Turbo Cleaning?

My car smokes allot at lower RPM's and the turbo does not kick in until you hit about 2700. You know when it kicks in you can feel it. I don't have a boost Gage but this car snaps like a wet noodle until it gets real wound up.

When should the turbo be kicking in?

That said,
I think my turbo is sticking. I don't think the vane actuator is moving freely.

If I were to remove the turbo it is there a solvent or cleaner I can just throw it in for a few days or weeks to clean it without having to tear the whole thing apart?

I looked at the VNT cleaning procedure and it seemed like allot of work. Wouldn't a solvent do the trick if left in it long enough?

I have a tendency to drive like a 60 year old baptist minister with a sore right tow. I was thinking if I could add water injection to the ex host manifold and run it from time to time I could keep that turbo clean. "I am going to perform an ERG delete". I just wanted your thoughts on this one.

If you don't want to use the VTN Cleaning procedure the best and easiest thing to do is run it hard. I think you are on the right track after your statment on your driving style. You can check and see if the actuator is moving freely. If not I would solve that 1st.

Something else you might want to check is your intake. If you drive like you say then there is a good chance it's clogged. This could have a simlar effect, because you are not getting enough air in to send out the turbos way.

Also have you checked for any codes?

A good cure is dropping into fourth on hill and putting the pedal to the metal... then again you are in Kansas (any high bridges in the neigborhood?). You really just have to set the minister aside and find your inner speed demon once in a while. Not jack rabbit starts, but if you're on the highway run the rpm up to 4,000 a few times a week to blow the soot off the vanes of the turbo and out the tail pipe. I have a favorite hill (with no police monitoring) that I just floor it and let the engine top out where it wants.

When I bought my Golf (used) it was purportedly glommed from an estate sale of a elderly person. 20K on the odometer. I didn't know much about diesels so I was trying to be nice to it. Found myself between two trailer trucks merging onto a highway with an increasingly narrow alley for me to be in. I did something I don't ordinarily do and floored it... When I tell you the biggest brown/black cloud shot out of that little car. I wouldn't have believed it if I wasn't looking in the rear view as the trucks disappeared in the cloud. I must have blown out all the soot that accumulated in the first 20K in one shot.

You also have to remember the catalytic converter needs to get hot to burn off the emmissions and soot. A clogged cat is just as detrimental to performance as a clogged anything else. Driving all the time with a wimpy right foot is just not good for a diesel.

Check out this chemically cleaning turbo thread: http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=246287
If it was me: I'd undo the two bolts holding on the EGR to the exhaust manifold, spray Easy-off oven cleaner down thru the opening in the exhaust manifold down into the turbo , spend some time wiggling the turbo vnt actuator arm back and forth until it moves freely, then cut a thin piece of metal to make an EGR block off plate, and then bolt the EGR back on. Now, go DRIVE THE SNOT OUT OF IT!.

first thing's first.... Remove the actuator and make sure that it's not sticking.. More often than not the vanes aren't stuck, just the vacuum actuator is getting frozen..

If you just run the snot out of it without making sure the actuator and vanes move, it can seriously overboost and trash the turbo in short order.. I had one pop on me while showing the customer how to clean it out while driving.. Little did I know that in the 240k of the car's life it had never ever once seen over 3000rpm.. I guess I should have asked about that before taking him for a drive..

If the vanes are movable by hand (after actuator removal) but feel like they are binding some, you can shoot some PB blaster down the EGR passage on the exhaust manifold while working the lever back and forth.. Sometimes that will clean it up enough so it moves well.. Then once it's all back together with a good functioning actuator you can run the snot out of it and it'll slowly clean itself the rest of the way..

I wouldn't use Easy-Off, not if you like aluminum bits to remain intact. The residue left behind will not be kind to anything downstream, either.

In the thread referenced by Tom W., I agree with DBW (amazing, but true) with the clarification that the walnut shells he refers to is 'walnut shell media' or the same stuff used by industry to clean jet turbines. It is also used in vibrator cleaners for cleaning softer metal objects, such as brass firearm cartidges prior to reloading.

Oh yeah, and we're talking just the turbine section, NOT the impeller! On jet engines, it is just the hot section & turbine that gets cleaned with this media, not the compressor fans.

No aluminum bits

Common misconception- there are no aluminum bits in the exhaust side of the turbo, so no damage results from using Easy-Off. There are several commercial products now available to chemically clean your turbo- Dodge makes a kit- but the cost is pretty high- $200-400 vs $4.50 for a can of Easy-Off. So far, Easy-Off has a 100% success rate in removing the carbon clogging the VNT, zero damage, and VNT has stayed in perfect working order. -We also drive the snot out of our car at least once a week to keep it working properly.

Re: checking your VNT actuator, if you don't want to remove the vacuum mechanism to check your actuator, and have access to a Mity Vac, you can just hook a Mity Vac to the vacuum line going to the actuator, pump up the vacuum, and watch the actuator for smooth, full movement.

Taking a page from Mr. Chills book, once you know the actuator is moving, pull off your EGR cooler inlet/ EGR block off plate and spray WD-40 into the turbo.

Watch out for the smoke cloud.

It works even better if you cycle the VNT via VCDS.