I bought a turbo cartridge (CHRA) for my car to fix the damaged turbo ( I cracked the banjo bolt hole and it was spewing oil out and it whined a bit), I had checked the oil flow and get nigh on a litre of oil in about 10-20 secs so no issues with the pick up pipe at all. Checked it again the other day.

After fitting the CHRA the car ran like a bag of snot, the EGR valve was frozen stuck so I also changed that, but it still ran like a bag of snot and I could not figure out why.

I also cleaned the VNT vanes and assembly before rebuilding the turbo.

What I did not know is the turbo CHRA and the VNT vanes have to be set up perfectly and the VNT stop screw also needed swapping from the old turbo and again the actuator needed to be adjusted properly. Not something you can really do at home as it needs a proper machine and knowledge to get it all set up to factory specs.

So I have spent quite a fair amount of money trying to fix it myself the cheapest way and it has all been a waste of time.

My only option now is a complete Turbo from Transit parts UK at £265 and hope there is no other engine damage after my bodge job.

So now need to borrow money to fix it again and hope for the best, if it still runs bad then it means there is engine damage.

So if you are not sure what you are doing don't think "how hard can it be" famous last thought.

Fed up beyond belief to say the least and I am not a faint hearted DIY mechanic, and can repair almost anything myself.

This has been an expensive and time consuming lesson, so thought I would share it for others who may think of doing the same.

at times you just have to pay for the " experience"

Most jobs can be thrown in the deep end and just hope for a good result, but turbo's are one that I would agree should be left well alone. They can disintegrate, filings can go into oil and shared with the engine, and can burn out the starter motor too!

A valuable lesson learn't, rebuilding the turbo if you know exactly what you are doing and can take it to someone who can flow test and set it up properly is fine if you are brave enough to do so. But a ready built and set up turbo is quite easy to change if you are reasonably mechanically minded. I love a challenge myself and to be fair I now know more than I did before about the turbo setup. So it is not all bad.