Today was D-Day. After all the preparation it was finally time to port the wastegate.
After i managed to remove the turbo & exhaust parts up to the pre cat, i now had the parts in my hands to get to the job done.
first job was to separate the turbo from the rest which was a fairly easy job, but as posted many times before, the nuts stripped the tread of 2 the 4 bolts. The other 2 came out including the stud without any problem.
After cleaning the parts a little, i took the turbo + connected exhaust manifold to the friendly tool-shop to machine the hole to 20,5 mm.
We had a little trouble mounting the bugger to the milling machine and decided to use the exhaust manifold as mounting interface. Alignment was done by Center-fix and a metal plate pressed against the head of the milling machine and the flange of the turbo exhaust. (I don't know how to describe exactly, but the pictures will tell the tale
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After alignment a 20,5 mm tool was found (razor sharp, HSS) and we tried to drill ... without success. The material is so hard, the tool melted without even scraping anything off the surface!
Then i decided to port the regular way and went to the store to buy the grinding stone (i bought 2 of them for 4 Euro, finally something cheap again!
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The turbo was removed from the machine and i then screwed the manifold on the workbench with 2 woodscrews & two big rings. I took my Metabo heavy duty drill and started grinding the old fashioned way. 15 minutes later it was done! Real easy
The only thing that i did to speed up the process: Remove the metal that tends to get baked on the grinding stone every 40 seconds or so. If you don't do this, you'll be only generating heat instead of cutting the metal.
After this it was time to remove the studs. I tried to remove them with mole grippers (is this the correct technical term?) I could see the stud twisting and almost snapping without any movement at the turbo housing end... After applying a little heat with a blow torch i could remove them (barely) with brute force! (thank god). I then cleaned the thread by inserting a M8 handtap and did the same to the pothole with a machinetap (by hand). I replaced all the studs (with help of Bling bling Geoff!) with brand new Stainless ones, garnished with a little copaslip.
Then i re-united the exhaust / pre-cat lump using the original metal to metal seal and that was today
And now for some questions:
1. I used a very thin film of copaslip on the metal to metal seal between Turbo and exhaust lump. Was this wise? If not, i can remove it, as i did no reassemble the lot yet.
2. Can i re-use the gasket for the exhaust manifold? (I cleaned everything thoroughly
) Is it wise to use a thin film of copaslip here, or some sort of exhaust cement?
3. The same questions for the rest of the gaskets, as i never have done anything like this before in my life!
To be continued!
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