD!

When I followed the feed line back around to the other side of the block and saw where the junction of sensor and

bajo joiners were, I did remove the air box and oilfilter to try and gain better access to the area.. (it would be

a different story if I was attempting this with the car raised or on a hoist). But yes its a bitch to get to eitherway.

Removal of the junctions and connectors I found the TINY TINY gourse tucked away with a circlip each end. The most

suprising thing was the size of it! and the fact it had very little capacity! It was blocked solid! As fast as that

it went over my shoulder never to be seen again! I couldnt help think if only ford had located the oil presure sensor

in a different spot in relation to the Gorse and the oil light came on should the gorse ever block up!

On inspection of the line itself it was clean.Clean as a whistle. The Castrol Edge 10 60 oil id been running since the

car was 1500km old (changing every 10,000km) always appeared to come out clean on each oil change and it was. The

line though being clean didnt have any oily appearance at all. It looked as if it had been dry of oil for.. I hate

to say it.. months! It was perhaps the high quality ( and expensive) oil that bought me the extra 53,000km prior to failure

compared to the average km the garret dealer indicated??

I ordered an External braided inline filter Kit. This I fitted with the new turbo.

Now running again, (after I changed the oil & Oil filter for peice of mind and replaced the original spark plugs(!!!)

to the already gapped NGK BKR6EIX) I had the car placed back on the rollers (the same one it always had been on)

and all my engine health concerns were put to rest.. the ol donk still realled off the same power it ever did

(over 400rwhp) on the same boost it always had... FweeewH! God love the inline Ford 6!

As mentioned in one of the above posts, I too didnt like the appearance of braided inline filter kit.

Having to zip tie it to one of the turbo water lines just doesnt look neat enough for me also.

So I pulled out the original steel feed line. I refitted it but in the process fitted the same inline

-6 filter to it used in the braide kit, with some speedflow fitings flared in. Its now located just

beind the power steering pump and almost looks factory..

I have a 2010 FG Xr6T auto on order (due in Feb-March). Guess whats the first thing ill be doing to it!

(PS can one get banned for dribbling on too long on his first ever post? ;-))

[ENVYOSXR]

Great story mate, will sure get ETM some more customers I would think. I have been meaning to get one for a few months now, and this just helped me along. Appreciate the info mate.

And

[Stazza_Brendan]

Sounds like it will be the first thing I do to my car.

Reliability > Power

[Rudiger]

Absolutley terrified to read that story, but guys I'm gunna tell you a story that's worse.

Took my car into my dealer last week for som warrnty work on the rear.

The service manager is a nice bloke and I get on with him pretty well.

I asked if they could look at the inline Turbo oil filter while the car was up on the hoist.

This was his reply (Now this is a Ford service manager mind you)

"The only oil filter is the standard engine oil filter. There is no other oil filter."

Hang on a minute.

So theres two possibilities.

All you Ford XR6 Turbo owners who are whinging about in line filters are talking through your rear

OR

Ford mechanics are never informed there is a filter than can be the cause of major engine issues.

I don't know about you guys, but that is somewhat dissapointing.

Once I can find it, Im trashing it. As someone else wrote, why do you need to filter oil that is already filtered???????

Edited 15/01/10 10:56 AM by Rudiger

[tab]

The turbo supply filter is never changed as part of regular servicing, so he is ill-informed/has NFI basically. It appears that Ford's theory is as long as it last three years....who farkin cares what happens thereafter.

[Smoke them tyres]

Don't know why people are cleaning/fitting new ones.

These filters should be ditched into the nearest lake after initial run in, never to be fitted again.

As Carroll Smith said: "throw it into the nearest lake, if it floats, rescue it".

Tying a Harley crankcase to it will make sure it doesn't float....

[IBOO57]

Well, after reading this thread and given the fact my car now has over 90,000 ks on

it I decided to remove that strainer from my car.

I have had many Turbo cars and not 1 has had a strainer on it and none of the Turbos ever

seized or had any dramas so given that and the fact ive been a mechanic for 20 years I made

the decision to leave it out.

I wasnt prepared for just how small and laughable the thing actually is.

No wonder the are blocking up and causing dramas.

The car is a 09/06 BF so not sure if it differs to older or newer cars.

I took a couple of shots to show how small it is.

Next to a 5 cent piece........

Here you can see the Carbon on the inside. It is at 4 points around the inside this

is just 1 of them the others are spread out around it where the 4 holes are in the fitting.

The Carbon that is on there is after it has been cleaned with Degreaser.

Hope these pics help.

Leave it out

[RHR]

SO can it be pulled out and left out all together on an FG.

I had 140k+ on my BA with no turbo issues what so ever