Turbo sucking oil???

[dpuckett]

My mom just finished truck driving school, has her class A and a job offer from a national carrier. She was talking to one of the instructors, and the conversation turned to turbodiesel trucks (ingeneral, not just DOdge CTDs), and the instructor said the ones that whistle are ones that have been lugged hard, and the turbo started sucking oil. Said he's seen 'em sitting on truckstop lots and oil will fill the exhaust and come out the satck. I just gave her a "Yeah,. Uh, sure. " look. My fairly new PDR HX35-18 screams like a banshee when you tromp it, and it doesnt "suck" any oil. Ok, last change, it used almost a quart, and most of that leaked out the VC gaskets.

I have a feeling this is another truck stop myth, much like the ATF/ injector cleaner or the lubricating properties of sulfur. But..... I got to thinking (here comes trouble for sure, now), was there some application in the past (50s-70s) where that actually happened to a few trucks? I had never heard of that before, but I havent been around that long either. Mom said he tends to be misinformed from time to time.



Daniel

 

[jrollins]

well it is possible to lose a turbo seal and leak oil into the intake/exhaust (this can cause a runaway engine) but the whine is caused by airflow in the turbo and have never heard of filling the exhaust system with oil. so unless someone else has any other info, i bet this is just a false myth...

 

[R.E. Miller]

No, that whistle noise has nothing to do with oil in either end of the turbo. I work on cummins everyday, and the old 855's and some of the L-10's used turbos that have some sort of design variation (most likely vane pitch) that really makes them sound sweet at any speed, but at idle, 855's can really sing quite nice If a turbo in on it's way out however, there may be more noise due to contact in either end of it, but oil has nothing to do with the whistle type noise.



If you really want to hear serious whistle out of an new engine, take an ISM or ISX cummins with EGR and just rev it up, the variable geometry turbo makes boost with no load



Russell

 

[dpuckett]

THat's kind of what I thought. I didnt talk to the guy, but it sounds like you'd lose any argument with him, even if you're right. Backwoods raised, probably some kissing cousins in his family tree.....

 

[nickleinonen]

#ad
variable geometry turbos #ad




#ad
egr systems #ad

If you really want to hear serious whistle out of an new engine, take an ISM or ISX cummins with EGR and just rev it up, the variable geometry turbo makes boost with no load