PHENOMENALLY done video my man! N54 owner here. WARNING to anyone putting off this repair if you have leaking turbos. DO NOT PUT THIS OFF!! You run the risk of the oil from your turbos fouling your cats. You do know want those problems and repair bills trust me!
for anyone watching this.... another option is to combine the oil pan gasket swap, on this channel and the turbo swap...and just pull the engine (while still connectes to the tranny) straight out the front of the car with a engine lift. eliminates having to drop the subframe and EVERYTHING is easy access.
I see so many people earning extremely well on RU-vid undeservedly but this is not one. Great vid ,audio and content for us BMW owners or just fans of the brand. Excellent work sir 👏
😭 I replaced the oil pan gasket and now see an oil spot on the floor. Traced it up to turbo area. Looks like I gotta drop the sub frame and do this too. Thanks of the great video!
Be advised: Do not cut into the turbo shaft to create witness marks as this will destroy the factory balance and require the turbo to be rebalanced once done. Use permanent marker or something else that does not take away mass from grinding.
120k miles on my n54 everything was stuck rusted leaking, the water cooling hoses would not come off the turbo cartridge rear hose would not come out of block. All copper manifold nuts stuck striped the end then rounded with a box wench and heat. If you are doing this job be prepared to pull the engine like I had to to extract and drill studs.
Wow finally someone who has done a video on this. I always considered going this route for my turbos but some people were saying you would still need to re-balance the turbo even if you mark the shaft nut and all. Because the new seals are of different weights and impossible to be the exact same. Have you had any ill effects or car runs fine? Also surprised you didn't do the waste gate fix at same time.
No, cars has done about 5k miles great since this install! If I had the opportunity, I'd have them bead blasted to clean the carbom, and then re-balanced of course. But then you get close to the cost of buying some pre-built cartridges on eBay. Thanks for watching and the positive words!
That bolt is for the coolant tube that goes between the turbos there are 1 on each corner the ones that hold on the heatshield are not as deep but same head and thread pitch
Id never rebuilt these turbos on a tune . Definetly do a single turbo setup or upgrade these. Our new dealer installed units somewhat smokes at times after a year out the exhaust like the old units but putting the rear cats back on helped
In my mind cutting that alignment line for reassembly would throw it out of balance, cause your taking away material. I wanna know what to use to clean the CHRA? Get all that burnt rusty grime off, also clean up the coolant/oil passages! Then it would be nice to install those wastegate arm kits. Now your talking turbo refresh!!! Clutch
I agree with what you're saying, but I think that it so little and it also so close to the inside of the rotating mass, it didn't make much difference. Put over 10k miles on these turbos so far without fault. Cleaning the carts and the turbine blades is the big challenge, as it would require some extra equipment (or chemicals?). I'm replacing my carts this week with some aftermarket ones on a budget, curious to see how they hold up compared to these stock/rebuilt CHRAs. Thanks for watching and leaving a comment!
@@TheBimmerBarn yeah I just seen a video where this dude media blasted the CHRA, pressure washed out any contaminates then acid soaked for a couple hours. He also mentioned coating it with a high temp paint
1 recommendation… buy a steam cleaner. You can clean all those parts and make them look like new. Great video, great content, you have a new subscriber.
Welcome to our community, Octavio! I actually do have a steam cleaner, but it's smaller and has trouble breaking down grease or oil stains. Works great on plastic and vinyl/leather! Thanks for watching and the recommendation 😊
@@TheBimmerBarn I’m not sure how small is small but I use the steam cleaner from harbor freight on my coolant/ oil lines and it did wonders. I’m in the middle of turbo replacements as of today and I can tell you, the whole oil pan and front of the engine have caked on oil and dirt. I’m going to be cleaning as best as I can but so far what I’ve cleaned is literally night and day. If you’re on IG, you’re welcomed to check out my last post where I show how clean those lines turned out “o_davidg” my page is public.
@@TheBimmerBarn , how much did you charge to do the entire 15-20 hours job. My car already have 103000 miles. And is running with a low pressure, already checked the vacuum lines they are fine. The boost pressure solenoids I’m not sure how to check them . Would you please give me some advice. Thank you
@@rigu229 You can test the solenoids using a power probe and apply 12v (it should click and open). Also very easy to pop a boost leak on these cars. Make sure no loose clamps, holes in intercooler, etc. Look up boost pressure testing 335i and I'm sure there's some videos. Good luck!
It may have a negligible effect on the balance. The weight displacement is so far inboard of the rotating mass that it shouldn't make a big difference. When balancing these turbines, weight is removed from the furthest outer edge, where it has the most effect at high RPM's. If you can mark it without a Dremel and save your orientation, do it that way! Unfortunately sharpie just wasn't going to work for this scenario. Thanks for watching!
