I took the turbo (TA-49) off the GN this weekend to fix a few things and was wondering what else I could/should do while it's off? I have a 3 inch BGC elbow and due to not driving it much, the wastegate puck is frozen again. When I used the car as a daily driver I never had this problem but in the past few years, since the car sits more than goes, it has frozen up a few times on me. Any suggestions of how to fix this other than buying a different setup are appreciated. The last time it froze up, I took it all apart, cleaned everything and used a large amount of anti-seize on it, which worked for a while, but it's not working anymore. Someone suggested a brass bushing, where could I find something like that? Also I plan on opening up the wastegate hole (been having boost creep problems), it is at the factory size, how much bigger can I or should I make it? Anything else I should do? I was thinking maybe of taking both the inlet and exhaust housings off(have to take the one off to open the hole) and maybe polishing them? Previously I ported the elbow to match the exhaust housing, and I think I polished the elbow then as well. I won't need any new seals or gaskets if I pull those housings off will I? Any ideas, hints, suggestions or comments are appreciated. Thanks,
Scott
87 GN
Well I took it apart today and found out a few answers to my questions. Unless I missed something, you can't just unbolt the exhaust housing and it isn't worth the time to unbolt the inlet housing because there isn't enough room to get any tool I had in there to polish with. I could have polished the small area that exits into the intercooler, but I didn't and it seemed pretty smooth for a cast piece. I did get the wastegate puck unfrozen and I enlarged the hole to about 1 inch in diameter(although not quite round.) I'm wondering about the puck assembly though. The bushing in the elbow is stainless steel, the rod seems to be regular steel and it was the one all corroded when I got them apart. Would it be possible to get a piece of stainless rod and use that instead of the regular? Would stainless on stainless cause a problem? Wouldn't I have to get all of my pieces stainless in order to weld them together though? It moves freely now but my guess would be that after a few months, if I don't get to drive it, it would be frozen again. Any suggestions are appreciated, thanks,
Scott
87 GN
Yes, you can take the ehaust housing off the center section. It may need CAREFUL persuading, but it does come off... that's why they can sell center sections. :-)
I cleaned up my E.H., including removing metal from the short side radius. Same with the elbow (stock with 1.250" puck). I haven't seen a BGC elbow, so I can't comment on its specifics. What's the puck size? If stock, see if you can find someone (search here and on turbobuick.com) to replace your puck with a 1.250 or 1.300 so you can open up the WG hole some more. I opened mine up maintaining ~.100+ sealing surface. With a 52 turbo it has held stable to nearly 30psi in 1st & 2nd, mid 20s in 3rd.
You can weld stainless to mild steel easily with any mig welder. It welds pretty much like regular steel. In fact even with regular (not stainless) wire the weld is quite rust resistant.
So I can just get a piece of stainless steel and weld it to the rest of my setup? I'm pretty sure it's mild steel. I won't need a TIG welder or any kind of special rod/wire? Is stainless steel easy to work with? Meaning, is it just as easy to grind on and cut threads in? Thanks for the help, I've never worked with stainless before.