[Mrinohk]

My turbo has a lot of shaft play and I'm fairly certain it needs rebuilt. Makes a lot of noise when under boost and am fairly certain the seals inside the cartridge are shot. I'm struggling to find used turbos online and disassembly of this turbo for a potential rebuild is proving extremely difficult with bolts either breaking their heads off, or just not busting loose.

I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for a relatively easy to install aftermarket replacement that performs similarly. Been looking around on ebay but I'm not really sure about any of them.

Car is an 87 Dodge Daytona Shelby Z, with the stock 2.2L turbo II and 5 speed. I've already got the turbo removed and the head off, basically waiting for me to either fix the turbo or replace it entirely.

 

[Dr. Johny Dodge]

I'd start by goggling turbocharger rebuild,+your local town or city
if no results replace with state or province n try again

 

[4 L-bodies]

A rebuilder will probably have more success than you removing frozen bolts without snapping them off. You're probably costing yourself money with every snapped off bolt, so stop if you're not having success. There are plenty of tricks that experience teaches you when removing bolts from turbos that haven't been apart in 30+ years.
There are CHRA (center cartridge section) that are readily available for your application. I would say that quality ranges from terrible to pretty good. You're gonna need to reuse the exhaust scroll, swingvalve, compressor housing, and probably the wastegate actuator. The centersection, and compressor backing plate may, or may not be salvageable on your original turbo. If the exhaust turbine or compressor wheel has made contact with the housings, they're pretty much toast.
The Chrysler exhaust scroll has a unique bolt pattern that no other manufacturer used. So you're not going to find a universal exhaust scroll that will fit your exhaust manifold. So you really don't want to snap off any of those 11 fasteners in the exhaust scroll if at all possible. The good news is Chrysler made 100's of thousands of turbo Dodges, so parts are out there.
The turbo you have is a Garrett TB03xx. It is a wet bearing housing. You can use either a dynamic seal or 4 piece carbon seal on the cold side of turbo. It came with a 4 piece carbon seal. If it were mine, I would consider upgrading to 360° thrust bearing, and maybe a staggered turbine seal when rebuilding.
The under $200 CHRA cartridges on Ebay are Chinese. Don't risk it, unless you're a gambler.
For Dodge OMNI GLH DAYTONA Garrett TB0335 Turbo Turbocharger CHRA Cartridge core | eBay
Good luck!

 

[Mrinohk]

A rebuilder will probably have more success than you removing frozen bolts without snapping them off. You're probably costing yourself money with every snapped off bolt, so stop if you're not having success. There are plenty of tricks that experience teaches you when removing bolts from turbos that haven't been apart in 30+ years.
There are CHRA (center cartridge section) that are readily available for your application. I would say that quality ranges from terrible to pretty good. You're gonna need to reuse the exhaust scroll, swingvalve, compressor housing, and probably the wastegate actuator. The centersection, and compressor backing plate may, or may not be salvageable on your original turbo. If the exhaust turbine or compressor wheel has made contact with the housings, they're pretty much toast.
The Chrysler exhaust scroll has a unique bolt pattern that no other manufacturer used. So you're not going to find a universal exhaust scroll that will fit your exhaust manifold. So you really don't want to snap off any of those 11 fasteners in the exhaust scroll if at all possible. The good news is Chrysler made 100's of thousands of turbo Dodges, so parts are out there.
The turbo you have is a Garrett TB03xx. It is a wet bearing housing. You can use either a dynamic seal or 4 piece carbon seal on the cold side of turbo. It came with a 4 piece carbon seal. If it were mine, I would consider upgrading to 360° thrust bearing, and maybe a staggered turbine seal when rebuilding.
The under $200 CHRA cartridges on Ebay are Chinese. Don't risk it, unless you're a gambler.
For Dodge OMNI GLH DAYTONA Garrett TB0335 Turbo Turbocharger CHRA Cartridge core | eBay
Good luck!

That cartridge you linked is one I've been looking at but didn't wanna buy until I knew that it would work (was talking to the seller to confirm) and that I'd be able to put it in myself. So far the farthest I've been able to get is breaking off one of the 4 bolts that connect the the turbo to the downpipe, while getting the other 3 off no problem, and made no progress on any of the bolts holding the cartridge to the exhaust side of the turbo. Nothing broken but just can't get them to move.

Since posting this initially I've fiddled around the site reading random posts relating to this engine and found a site that seems quite popular here: turbos unleashed. Found a rebuilt turbo on the site and emailed the contact email address about it. Probably gonna go that route if it ends up being cheaper than finding someone in town who can rebuild it for me.

 

[james]

Guess I'm a gambler 😒 cuz I just bought that exact cartridge

 

[Dr. Johny Dodge]

well remember the anti seize..in case you need to change it again next year,,

 

[4 L-bodies]

So far the farthest I've been able to get is breaking off one of the 4 bolts that connect the the turbo to the downpipe, while getting the other 3 off no problem, and made no progress on any of the bolts holding the cartridge to the exhaust side of the turbo. Nothing broken but just can't get them to move.

A 5th bolt is holding on the swingvalve to the exhaust housing . It is up inside the donut hole in the swingvalve.

 

[GLHNSLHT2]

Call turbosunleashed.com and just get one through them.

 

[4 L-bodies]

Call turbosunleashed.com and just get one through them.

Or Forward Motion, or FWDP, or Turbos International, or local diesel shop. Just saw a TD vendors turbo that was built with a dynamic compressor seal on a log motor! That didn't work out very well...man that is basic turbo 101 stuff right there, but somehow still eluded their turbo rebuilder's knowledge!

 

[ChucksterGLHT]

I happen to have a partially disassembled, almost complete turbo for sale in the parts for sale section of this fine site:
Several Parts For Sale - More Added 06/08/22 | Turbo Dodge Forums
BTW: it has a NEW turbo cartridge...just what you need!
Chuck

 

[Mrinohk]

I happen to have a partially disassembled, almost complete turbo for sale in the parts for sale section of this fine site:
Several Parts For Sale - More Added 06/08/22 | Turbo Dodge Forums
BTW: it has a NEW turbo cartridge...just what you need!
Chuck
[

I'm 100% willing to take you up on that. Please check your dms