turbo owners: caution in transport

[Willl]

Go out and blow in your exhaust pipe.

And we'll need a picture of that.


I'm calling BS also.

 

[DamonH]

I think its a crock.
Not THAT MUCH suction across the top of an exhaust, certainly not THAT MUCH air able to enter via......

On the Grand L5740 w/ cab the exhaust does have a forward facing side exit with a little baby turbo pretty close to the outlet, but I'm not going to be the one to blow in it for the test.

 

[Volfandt]

Why don't one of you enterprising turbo owners hold one of those high velocity leaf blowers just over the exhaust to where it blows over/into it, same as the highway wind would flow and see what happens......

I may try it on my normally aspirated 3 cyl to see if any high pressure air gets all the through to the air cleaner. If it does that would be enough reason to cap an exhaust for me as it would keep contaminates from "back dooring" into the cylinder......

 

[Scooby074]

Its standard procedure at all heavy equipment dealerships i was a mechanic at to either put a 5gal bucket or wrap the exhaust outlet with duct tape on all machines being trailered. Turbos are way to valuable to take chances with on $200000 + machines.

 

[N80]

It might be a good idea to do so, but keeping the turbo from spinning doesn't seem like sufficient reason to. I can see why they do it in the military, especially in dusty desert environments. Large equipment makes may do it for the same reason.

 

[madslick]

I think everyone so far is partly right.

You normally should put a bucket or other object to block exaust stacks which are pointed straight up to block rainwater from coming in.

This is especially true with Turbos. Moisture in the turbos will quickly accelarate the corrosion process rusting out bearings and wrecking havoc in there.

The same applies to transporting : you want to block the exaust to prevent moisture from getting in there.

The air theory and spinning w/o lube makes no sense: Sorry!

 

[browns40]

My dealer never heard of plugging the exhaust on turbo units, and said they never do when delivering them, and never had any problems with it as far as they knew....

BUT JD says to plug it on their site for the very same issue of turbo winding... Whether it happens, how it happens: these are things I'm not going to worry about... because I happen to have a nice little bottle of sanitizing gel that fits perfectly when I transport--no tape required.

It can't hurt to plug it up, and it's peace of mind... who wants to prove or disprove with the most expensive component on their motors?

Thanks for the post!

 

[chopitrakeit]

http://www.toro.com/customercare/commercial/bulletins/general/pdf/03-03.pdf

 

[driver444]

I see there are alot of skeptics on this one. Though I haven't actually SEEN this happen, here's a bit of info. I'm a truck driver, and the company I drive for does, on occassion have trucks towed to and from our yard. The wrecker guy as standard procedure DOES cover the exhaust stack on the tractors he's towing to prevent a condition called "pinwheeling," in which the air passing by or into the stack causes the turbo to spin without oil going to it.

Keep in mind, turbos can spin in both directions. It's not necessarily a "vaccuum" that you need. Pressurized air going into the pipe is what does it, I imagine.

 

[ray66v]

http://www.toro.com/customercare/commercial/bulletins/general/pdf/03-03.pdf

I was just reading an article about allowing turbo's on air craft engines cool for 5 minutes before shutting down, (same advice as in this pdf). They did tests, and found that the turbo's on the aircraft were actually cooler when they landed, then after the 5 minute cool down. Even though this was a recommendation everyone accepted for a long time, in that case, it turned out to be wrong.