93 Turbo Problem....NOT

[jeffscarstrucks]

I towed my trailer to Indy from near St Louis last weekend and noticed a steady decrease in power and an increase in black smoke. It is a 5 speed CCDually with a 38 ft featherlite at about 8k lbs. I figured it was a turbo or actuator problem so came on home to work on it here. Well I finally got around to thinking about it today and pulled the air cleaner lid loose only to find that the element had been sucked right up against the inlet opening. It was only a couple thousand miles old (normal conditions). Has anyone ever seen this? I don't have a boost gauge yet but I'm not sure how to test the turbo function or the actuator. It seems like the gate shaft is sloppy to me but I'm not sure what the correct tolerance should look like. I am a little worried about damage that may have been done as a result of driving with a restricted air intake but It never went over 200 water temp(no pyro yet either). There was a very small amount of oil that seeped from under the oil fill cap witch would seem to indicat a high crank case pressure at some point. Sorry to go so long and thanks in advance. You guys have saved me in the past! JEFF

[moondoggie]

Good Day!

If you got black smoke, you probably had high EGT's - too late to worry about that now.

In a perfect world, if I'm towing with a 6.5, I'd have pillar-mounted EGT & boost gauges.

Blessings!

[BobND]

My 1994 sucked the panel filter out of it's molded rubber rim an into the turbo elbow, with much the same results as you experienced.

An oil change place had installed a cheapy filter (no pre-filter, and much thinner than OEM) about 7 or 8 thousand miles before.

The truck hardly ever gets off of the pavement, and there's NO WAY that filter should have been clogged after so few miles.

The nice part about the whole thing was by the time I had the problem, the oil change outfit was long gone!

[jeffscarstrucks]

The gauges are coming soon and a WIX filter was the best I could find without any fabrication time on the horizon. I guess the main worry I have is are there any symptoms or issues I should watch for as a result of this problem that could lead to serious problems ahead. Thanks, JEFF