ok well this past week i started noticing a LOT of nuts and bolts coming loose. First off, monday i could hear an exhaust leak, so i checked and on my turbo manifold to the exhaust side of the turbo, 2 nuts were totally loose, and one was missing, so tightened them up and put a new nut on and so i thought problem solved. nope, still heard an exhaust leak today so i checked, and the bolt holding the WG to the manifold was almost completely out. So i tightened that back down. Drove 10 miles, checked everything the next morning: the WG bolt came completely loose AGAIN, the exhaust side of the turbo manifold, the one nut that fell off came loose AGAIN, and then i smelt fuel? i saw that the bolt holding the fuel rail came loose and the fuel injector almost poped out! WTF IS GOING ON?!?!? how do i keep these damn bolts in for good?!?

 

use some washer locks
and make sure that the gasket isn't burned off

 

did that for the fuel rail two months ago when i did the motor build, same with the one nut on the exhaust side of the turbo. is there anything else that i can do? lock washers wont work for the WG bolt either.

 

actually....i think the gaskets pretty crispy on the wastegate....could that be it?

 

No that is prolly not causing the loosing problem.......I was going through the samething, got lock washers and it was fixed.you could try locktight. ( i think that is how you spell it.) The liquid stuff you put on the threads.

 

lock washers will work on the wastegate bolts? b/c theres no nuts on them or anything, its just the bolt that goes down into the wastegate hole to hold onto the turbo manifold, plus the end of the bolt head is kind of angled, and its not a normal bolt, its for allen wrenches and the head is round.

 

pretty sure you will have to get high temp loctite if you do decide to use it.

 

I got what your saying. I had a problem with the allen key bolts too and I drilled out the threads and put in nuts and bolts (with the lock washers)

 

i might have to try that....i need a new gasket too cuz the old one has 1/2 of the side burnt off...

 

Lock washers should still work if its just a bold going into the cast housing. They prevent the facing material (the nut or the bolt's head) from spinning because it applys pressure, creating friction. They also bite a bit with that split part. Try them as well as locktight.


also wanted to add that vibrations on a n/a setup is enough to backout bolts, on a turbo setup even a balanced turbo will put out some very high frequency vibrations, which can back bolts out even more. there's also the fact that most flanges or bolts people use are either steel or stainless, which both expand at a different rate than cast iron does. If all else fails, run it hard, and tighten the bolts while hot. And hope the expantion/contraction doesn't snap anything.

 

yeah i just got a new gasket the other day for the wastegate which helped....and now that wastegate is burnt to ****...already. should this be happening that quickly? i mean im gonna need to put a new wastegate gasket in every week now, b/c now that its burnt to **** the bolt is backing out again, help! everything else seems fine now...

 

help please!!!

 

do you have a flex pipe on your downpipe? Im thinking this might be the problem with all that vibration....

 

actually yes, i am running a flexpipe....

 

Put some red high temp loctite on the threads use a lot, use lock washers, and you can also put some hondabond on the bottom of the head of the bolt.

I've ran all three methods together and did not have any problems for a year.

cause someone will mention it there is safety wire, the bolts they use have a hole in them so you can run the metal wire throug and it can prevent them from backing out.

You can also just find some longer bolt and thread them through and double nut the other side, that is if you have enough room to put the bolts that far through.

 

here is what to do:
- first of all do not bother using thread lock, it will burn off pretty quickly.
- buy some of the firering wastegate gaskets from Road Race Engineering for $8 http://www.roadraceengineering...s.htm
they are made of metal and will not burn out every week as the cheap paper gaskets do, mine has lasted fine for over a year now.
- if you haven't already, get some small lock washers to put around your wastegate bolts. It does not matter that the wastegate is not threaded they will still lock in place when they get pinched down as you tighten the bolts into the manifold.
- tighten all the 'problem' bolts down pretty damn tight when cold since they expand a bit when hot (use different methods to get to them better, be creative, we put a bend in an old 13mm wrench then lock it into another wrench to get more leverage, works great on wastegates).
- try these suggestions out but also try to not overtighten and break these bolts, you might have to still retighten a few but you should get it right soon and should not have to touch most of them again for a while.

good luck

 

High Temp Locktite

 

IMO ditch the wastegate gasket entirely and use lock washers - worked for me. No leaks. I even toasted a fire ring gasket, but no gasket, no leaks.

 

There was some discussion about this on a different thread a while ago. Ever wonder why your exhaust manifold nuts dont back out of the studs? It's cause they have those weird slits cut into them and they bite into the stud. Someone posted a link to where you could buy some of those nuts in a thread somewhere.

EDIT: I think I found them at mcmasters they're called flex-top nuts or flexloc. I can't post a direct link though :-\




Modified by AccidentproWn at 3:28 PM 4/4/2005

 

DO NOT USE GASKETS OF ANY KIND, EVEN FIRERING.

They all suck. Do NOT use a gasket between mani and turbo, wastegate and mani, I have not used any for over a year and no problems.

If surfaces are truely flat they will not leak.

Just follow like I said above in previous post, I never had a problem since, I beat the **** out of my car daily driven @ 10 psi.