So my roommate/uncle was kind enough to take time out of his day to pick up my old turbo last week. So it's officially back. I'll have it cleaned up and for sale...

Good stuff :thumbs:

Good read as well. Thanks

So now that the weather's been nice (not raining) these past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to drive around with my windows down.

During these nice weeks, I'd occasionally hear a quite scraping/crunching noise. Sounded like it was coming from the passenger side, and you can hear it rotate faster/slower as the wheels turned; not all the time though. The best way to describe it is that it sounds just like when my bros and I's old rotty Sammie got into the cereal and started munching.

Came home from work this week and since it was nice out and I had some time, I thought I'll just take the wheel off and have a look.

1st problem: I put the jack under the car and go to break the lugs loose... and I don't have to. The lugs were already loose and I was able to take them off with my thumb and index finger. My lugs were FUCKING LOOSE THIS ENTIRE TIME! How I didn't even loose a lug, let alone the wheel, I have no idea! My other 3 wheels were nice and tight. Someone at the shop forgot to torque down my lugs. I... :flamemad:

As a grown man, I have no shame in saying I sat down on the driveway, hugging my knees, quietly praying to and thanking my grandmother for watching over me this entire time; as a wave of 'What-If's' overwhelmed me for 5 - 10 minutes...

2nd problem: Found the source of the scraping noise.

My car's a unique blend of personal work and previous owner corrections. One of the hybrid's of these 2 issues is the fittings used for the turbo's oil drain. Due to clearances, I need to re-use a 45* brass elbow fitting, and then my nice Russell fitting. Not ideal, no. But don't have to look at it and has worked for years.

The previous owner, either by sheer brilliance or sheer stupidity, had ground down the inner-facing corner of this fitting so as to not to touch the CV boot. My bros and I saw this years ago and after about... 2 seconds of common sense, realized that that was intentional for this very reason and left it.

The shop did not apply this same observation and must've saw this fitting as faulty or defective and changed it. Guess what... a new, sharp-cornered fitting had been installed and has been cutting up the boot...

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...th2/photo5.jpg

Facetime'd my bros to show him, and he just looked :eek3:

So along with replacing the oil pan next weekend we'll be taking the axle out, again. Already have a new CV boot kit in my possession..

So this past weekend, my bros and I were able to tackle the oil pan and now CV boot issues. There was, still, some work that needed to be re-done unfortunately.

We tackled the CV boot first.
Took the axle out, cut off what was left of the old boot and clamped on the new one. Ground down the corner of the brass fitting as well; a greasy mess as usual. We put the axle back in and, doesn’t clear? Strange, this setup cleared before. The boot is still touching the brass fitting.

We take the axle back out and remove the clamp on shaft side. Ground down the fitting some more. Pull the boot down a bit further to stretch it out and put in back in the car. Still touching. OK, this is weird.
Take it out a 3rd time and to help ensure clearance, my bros grabs one of his universal, Millennium-brand CV boots. The traditional shaped boot I got looks like a wave that gets smaller and smaller. These Millennium boots are stepped, like a Mayan pyramid, instead. There’s also super stretchy; you can whip em at someone like an elastic band. And afterwards you cut off the excess that you don’t need.

Before putting it in though, we didn’t want to grind the fitting any more and took another look at it. Previous to changing the turbo out the fitting sat at about 2 o’clock from centerline with the car. The fitting was sitting at 12 o’clock from the previous “repairs”. Rotated a bit, axle in, clears with about a finger’s worth of room. You can wrap your hand around the boot if you wanted.

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...ooth2/boot.jpg
It doesn't look like it cause it was awkward to take the pic and hold the light, but the fitting is hanging over the 2nd 'rib' on the boot (from the axle end).

Great, onto the oil pan. I drained the oil while we patched a nail in a tire, so it had a good half hour to drain. Took the line off the old one and dropped the pan. We went to move the line out of the way to better get at the oil pan and another, 250ml? ¼ cup? of oil came out the line. Now, I imagine that this drain line should be like your oil fill tube; gravity feed and downhill into the pan. The oil line was re-located so high it was running uphill.

