I finally got tired of my turbo pedestal oil leak. When it coated my brand-new camper on our first trip out, I said enough was enough. But I got to thinking... With the turbo out for the o-ring replacement, I am 75% of the way to being able to change out my leaking up-pipes, so I figured I'll tackle that job too. And with everything out and open, it wouldn't take much to get the valve covers off for new glow-plugs because mine are absolutely shot. And figuring that my injectors are probably due for replacement (at 214ki miles), no better time than the present to swap them out. And finally... With the turbo sitting on the bench, I might as well throw a Wicked Wheel in there for giggles. The way I figure it, an $8-to-fix oil leak is costing me about $2500. I decided on using the Full Force Stage 1.5 (180/30) injectors.
I'm working in it alone. My truck is lifted 8" on 37" so its a huge PITA to get into the engine bay. I have a step stool that works well. I can reach everything except the far back-side of the motor, which is where I am doing most of the work. I'm 50 and I'm here to tell you that all-day wrenching sessions are a young man's game. I've allowed myself 3 weekend to do everything.
Day 1 (First weekend) was spent cleaning engine bay and removing the intake parts. I found this pretty straightforward, except for my aftermarket air cleaner. The little piddly screws holding the filter and tube on stripped the heads out. I had to remove the whole airbox and battery tray combo. One of the bolts for that was corroded from battery acid and rounded the head right off. I had to take the next size down socket and beat it on the rounded head and very gingerly used the impact to get it out. The intercooler tubes all came out without a fuss, but the damn clamp on the back side of the turbo fought me every step of the way. It had rusted/welded itself to the flanges and it took hours to get it to break loose, in the absolute worst area in the truck to get to. By the end of the day, wound up with the following pile of parts. The pedestal is exactly as it was lifted from the truck. You can see the oil sitting on the surface from the worn-out O-rings.
Day 2 (second weekend) The plan was to get the old up-pipes out and the new ones in. I will never do that job again, even if you held a gun to my head. Some of the bolts are nightmares to get to, and despite liberal applications of PB blaster over the prior few days, they would not budge resulting in stripped heads. In the end, I finally broke out the sawzall. Seeing how I was replacing all that anyway, I had no qualms cutting it apart. I wound up cutting the passenger side tube near the collector, and had to cut one bolt on the drivers side at the manifold. I bolted the new bellowed passenger side tube up to the new collector and installed it in the truck pretty easily. I left the manifold bolts loose till I get the turbo back on. Getting the drivers side tube in place by myself took years off my life. Getting it to stay in place long enough to get some bolts in it was impossible. I finally put one manifold bolt in with just one turn on the nut. This kept the tube from falling all the way to the ground for the 30th time, but getting the collector and the tube to line up so a bolt can be started was incredibly difficult. Of course, I'm laying on the engine with all kinds of crap digging into my chest, and having to everything by feel, but eventually I got it all to line up and got the bolts in and tight. What a total chore this was. I'll pay someone before I do it again.
Day 3 (second weekend) Injector day! I despaired at getting the passenger side valve cover off, but I had found that most of the hoses and crap blocking it are pretty easy to remove or move out of the way. I also thought the bolts would be impossible to get to, but I had a large selection of extensions and wobbles. If you take anything else away from my story, let it be this. An electric ratchet is worth its weight in gold when working on cars. I have this one from Milwaukee
It's not an impact (I have a couple of those too) but an electric ratchet. You have to break the bolts loose with your regular ratchet, but it saves hours when you are in tight and can only move your ratchet about a 30th of a turn at a time. The passenger side is by far the worst of the two to get to, but in short order I had both covers, the gaskets, and the wiring harnesses out of the way. Injector and glow-plug removal was fairly straight forward and soon enough I had them all sitting on the table ready to be boxed up for return.
I inspected the injector cups and everything seemed ok, or as far as the Mark-I eyeball can tell. The new injectors dropped right in their holes with a minimum of fuss, some very light tapping with a rubber mallet got them in far enough for the retainer to slip over the top bolt. Then tapping the bottom of the retainer with a drift set them fully in their bores. After I had them in, I slipped the valve covers and gaskets back on with just a couple bolts and turned the motor over 5 full revolutions with a breaker bar to clear the oil out of the cylinders. Drivers side rear must have been on exhaust stroke because I got a nice stream of oil out of the still-loose up-pipe to manifold connection. Its gonna smoke like a freight train on start up. I found out that owning a camper with a couple big-ass awnings is a plus. I ran both awnings out to shade my work space, and turned the radio on for some tunes. This job really sucked, but at least I didn't have the sun beating down on my bald-ass head all day.
I put the glow plugs in and then set on getting the harnesses installed. Getting the new harnesses in was a very finicky operation. There is very little slack in the wires (naturally) and no room for your fingers. But eventually I got them all in place, hooked up and triple-checked to make sure that nothing is pinched in the gaskets or impacted by the moving parts. Finally, I put on the valve covers. Each cover had one damn screw that fought me tooth and nail. Make sure you have ALL the bolts started by hand before you snug anything up. It took literal hours to get the passenger side bolted up. with dropping the bolts about a hundred times and absolutely zero room to work. Last job of the day was to remove my DP-Tuner chip so I can get it sent off to be reprogrammed for the single-shot injectors. I figure I got about 4-5 hours left next weekend to get the turbo and all that back on. Stay tuned sports fans. I'll let you know how everything turns out.
