Total Engine Failure (what would you do/advise guys/gals)

[Guest 4123]

But you can't have the oil thing both ways, one minute you are saying that the oil would stop the engine dead and now you are talking about it NOT stopping it at all, in fact the opposite.

But that was my point, the quantity of oil from a broken turbo is not huge (the oil pipe is quite narrow I believe) so it would probably burn it.
To get enough into the cylinder to cause a fluid lock the intercooler would have to be full and a blown turbo is not going to run on long, the drop off in power and the noise means that the engine is normally stopped quite quickly.

It depends on the rate at which the oil reaches the head - I was just trying to demonstrate that oil does reach the head from the turbo EVEN under normal circumstances. If there's sufficient oil to stop the engine, it will, otherwise it will burn. The quantity of oil lost from a turbo can be large because if the engine is running, it's still at full pressure and the seals will have failed - the turbo only has to stop for the seals to fail! It's not just down to the size of the oil supply pipe - that's to control the flow. Look at the size of the oil return pipe! My Lupo lost 1L of oil in no time at all. It took some miles to burn off all the oil from the exhaust after everything was repaired. The inlet side was cleaned with a pressure washer. I couldn't do that with the exhaust!

RAB

 

[Birchall]

It depends on the rate at which the oil reaches the head - I was just trying to demonstrate that oil does reach the head from the turbo EVEN under normal circumstances. If there's sufficient oil to stop the engine, it will, otherwise it will burn. The quantity of oil lost from a turbo can be large because if the engine is running, it's still at full pressure and the seals will have failed - the turbo only has to stop for the seals to fail! It's not just down to the size of the oil supply pipe - that's to control the flow. Look at the size of the oil return pipe! My Lupo lost 1L of oil in no time at all. It took some miles to burn off all the oil from the exhaust after everything was repaired. The inlet side was cleaned with a pressure washer. I couldn't do that with the exhaust!

RAB

I think we have "exhausted" the debate too, we can leave it to the post mortem (strip down) now I guess?

Steve B

 

[Richardu]

Hi Everyone,

Well, the papers have all been collected and marked. The good new is that whoever buys my car will be getting a bloomin good motor (my wife will not hear another word on the matter, she doesn't like it anymore so it's got to go....I know, this is precisely the time we should be keeping it)

Ok, on to the damage report and before you all put the kettle on and get comfy it's actually quite a let down - from a geeky, complexity, diagnostic POV.
The oil feed to the turbo was/is fine - a surprise indeed, there was some evidence of a little black gunk in the head but that has all been removed and did not cause the failure.

Chatting to the Volvo specialists who conducted the work, informed me that it was simply down to the turbo coming to the end of it's life, it gave up the ghost. Like I said, no oil starvation just wear and tear.

Ok, now on to the damage. Bits of turbo flew through the cylinder head (just cylinder one as it happens??) and a couple of valves were bent as a result; hence the loss of compression. The lads have replaced valves (the seats were perfect), cam bearings and other gen wear and tear kind stuff whilst 'she' was stripped but nothing else was damaged. Pistons, bore and all of that was perfect. They had to split the exhaust as some of the metal from the turbo was sitting in front of the cat, I think that was done in about an hour.

So, she's had a head strip and clean.
New turbo and pipes + all the gumph that come with that.
New valves on C1.
Cam bearings - all of them.

I think that's it.

£2.2k all in.