Agree with ThisLaoGuy, by removing material on the bolt will unbalance the chra. It is exactly what the turbo preparators do when they dynamically balance the turbo. And usually they remove less material what we see in the video. So in my opinion, it is now unbalanced.
Very good video, I’m curious how they may be running now? Have you ran them much yet? I’m also kind of new to your channel so also are you running any bolt ons and/or tune? Keep up the great worth though, love the video structure.
Yes! That's why I did this service :) This is a great option, very budget friendly, but for a little more money you can buy re-built cartridges on eBay which are drop-in and come balanced. Good luck!
Great video! Easy to follow along and everything. I’m planning on doing this myself but with research everyone is screaming that it can’t be done without a vsr balancer... do you have any updates on it so far and do you have any advice that would help? Excited for the wagon build!
So far, put about 6-7k miles on these turbos, and still spooling up great! If you want to do it 100%, I'd recommend just buying new cartridges. But if you like to tinker and want to try saving some money by rebuilding, it'll be a great experience and teach you more about your turbos. Thanks for watching and the positive comment!
@@TheBimmerBarn amazing, thank you!! Looking forward to seeing what you do with the wagon and now the 550! I’m going to end up doing a straight rebuild myself, fingers crossed
Thanks for watching! It was burning oil while idling, causing white smoke to come out the exhaust. Easy sign of blown turbos. And at this price, I thought it was worth the shot to rebuild them on a tight budget. Car has done +5k miles now on the new turbos no problem, and as you saw we never rebalanced or cleaned the turbines. I'm happy with the results to say the least.
@@TheBimmerBarn awesome to hear! Yeah mine is doing the same thing rn, burning oil and smoking under wot and decel to lights and such. How much boost are you running on it? I’m not sure if the high boost maps are the reason they blew in the first place in my case?
I didn't, and agree with you! They also had carbon on the exhaust turbines, so ideally you'd also get those media-blasted, and rebalanced, might as well do a new cold side turbine at that point, etc... Particularly my focus was on showing how the rebuild process went, and hopefully get a few more thousand smoke-free miles out of these turbos on stock boost levels :)
@@TheBimmerBarn problem is you might endup with a bent shaft and a damaged cartridge, all that just for a few smoke free miles. Balancing is not expensive and should always be done to prevent future (and bigger) expenses.
@@JP_SC Like I said, I agree 👍 I simply didn't have the time or resources to do a full rebuild, but I hope people enjoy the content and learn a little more about how these turbos work 😊
@@TheBimmerBarn okay thanks will be doing this soon then. Oh and by the way did you have to replace all the hardware with one of the turbo installation kits? I saw they are around $400 😬
@@CaptainPancakez I replaced exhaust gaskets, downpipe gaskets, stuff you see in the video. Re-used the manifold nuts and things like that. You can save a little money but it's best to change as much as possible! Good luck friend!
If you can mark the cold turbine to the shaft and the nut, you should just be maintaining the factory calibration. You can do this with marker but it might come off while cleaning (I used a dremel but was careful to mark it as lightly as possible). Ideally, you would want to send out the turbines to get media-blasted (removing miles of carbon build-up), and then have the shafts re-balanced. Or just buy a new cartridge which comes balanced, rebuilt, and would solve the oil burning issues! Good luck friend.
Sick video! Kit is only 65 bucks as a diyer that’s way more appealing than buying a whole new set of turbos LOL but does anyone know if this would fix waste gate rattle cos I’ve been spending a lot of money chasing down a 30ff code and jus would want to know if rebuilding them would fix the rattle and allow for proper boost
Woh wait a tic. What about the waste gates so they won't rattle?? That's one of the big things to address. I've watch three of these videos now and none of them have addressed the waste gates.
Definitely! If you have wastegate rattle, you can address it while the turbos are out. I didn't have any noise prior to rebuilding, and the kits are a little costly, which is why I didn't change them out. Opportune time to do it however! :)
My turbos (or engine) makes a loud squealing, then grating sound you can hear in the engine and out of the exhaust. Then it goes into reduced engine power and no more noises. I have 148k miles on them. Does this sound like it is probably a bad turbo spindle or turbine that is grinding? The noise is awful. Never had any blue smoke. It just looks so tightly packed in there like it couldn't self-destruct.
Sounds like your wastegates need adjustment! Super common problem, it can usually be adjusted, sometimes the turbos have to be replaced. Hope that helps, I have a video on wastegate adjustment if you search on RU-vid!
@The Bimmer Barn The waste gates were adjusted years ago. This is a loud metal to metal grating, grinding noise. Almost like a cylinder head is freezing up (but it's not). Thanks for the response. I just can't find anything on this symptom.
Yes, exactly the same. The difference with upgrade turbos is in the compressor housing, and the turbines. Internals are usually rebuilt with kits like this.
Contact Turbo Lab of America and they will give you a quote to rebuild your turbos! I'm not taking appointments/jobs at this time, but I appreciate your interest!
