Turbo Washing a thing?

[jefndeb]

This past weekend a fellow boater asked if I had ever had my turbo washed ..
I looked at him not really sure if he was being serious because in my green military days I was sent off to the parts room to get a spool of 3/4" Fallopian tube and a gallon of prop wash ....


Anybody done this?

 

[Bkay]

Yes, when I had a Yanmar (4JH4-HTE as I recall) they had a process and recommended interval. They also had a proprietary turbo wash. I've recently been told they are no longer recommending this, but the source for that is questionable.

I would only do it if the manufacturer recommends it on their engine. With Yanmar, I seem to recall I brought the engine up to a specific RPM (in idle), injected X CC of turbowash and then injected Y CC of water (I actually used a syringe so I could measure the amount). It was a fair amount of water delivered over something like 30 seconds and you'd hear the RPM drop slightly and see a little mist in the exhaust.

I no longer have than engine or manual so I can't look it up, but it was a thing with Yanmars.

 

[Portage_Bay]

The long weight.

The greenhorn is tasked to assist the engineer in sounding the tanks. All goes well until the last tank. The engineer just cannot get a reading. He opens the inspection port and shines his flashlight in. After a bit he tells the greenhorn to go see the mate and ask for the long weight.

In the wheel house after asking for the long weight the mate tells him it will be a bit, please have a seat.

Sometime later, depending upon how sharp the greenhorn is, he realizes he's been handed the long wait.




Relative bearing grease.

The mate sends the greenhorn to the engineer for some relative bearing grease.




The dragon bowline.

A shipmate ties a bowline and asks the greenhorn to repeat. The greenhorn gets it after a few tries. Next comes the running bowline. Pretty easy give the greenhorn now knows how to tie a bowline. A bit more challenging is the bowline on a bight. But they're making good progress. Now the shipmate asks the greenhorn if he knows what a dragon bowline is? Of course he doesn't. So the shipmate ties another bowline, tosses it out on the deck and pulls the line back to him. Demonstrating the draggin bowline.


That's all I can remember for now....


Edit: Ah, never mind. I see Bkay gave a real answer. Turns out turbo washing was a real thing.

 

[Bkay]

Whoops, I just did a search on this and remember where I got the info on not doing it, the guys at Mack Boring said the EPA told them they could no longer sell a turbo wash, so they stopped selling it for Yanmars and stopped recommending it. I'm told they now recommend removing the turbo to clean it.

There are a number of anecdotal stories of people continuing to wash turbos, some using a dish soap solution. They argue the turbo converts the small amount of water/cleaner into steam almost instantly. But I wouldn't do it if my engine manufacturer didn't recommend it.

 

[psneeld]

Pretty sure it is just about cleaning the carbon/dirt off the turbine wheel.

Can be done by various methods depending on it's design.

Not sure what was being used that the EPS would ban it...but my guess there are "greener" products.

On older aircraft turbine engines and in the olden days, they used ground up walnut shells and fed them through like sandblasting the dirt/salt/carbon/etc off.

 

[rgano]

Here's the procedure. I have the wash solution and use it. Nothing to it - all over in a New York minute.

 

[jleonard]

This past weekend a fellow boater asked if I had ever had my turbo washed ..
I looked at him not really sure if he was being serious because in my green military days I was sent off to the parts room to get a spool of 3/4" Fallopian tube and a gallon of prop wash ....


Anybody done this?

And you didn't come back with 100 feet of flight line?

Dawn mixed with water in a spray bottle. Squirt into turbo inlet (air filter removed), followed by squirting in plain water.
Do this while under load.
This is the Seaboard Marine method.
I did it a couple of times when I had the Cummins 6BTA.

 

[syjos]

Turbo washing or spraying Seafoam or other "turbo and intake cleaners" into turbocharged engines while it's running can harm your turbo.

The cleaners loosen hard carbon deposits in the intake which can damage the exhaust side turbo blades.

Spraying Seaford and other intake cleaners was adopted to combat intake valve fouling on direct injection automobile engines when that technology was first introduced. That practice was discontinued when it was found to damage turbo exhaust blades.

Walnut blasting intakes is current practice to mitigate fouling. Some manufacturers install an additional injector upstream of the intake valve to periodically wash the intake valve with a spray of fuel to minimize buildup. Hot Rodders resort to water injection to reduce fouling.