About a week ago, towing my race car in an enclosed trailer (heavy) with my 05' X 6.0 PSD, I all of a sudden started to notice this loud and whistle - especially getting on the throttle and uphill. Over the next several miles it was marginally getting worse I thought. The sound is best described as "a boiling tea kettle".

I didn't notice any loss of power, no lights came on and the X ran fine and strong. Once stopped I opened the hood but couldn't find any obvious visible problems. It was dark of course so I waited to for daylight to diagnose further.

The next morning, opened the hood and started to inspect. Hmm, a sligh wetness on the edge of the airfilter, a little oil mist right above on the hood. A little oil on the side of the radiator. I took the flashlight and inspected the cold side plastic intercooler tube - yep, also a little wet but just around the corrugated area as it connects to the intercooler. I moved the tube around a little and could see the crack that had developed - the tube is finito - done - a leaking pease of crap.

Time to backdate to the earlier 6.0 steel tube set up. I ordered the kit from our Sponsor RiffRaff. For sure I thought this would fix the problem.

The next morning I was disappointed to find out that replacing the tube had not fixed the noise, it was still there. So, I asked my wife to hold the brakes, put the truck in drive and spool up the turbo until the noise appeared then hold. I then used my ear to listen and locate exactly where the noise was coming from; not the intercooler, not the tubes, not the alternator, not the exhaust clamps, not the degas bottle but from the turbo housing itself.

Before I go ahead and order a new PowerMax (my current on has 10k miles on it and is past the one year warranty period) I was hoping to get some thoughts from my fellow FTE friends on what else to look for. Does the turbo make abnormal noise when due for a cleaning? Does the soot create sticky vanes?

Below are pics of the new tube just because and also a video that I hope will spawn some thoughts.

Thanks!

http://youtu.be/JqZh3a92Te8

 

You'd need to pull the turbo and even then, it's rebuildable, no need to go buy a new Powermax. If you don't want to fiddle with it, you could go buy another and not deal with it.

Pull the turbo and inspect the shaft play, but look closely at the exhaust side of the turbo. A buddy's 2007 F350 had a similar problem and it looked like something either went through the exhaust side of the turbo or the exhaust turbine simply grenaded.

I don't think you have sticking vanes, the Powermax is designed in such a way that it shouldn't happen so easily, but again, you won't know till you tear the turbo apart.

 

Thanks for the advice. The truck doesn't seem to have lost any power, no lights or codes or anything of that sort. I need to tow early next week so I think I will chance it and run as is before I dig into this deeper. Like you said, I will pull the turbo and see what is going on in there.

 

You may not have to pull the turbo...

I got to listen to the video and something in my gut says there's something wrong with the compressor side of the turbo.

Check the hot side boot where it comes out of the turbo, it may be split causing the noise you hear. It usually splits on the bottom where you can't see it, so you'd have to remove the boot and squeezer it to find the leak if any.

 

Good idea! I did look but as you say, you cannot see the underside that easily. I too had suspected the noise to be related to the charged side with air bleeding out.

 

TD - you were onto something. I believe my less than a year old hot side boot is shot. I'll get new ones on Monday at the dealer and will find out for sure. You may very well have saved me an unnecessary spend of $1200. Who would think that an OEM part would go bad so fast.

 

Looks like the culprit!

Slap a new boot on and you should be good to go.

Glad I was able to save you from an unnecessary $1200.

 

If I could rep you I would - but here is an official THANKS!

 

That looks like a poke damepaged it? But yeah, definitely the culprit.

 

I know - looks like someone took a small flat screwdriver and punched each side. Sure wasn't me. However, there are also a ton of smaller pinholes throughout that same "seam" - I think this is a manufacturing flaw that shows.

 

It actually is, that's one of the reasons why they revised that part.

I got a new one not too long ago and it angles the CAC pipe away further away from the alternator too.

 

Good news first, Ford honored the warranty on the hot side turbo boot (cannot believe these things are $68). Walked in, they said no problem here is your new one.

Now the bad news. The boot didn't fix the problem. Took half a day off work and still not resolved. I had a glimmer of hope - oh well.

I'll need to tow with the truck tomorrow and the hope is that I do not see some catastrophic failure of the turbo while on the road. The thing is, the truck is still as powerful as it ever was, it responds well, no codes, nothing.
Next weekend, I'll remove the turbo and check for stuck vanes.
Any advice on how to clean a turbo would be much appreciated.

Here is a pic of the nice clean new boot.

 

W was recently towing a large trailer up and down the hills of PA and had a high pitched whistling noise when the truck revved 3000 I was thinking it might be a blow off from the turbo.

 

Digging in deeper this weekend. I remember those exhaust clamps now ... Pain in the rear.

Boost side looks good and no bearing noise or abnormal feel to it. Hopefully I'll have the turbo out shortly.

 

I would check the right clamp on the new and shinny boot in the picture to make sure the bolt is not touching the coolant hose going to the degas bottle. Its hard to see it in the picture on my phone. Found out the hard way that hose is about $20.