Tim
I'm working in it alone. My truck is lifted 8" on 37" so its a huge PITA to get into the engine bay. I have a step stool that works well. I can reach everything except the far back-side of the motor, which is where I am doing most of the work. I'm 50 and I'm here to tell you that all-day wrenching sessions are a young man's game. I've allowed myself 3 weekend to do everything.
Day 1 (First weekend) was spent cleaning engine bay and removing the intake parts. I found this pretty straightforward, except for my aftermarket air cleaner. The little piddly screws holding the filter and tube on stripped the heads out. I had to remove the whole airbox and battery tray combo. One of the bolts for that was corroded from battery acid and rounded the head right off. I had to take the next size down socket and beat it on the rounded head and very gingerly used the impact to get it out. The intercooler tubes all came out without a fuss, but the damn clamp on the back side of the turbo fought me every step of the way. It had rusted/welded itself to the flanges and it took hours to get it to break loose, in the absolute worst area in the truck to get to. By the end of the day, wound up with the following pile of parts. The pedestal is exactly as it was lifted from the truck. You can see the oil sitting on the surface from the worn-out O-rings.
Day 2 (second weekend) The plan was to get the old up-pipes out and the new ones in. I will never do that job again, even if you held a gun to my head. Some of the bolts are nightmares to get to, and despite liberal applications of PB blaster over the prior few days, they would not budge resulting in stripped heads. In the end, I finally broke out the sawzall. Seeing how I was replacing all that anyway, I had no qualms cutting it apart. I wound up cutting the passenger side tube near the collector, and had to cut one bolt on the drivers side at the manifold. I bolted the new bellowed passenger side tube up to the new collector and installed it in the truck pretty easily. I left the manifold bolts loose till I get the turbo back on. Getting the drivers side tube in place by myself took years off my life. Getting it to stay in place long enough to get some bolts in it was impossible. I finally put one manifold bolt in with just one turn on the nut. This kept the tube from falling all the way to the ground for the 30th time, but getting the collector and the tube to line up so a bolt can be started was incredibly difficult. Of course, I'm laying on the engine with all kinds of crap digging into my chest, and having to everything by feel, but eventually I got it all to line up and got the bolts in and tight. What a total chore this was. I'll pay someone before I do it again.
Day 3 (second weekend) Injector day! I despaired at getting the passenger side valve cover off, but I had found that most of the hoses and crap blocking it are pretty easy to remove or move out of the way. I also thought the bolts would be impossible to get to, but I had a large selection of extensions and wobbles. If you take anything else away from my story, let it be this. An electric ratchet is worth its weight in gold when working on cars. I have this one from Milwaukee
It's not an impact (I have a couple of those too) but an electric ratchet. You have to break the bolts loose with your regular ratchet, but it saves hours when you are in tight and can only move your ratchet about a 30th of a turn at a time. The passenger side is by far the worst of the two to get to, but in short order I had both covers, the gaskets, and the wiring harnesses out of the way. Injector and glow-plug removal was fairly straight forward and soon enough I had them all sitting on the table ready to be boxed up for return.
I inspected the injector cups and everything seemed ok, or as far as the Mark-I eyeball can tell. The new injectors dropped right in their holes with a minimum of fuss, some very light tapping with a rubber mallet got them in far enough for the retainer to slip over the top bolt. Then tapping the bottom of the retainer with a drift set them fully in their bores. After I had them in, I slipped the valve covers and gaskets back on with just a couple bolts and turned the motor over 5 full revolutions with a breaker bar to clear the oil out of the cylinders. Drivers side rear must have been on exhaust stroke because I got a nice stream of oil out of the still-loose up-pipe to manifold connection. Its gonna smoke like a freight train on start up. I found out that owning a camper with a couple big-ass awnings is a plus. I ran both awnings out to shade my work space, and turned the radio on for some tunes. This job really sucked, but at least I didn't have the sun beating down on my bald-ass head all day.
I put the glow plugs in and then set on getting the harnesses installed. Getting the new harnesses in was a very finicky operation. There is very little slack in the wires (naturally) and no room for your fingers. But eventually I got them all in place, hooked up and triple-checked to make sure that nothing is pinched in the gaskets or impacted by the moving parts. Finally, I put on the valve covers. Each cover had one damn screw that fought me tooth and nail. Make sure you have ALL the bolts started by hand before you snug anything up. It took literal hours to get the passenger side bolted up. with dropping the bolts about a hundred times and absolutely zero room to work. Last job of the day was to remove my DP-Tuner chip so I can get it sent off to be reprogrammed for the single-shot injectors. I figure I got about 4-5 hours left next weekend to get the turbo and all that back on. Stay tuned sports fans. I'll let you know how everything turns out.
Tim