Part 2: Disassembly

1. Remove all hose clamps and hoses. There should be hoses going to the wastegate actuator and compressor housing. Put these in your parts container as they will be reused.
2. Remove the wastegate actuator (2 12mm bolts and 1 retaining “E” clip)
3. Remove the clamp around the CHRA (1 10mm bolt). I removed the bolt and nut completely from the clamp, then used a flat-head screwdriver and a hammer to gently tap the clamp loose as it was slightly siezed. Put these in your parts container as they will be reused.
4. Remove the 17mm banjo bolts and coolant line. You may need some penetrating lubricant for this. With the line removed, thread the bolts back in to keep debris out or plug the holes with something else and put the bolts and line in your parts container. Throw away all 4 copper washers.
5. Remove the 2 10mm bolts holding the oil return line to the CHRA. The flange may be kind of stuck to the turbo, but it does come off. Take note of all of the gasket material stuck to the surfaces. You will be cleaning this up later. Set the oil return line in your parts container, thread the bolts back into the CHRA, and plug the oil hole with something.
6. Use WD40 or other penetrating lubricant on the turbine housing to CHRA mating area (where the clamp was in step 3). Warning: You may have to repeat this step, then try the next step, across several days to get the turbine housing loose.
7. Very carefully and patiently, with a hard mallet or hammer, whack the turbine housing in a uniform manner around the circumference. The key point to remember here is to make sure the housing does not bind on or touch the turbine blades. Tapping did very little for me, but I tried that at first. Eventually, after a few days of lubricating, I started giving it good whacks while still checking every time to see if it had moved before giving another one.
8. Use your big-bore snap ring pliers to remove the compressor housing from the CHRA.
9. If, and only if, you are not sending your rebuild turbo to be checked for balance after your rebuild, you absolutely must mark both the compressor wheel and turbine relation to the center assembly with paint or White-Out. If you mark them and reassemble everything so that the marks line up, you should not need to send the turbo off for balancing. A reader has submitted his ideas on this topic which you can find as the last page in this article. You probably want to do a neater job of marking than I did.
10. Note the odd nut on the exhaust turbine wheel… it’s my guess that it is this way because it was ground away to create balance in the assembly.
11. Using an 8mm socket for the compressor wheel nut and whatever you can use to hold the turbine end (I used a 12mm socket that fit well enough), remove the compressor wheel nut and put it in your parts container. NOTE: the TD04L-13G’s compressor wheel nut is reverse threaded, so go clockwise.
12. Remove the compressor wheel. It should slide right off of the shaft. Set this aside where it will not get damaged as you will not need it for awhile.
13. Remove and discard the large rubber o-ring on the outskirts of the compressor end of the CHRA. This is visible in the picture above.
14. Carefully push or tap the shaft and turbine wheel out of the assembly while making sure the turbine end does not pop out and fall onto the work space or you may bend the fins. The bearing can go in the garbage. Set the turbine shaft assembly aside for now.
15. Using your smaller snap ring pliers, remove the snap ring visible on the compressor side of the CHRA. This ring holds the compressor seal in place. Set the snap ring aside in your parts container.
16. Gently remove the compressor seal from the CHRA. You may need to use 2 small flat-head screwdrivers, one at 3 o’clock and one at 9 o’clock, to carefully pry it out. It should not require much force.
17. You will notice at this point that the compressor seal has a metal insert. It may have fallen onto your work surface when you got the compressor seal removed. This is okay, so don’t panic. This is what the insert looks like (the flange is under the screwdriver in the picture).Here is a picture of the compressor seal and the compressor seal insert together for reference They are shown separated 2 pictures up.
18. Remove the bronze seal plate. It should just pop out but may need a little coaxing. It is not really secured by anything substantial. Put this in your parts container or the garbage (your rebuild kit should have a replacement for this).
19. Remove the interior o-ring from the compressor side and discard. Seen in picture above.
20. Remove the small spacer found underneath the bronze seal plate. Put this in your parts container or the garbage (your rebuild kit should have a replacement for this as well).
21. Remove the compressor-side bearing and throw it away.