While my bros drilled the hole and welded the bung into the new one I cleaned off the block. New oil pan went on which was pretty straight forward and we go to put the fitting in/connect the line to it. Only catch, one of the threaded bolt holes in the block for the pan was stripped. The silicone was holding it in and the bolt would just spin in the hole. My bros intuition was rather then re-thread the hole due to where it is, he put in a slightly larger bolt, and threaded it in by hand.

The line wouldn’t fit onto the fitting. Strange, either the line was too small or the fitting was too big. After some troubleshooting, turns out someone had crammed the -10 line into a -8 fitting and crushed it. In all honesty, I can’t remember if it was the fitting I had purchased or not. I don’t have the packaging and simply can’t recall.

We just had to trim about half an inch off and the rest of the line slid on perfectly and connected the fitting to the pan. The extra half inch that was cut off actually made the fitting line up perfectly with the bung placement and the line has a little bit of slack and play. Standing looking toward the rear of the car, you’re looking uphill at the line running downhill at you. About a 2 inch drop altogether, but I’ll take it.

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...mooth2/pan.jpg
It turned out, exactly as I had pictured.

Down from the hoist, filled it with oil, fired it up and ran it. My bros said he noticed a small puff of blue as I pulled out the shop but he followed me to lunch and again back to his place and didn’t see or smell anything. Probably just whatever was left over in the system.

It’s been a few days now, and I’m not seeing any smoke of any colour at any time while driving coming out the back. I don’t smell any burning nor fumes during these times either. In fact, there was a new smell on the way home I hadn’t quite noticed before. It was the leather smell of my new shift boot.
There are also no leaks thus far either. I’m not leaving any drops around anywhere either. The fitting hasn't touched the CV boot under any circumstances either.

Good job on the repairs.Nothing beats doing it yourself and getting it done right the way you want it.

It's strange cause Staff's is known for high quality work and their extra attention to detail,makes me wonder why they did such a halfass job on your car.

So some good news in the end. After having my turbo retrieved I sold it and made some of my money back!

I then came across a deal I couldn't pass up, and this bad boy showed up yesterday...

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...96600236_n.jpg

So all's well that ends well I suppose. First new board since my 98 Ride Jeff Brushie; had a few one year old, demo or even borrowed boards in between then and now...

So it seems as though the fiasco from 2 years ago still comes back to haunt me...

So when my bros and I ground down the brass fitting, we had to do so by memory as the shop had thrown out the one that cleared the inner CV boot. Well, slowly but surely all this time, it was just baaaaaaarely rubbing away at the boot and ripped it again...

As you can see, it still wasn't enough. And yes, that's my temp CV boot in the form of a shower cap ;)

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...ps1e34fc63.jpg

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...ps7d7e84df.jpg

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s...psa713e56e.jpg

I've recently taken her elsewhere to have the entire axles replaced and it was starting to make noise. And what was done this time was the treads of the brass fitting were actually cut down, allowing the fitting to be closer to the turbo. I now have a good half inch of clearance.

This is why I only go to a mechanic to have them diagnose it, then I repair it myself based on the diagnosis. I guess with turbos it's more complicated than that, but I swear by doing all of the work on my car myself, and nothing has ever failed on me.

SHOWERCAP CVBOOT LMFAO

Ohnose! Thanks for bumping this thread. I was just looking for another Mazda/ Performance shop as I didn't have a good experience with the multiple visits I had with Eunos.

Anybody else have any recent work performed by Staffs?

"Got a thumbs down from a passenger in a new Impreza in front of me; not cool."

i like this part. lol.

Made a great, waterproof cover and the zip ties didn't budge. Didn't like the heat so much, though... turns out.

Interesting thread, read it all, unfortunate craftsmanship from the shop though.