Okay, today when I put in my hotwire kit, I also decided to check the IC for the first time. Now it dosen't take a enious to figure out that oil in the IC piping is no good.
I looked around on the board and think that the turbo seals might be bad, which is no good at all. Could it be something else? I don't want a sad turbo, but then again, it will give me an excuse to get that TA-49 I dream about. Anyone else have this problem?
I show some oil in the intercooler but it's from the passenger side valve cover that vents to the turbo inlet. What were they thinking!! Plenty of turbo Buick people sell a kit to replace that design with a filtered breather in the valve cover and a cap to block off the inlet to the turbo. You might want to try that first.
As Pat wrote, blocking the inlet bell on the turbo from the valve cover and putting a breather in the valvecover works great. Pull the intercooler and flush it out. Everybody has their methods, but laying it on the ground and filling it with gas is cheap and effective. Flush it a couple of times, lean it upside down and let it dry, or a clean shopvac blowing through it will dry it quickly. It's not a matter of "anyone else have this problem". Most all of us have! Good Luck!
Well, I actually own an 84 GN, a hot air. I looked on the passanger side valve cover and don't see a breather, it is solid the whole way across. What else could it be?
The 84 set ups are different. Your breather inlet is a tube connecting from your oil filler tube to the elbow that connects to the turbo inlet. All engines need to breath in the crankcase. Negative or vacuum is best and not a problem when the engine has no blow-by. When a turbo engine is under boost it has positive crankcase pressure even when they are new. Emission laws don’t allow oil vapor to be released into the air and the old road draft tubes and crankcase breathers disappeared. The stock set up works well with a low mileage engine that doesn’t have blow-by. As the rings wear the blow-by exceeds what the PCV can handle and oil vapor comes out the inlet tube. Pull the tube off the oil filler tube and with engine running see if there is vacuum or pressure on the nipple from the tube. If it’s pressure you have worn piston rings.
With a stock set up an oily IAC is normal. They need to be cleaned once in a while when the idle gets lumpy or when the engine stalls on a long de-cell. Be careful cleaning it as the pintail can’t be bumped without striping the gears. They self adjust by driving the car.