Turbo seal Leak

[Ronnie Bledsoe 2006 Dutchstar 43']

I had my motorhome serviced at Massey's Diesel Truck and RV in Phoenix last Thurs. They did an exccellent job...Tom the service manager is the most knowlegable RV guy I have ever met...especially Spartan chassis.
The tech working my unit noticed some oil residue on the charge air system clamp near the firewall, called to the attention of Tom who had them remove a clamp near the access door and found oil in the charge air system. Tom immediately knew that the turbo seal had failed causing engine oil tobe sucked into the after cooling. He called Cummins Northwest in Phoenix set me up with their service. They verified the bad turbo seal. Friday Cummins replace the turbo, cleaned up the after cooling system/charge air system and I was back on theroad by 2PM. That the good news on a potentially bad situation.
The bad news is according to Tom and the techs at Cummins there is no precursser to this failure and no warning signals or buzzers. One might notice black smoke, but no gurantee or the engine running away (high rpm) or engine failure. This failure occurred at 25,900 miles andabout 630 engine hours.

[Ronnie Bledsoe 2006 Dutchstar 43']

I had my motorhome serviced at Massey's Diesel Truck and RV in Phoenix last Thurs. They did an exccellent job...Tom the service manager is the most knowlegable RV guy I have ever met...especially Spartan chassis.
The tech working my unit noticed some oil residue on the charge air system clamp near the firewall, called to the attention of Tom who had them remove a clamp near the access door and found oil in the charge air system. Tom immediately knew that the turbo seal had failed causing engine oil tobe sucked into the after cooling. He called Cummins Northwest in Phoenix set me up with their service. They verified the bad turbo seal. Friday Cummins replace the turbo, cleaned up the after cooling system/charge air system and I was back on theroad by 2PM. That the good news on a potentially bad situation.
The bad news is according to Tom and the techs at Cummins there is no precursser to this failure and no warning signals or buzzers. One might notice black smoke, but no gurantee or the engine running away (high rpm) or engine failure. This failure occurred at 25,900 miles andabout 630 engine hours.

[Lug_Nut]

Great update on that failure on the turbo seal. There are many, many ISL's in service. This failure seems rare, at least compared to the numbers out there. Never the less, it's great info for all engine owners as warning of this type of failure is non-existant.

Peter

[soricobob]

I've said it before (here and elsewhere) that Tom, and Massey's Diesel, is the best there is. If he serviced Newmar, and not just Spartan/Cummins, I would not worry about getting things fixed away from Nappannee. You see, out West we don't have service like there is back East (I used to live a few miles from North Trail).

[toban]

I just had my turbo seal go a month ago. I have a spartab chassis and an ISL 370 Cummins engine. Have 28,000 miles on engine. Had the work done at Coltons Truck Terminal Garage in Colton CA. Cummins told me to take it there. They took the whole charge air rad out and steam cleaned it plus replaced the turbo with a new one shipped from Cummins. Cummins said they wanted to make sure all the oil was out of the system. It was a big job by the time they put everyting back together. Did an excellent job. We were there for 2.5 days. Expensive job and am glad it was done under warranty. Yes, I saw oil staining the bellows which lead into and out of the air charge system and also out of the turbo itself. Hope this is a rare thing to happen.

Toban

[toban]

Incidentely, what causes these turbo seals to go?
Has anyone ant information on this as I was told it is rare for them to go.

toban

[Ronnie Bledsoe 2006 Dutchstar 43']

I was told the same thing...cause unknown and failure hard to detect until oil obvious, great deal of smoke, or engine failure. Real scary.

[Vigibill]

I don't know much about this but have read somewhere about runaway acceleration caused by oil being dumped into the air intake in certain types of seal failures. Sounds real scary if you are going down the road and can't shut the engine down. There is nothing to limit the speed of the engine in this situation so it blows itself apart.

I always let the engine idle for a couple minutes before shutting down to cool the turbo oil and bearings and perhaps preventing heat damage to the seals.

[Dav5942]

Having had a run-a-way engine on the boat(due to mechanic putting in bad injectors), shutting the air off will kill the engine. We always had manual and electric shut-offs since it can happen.

[Iowa Travelers]

We also had a turbo replaced on our 2005 DSDP (ISL 370 hp) due to oil leakage from the turbo shaft seals. This was noticed during pm service at about 15,000 miles. Oil was seeping from the hose connections going to and from the charge air cooler.

Cummins in Ocala did remove the charge air cooler to be cooked out at a radiator shop. Repair was about 2 1/2 days once we got into the shop.

[Ronnie Bledsoe 2006 Dutchstar 43']

vigibil, I like you always allow the engine to idle 3-5 minutes before shutting it down. I know the book and others say it is not required but when you've been running along at 60 MPH for a few hours things get pretty hot.
That being said I still don't understand why the Turbo failed.

[Lug_Nut]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Having had a run-a-way engine on the boat(due to mechanic putting in bad injectors), shutting the air off will kill the engine. We always had manual and electric shut-offs since it can happen. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

HMMM... A run away engine in a boat. It's gotta be a two stroke Jimmy. They all require an air block shut down as that is far too common.

Peter

[Dav5942]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Lug_Nut:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Having had a run-a-way engine on the boat(due to mechanic putting in bad injectors), shutting the air off will kill the engine. We always had manual and electric shut-offs since it can happen. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

HMMM... A run away engine in a boat. It's gotta be a two stroke Jimmy. They all require an air block shut down as that is far too common.

Peter </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Detroit 671TIs. The air shut-off is manual either via a cable or push button relay. Never had a run-a-way with the Mercedes(MAN) V10s(820HP).

[Lug_Nut]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Member"

Posted March 03, 2008 08:19 PM Hide Post
vigibil </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">vigibil, I like you always allow the engine to idle 3-5 minutes before shutting it down. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ronnie, you are right to do that. If you want near instant shutdown you should run synthetic oil. I alway idle mine down to about 174 degrees F., and that is with syn oil. Think about it. It turns 160,000 to 210,000 RPM depending on the model and application. That is too fast for most bearings therefore it runs on a flim of oil only.
This is a big support, in my mind, for syn oil, it works at these speeds and tempss.