I did a search and have been reading about turbos for 3 hours now. I have a poor understanding of them, but hope somebody can tell me if I need to be worried. While towing heavy, when my RPM's get up around 27-28 hundred in 3rd gear, I often hear a very high pitched whine. I always ease off the pedal when I hear it, and it stops 'till the next time. I'm afraid it means the turbo bearings are starting to go, but sure do hope not, as I'm 2,000 miles from home. I have tools and access to military auto hobby shops. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

Easiest way to cheap the condition of your turbo bearings is to pull off the intake and check the shaft play. Up, down, left and right is normal, but in and out isn't. Good please to check. The high pitched whine you are hearing is probably just the turbo working and spinning incredibly high RPM's. Good luck.

 

I'd agree with Clay. More than likely you're just hearing the whistle of the turbo under load. If there is something wrong with the turbo, driving it easy will not prolong it's life. That shaft will spin up to 130,000 rpm's under a heavy load.

I'd agree pulling the intake tube off the turbo and inspecting the wheel is a good idea. Check for shaft play as mentioned and look for any signs the wheel is rubbing on the housing. If you find a problem you'll need to rebuild your turbo.

My guess is you won't find anything wrong, but be sure and check your air filter and make sure it doesn't need changing.

 

With an aftermarket air filter you're going to hear some turbo noise, whistle, drone, etc, and at the 2700-2800 rpm range under a load, you're right at the sweet spot with these motors. My guess is you won't find anything wrong with the turbo, but it's good to check just for peace of mind.

While you have the intake hose off, it's a good time to check for cracks in the hose, and see if there's any dirt residue inside the hose. Check the turbo fins for any wear too. My 97 had a split in the rubber intake hose that was letting dirt in.

 

Here is a little read on turbos. click here

 

Here's some more turbo tech to read:
http://www.turbobygarrett.com/turbob...o_tech101.html
http://www.turbobygarrett.com/turbob...o_tech102.html
http://www.turbobygarrett.com/turbob...o_tech103.html

 

As usual, you guys rock. I'll be doing the inspection in a bit here. Thanks for all the reading material too.

 

Well, I checked it out, seems OK. Only a tiny bit of play up and down, but seemed real solid side to side. Now somebody tell me, the compressor side has the word Garrett on it. Is that likely stock??

 

Up and down or side to side play is fine as long as the wheel does not make contact with the housing. In and out play is very bad.

The stock housing is stamped Garrett.

Sounds like it was just the normal turbo whistle after all. Make sure to enjoy the rest of your trip.

 

With bad bearings you should notice a noise even at lower RPMs any time the turbo starts to spool
The bushings wear more from about 4:30 to 10:30 position not straight up and down or straight across.My impeller was hitting the housing at 4:30 position

 

You should have noticed the whistle once you intalled the 4" exhaust and open intake regarless of rpm......turbo whistle = GOOOOOD!

Enjoy!

 

Yes, stock turbo.

 

Thanks again guys. As a matter of fact, mine DID have movement from about 4:30 to 10:30 also. I just said up and down for brevity. The truck had the 4" exhaust when I bought it. I'm sure hoping the sound is only normal whistle. The main thing that worries me is that instead of the sound winding up and down gradually, it begins and stops very abruptly, and doesn't do it all the time. I'm a lot less worried about it now. By the way, I've ordered a tranny temp guage. May go for the pyro and boost after (and if) I get a DP Tuner.

 

On my 2004 6.0 when on my last 2 camping trips pulling my trailer I heard a similar noise, it happens only when im pulling my trailer and uphill, the motor sounds like a big fan is running first and then the whine begins, it never did that before. My truck is stock and the last thing they did to it under warranty was replace the turbo housing. I really dont think it's turbo whine as it almost sounds like the type of whine you will get from a am radio (its not the radio).

I recorded the sound on my iPhone since it will be really difficult to reproduce the sound driving normal and since my truck is still under warranty I will be taking it in to the shop. I'll report back if they find the problem.

 

Is this the same Heckler that used to hang around a few dirt bike forums???