Chubber
Veteran Member
This is part of my thread about removing the cylinder head but I wanted to keep it separate because it's really it's own topic.
When I pulled off the plastic intake pipe to the turbo, I found that the end of it was badly cracked. I guess the turbo gets pretty hot, but the intake air should cool the pipe pretty well, except for when the engine shuts off and the heat soaks everything. I just can't believe that VW would bolt a plastic part directly to a turbo charger. To heck with the intercooler lines, someone needs to make one of these out of steel!
Anyway, this is what it looked like when I took it out:
Who knows how long it has been cracked and how that has affected my metered air. I doubt much total air snuck in there, it's a tight crack, but I knew I needed to fix it.
First I cleaned it off with orange cleaner and a tooth brush. Then Dawn Ultra dish soap and tooth brush. Then some more cleaner. Rinsed it really well and then put it into an easy-bake convection oven to dry out really well. I ran a Dremel sanding disc all around the cracked area to rough up the surface, then wiped it down with alcohol. I reached for the second most useful tool in the tool box:
Good to 500 degrees!
I put a nice schmear all around the cracked area, inside the crack and around the webbing to help provide support.
The rubber band holds the crack closed. JB Weld is drippy (unless you use the 5 minute stuff, but it doesn't hold to high temps like this) so I had to flip the tube over every 10-15 minutes for about 3 hours. It still dripped after I went to bed! That was annoying. But I figured that it could use more support outside the bell housing. There is plenty of room on the turbo for a thicker flange, so I sanded it some more, cut some picture hanging wire, wrapped it once around and put on another coat of JB Weld the next day.
I am going to test fit it to the turbo tomorrow and see where I can put one more coat on without hitting any of the studs or flanges.
I only found one place on the whole internet selling this pipe and they wanted $169.00 for it. Yikes! So I guess $1 worth of JB Weld was a good investment.
When I pulled off the plastic intake pipe to the turbo, I found that the end of it was badly cracked. I guess the turbo gets pretty hot, but the intake air should cool the pipe pretty well, except for when the engine shuts off and the heat soaks everything. I just can't believe that VW would bolt a plastic part directly to a turbo charger. To heck with the intercooler lines, someone needs to make one of these out of steel!
Anyway, this is what it looked like when I took it out:
Who knows how long it has been cracked and how that has affected my metered air. I doubt much total air snuck in there, it's a tight crack, but I knew I needed to fix it.
First I cleaned it off with orange cleaner and a tooth brush. Then Dawn Ultra dish soap and tooth brush. Then some more cleaner. Rinsed it really well and then put it into an easy-bake convection oven to dry out really well. I ran a Dremel sanding disc all around the cracked area to rough up the surface, then wiped it down with alcohol. I reached for the second most useful tool in the tool box:
Good to 500 degrees!
I put a nice schmear all around the cracked area, inside the crack and around the webbing to help provide support.
The rubber band holds the crack closed. JB Weld is drippy (unless you use the 5 minute stuff, but it doesn't hold to high temps like this) so I had to flip the tube over every 10-15 minutes for about 3 hours. It still dripped after I went to bed! That was annoying. But I figured that it could use more support outside the bell housing. There is plenty of room on the turbo for a thicker flange, so I sanded it some more, cut some picture hanging wire, wrapped it once around and put on another coat of JB Weld the next day.
I am going to test fit it to the turbo tomorrow and see where I can put one more coat on without hitting any of the studs or flanges.
I only found one place on the whole internet selling this pipe and they wanted $169.00 for it. Yikes! So I guess $1 worth of JB Weld was a good investment.
