Hi all,
Long time lurker, haven't had much reason to post except for now. First off the bat, thanks to everybody whose contributed so much to content to help me understand what the h-e-double-hockey-stick started happening with my sweet baby RBP LGT.
Just a quick taste, this is a symptom of what happened:
http://i.imgur.com/ullI6y5.jpg
If you're interested, read on. If you want to see a VF40 teardown, read on. If you want to hear about my stupidity, read on.
So a little story...
I was driving from Charlotte, NC back home to Asheville, NC. about 100 miles, and about 2/3 through, I have to make a big elevation climb to get up into the mountains of WNC. At the beginning of the trip though, I got a CEL. I had my bluetooth OBDII transmitter plugged in, but for some reason, my phone wouldn't connect and I couldn't pull the code. About 2 months ago, I replaced the rear wheel bearings in the LGT, which had been making a real racket. At the beginning of the trip, I thought I heard what sounded like the front wheel bearings starting to get bad. I got halfway to Asheville to fill up for gas, but had a funny feeling, about what was happening, so I popped the hood and checked the oil. Sh!t. Oil was way low, hardly showing up on the dipstick (more about the oil later) so I bought a quart and poured it in and off I went.
15 minutes later, I heard a strange noise coming from behind my dash. What sounded like a vacuum canister rapidly losing vacuum..vhoop! vhoop! I quickly realized this sound came only after I took my foot off the gas pedal. "sh!t i'm losing boost. That's the wastegate actuator." Just a couple minutes later, and I realized that when I put my foot down, I had no boost. I still had to get up the big hill. I was weighing my options and decided to drive it home. In hindsight, I should've had AAA and I should've just stopped and gotten it towed... I limped it back as best I could, going slow. Very slow.I thought a 2.5i legacy was slow, but there really is nothing slower than a newly rebranded naturally aspirated 2.5 LGT.
I got to a stoplight, started from a stop and heard a terrible sound. Truly, like nuts and bolts in a tin can. I thought "God, that sounds like a loose turbine wheel in the turbine housing." (serious foresight here) Got to the next stoplight and started off even slower. Fewer nuts and bolts in the tin can, but they're still there. Got to my destination, shut off the car. Important observations: I never noticed any smoke out the back while limping it home, however after I parked it for a day I started it back up for a hot second and created a most heinous cloud of blue smoke, not to mention that terrible sound.
This is where the story starts.
http://i.imgur.com/0nkMNB4.jpg
