Hi all. I had a new (re-manufactured) turbo installed by my local Ford dealership about 600 miles ago. I have some blue puffs of smoke that emit only when taking off from a dead stop. Once I get going, no smoke. After reading a number of threads on here, I suspected a turbo seal and had a good look. On close inspection I found a turbo mounting bolt almost completely unthreaded from the hole. I have not looked in behind to see if the others are lose. My question is, if a turbo is not tightly fastened to the engine for this many miles, will it damage seals to the point where I am seeing blue smoke? I should mention that before the turbo install, I didn't have this problem. Thanks everyone,

Rob

 

I really don't thing so , mine is missing the back bolt ( drop'ed it ) . I think it could not have any in it and not mess up the seals . As heavy as they are and being connected to the up pipe and down its not going anywhere, may eventruly cause up pipe to leak.

 

Take it back to the installing dealer. If reputable they'll take care of it.

 

Wulf your points make sense. I do intend to bring it back to get sorted out. Makes me wonder what else they missed though. Does not instill confidence.

 

Then don't bring it back to them. In all honesty mistakes do happen. The turbo bolts seem to walk themselves out from what I noticed on mine and other trucks, especially the passenger front one. It has nothing to do with the seals leaking. The only thing I could see is premature wear of uppipe and cac boots. If it were me. I would just get another bolt in there and recheck the others. For turbo life the best thing you can do is upgrade the feed line, switch to full synthetic, then make sure after hard runs that you let the truck cool off for a couple minutes before shutting it down.

 

Roger. Already run synthetic and observe cool-down period after running. Is the upgraded feed line Ford part or AM? Anyone have a part number? Thanks,

 

I agree with this. Probably not there fault, or at least not to the extent that it wasn't tighten down. Can't tell you how many I have seen backed out, or completly missing. It's happened on mine, and I know I get them tight. Also agree that it will not cause any problems with the seals

 

same thing is going on with mine. they replaced the turbo (reman) and smoking only at idle and take off. they are saying its not the turbo now. i am saying BS. let me know what you figure out as I am battling this right now as well.

 

Mine is missing the Back Bolt to only Cuz I threw it in the Garbage and itt will NEVER have that back bolt AGAIN

And I had the opposite affect with the bolts they heat up and seize in the hole

so if your going to tighten them put some antiseize on them before you tighten them in there

A missing bolt wont hurt 2 will hold fine as llong as there snug

But if the turbo did get loose and move around it could crack the flex joints back there

Im with David on this a loose bolt wont have any affect on the turbo seal

 

The turbo seal thats being spoken of is internal of the turbo.