Ok, I’ve now ordered the hoses to move the coolant pipe. I’ve also ordered the hoses to connect the air filter and, gulp, the radtec radiator/intercooler. That’s got a lead time of 2-3 weeks but plenty to be getting on with.

This weekend I gave myself the task of rotating the compressor/intake housing so that it would point down in my installation. To do that, it needs removing and it’s at this point I’ll introduce you to this circlip:

This thing made me swear. A lot. I hate circlips at the best of times but this one has risen from a special place in hell and found its way onto my turbo. I started off calmly, popping into the local machinemart and getting what I thought was an appropriately sized pair of circlip pliers. No joy initially – it was seized in there and didn’t want to loosen. I resorted to a bit of penetrating fluid, and still no joy. So I resorted to a bit more, and a bit more.

I left that soaking for a while, and when I came back to it, one side would compress with the pliers but the other side wouldn’t. Then the other side did, and I ended up wearing most of that fluid. Safety goggles were dug out and worn after that!

Unbeknownst to me, the pliers I had weren’t appropriate for circlips that strong, and when I got a bit of compression on the clip it slid off, sending more fluid my way and getting stuck back in the ridge again for good measure. Eventually, after some seriously strong words, I removed the circlip devil from my turbo.

The compressor housing is located with a peg and a hole.

Peg:

Hole:

All I had to do was drill a new hole 90 degrees clockwise from the existing one which would turn the housing through 90 degrees. I popped the drill on charge and cleaned up the housing whilst I was waiting. With the hole drilled, I popped the housing back on and checked it against the manifold. Good news, it was spot on… which meant another battle with this little chap.

Tourettes ensued – I’d compress it so far and it would slip off the pliers whilst trying to manoeuvre it in. What I needed was some kind of locking mechanism on the pliers, so I could pay attention to making it fit rather than focusing on just trying to compress the stupid thing. Today I picked up a set of pliers from machinemart that use a screwdriver type mechanism to open and close. Then I got it refitted within 3-4 goes. So much easier when you have the right tools!

And here’s the turbo back in its new home:

The outlet now points into a nice big gap… and I don’t even have to move my catch tank.

So that’s probably it for now until some of my silicone hoses start arriving later this week. Aiming to have it all done and dusted by the 2nd week of July. Not too far away, but if I can do the coolant lines this weekend, oil lines next week, then get the exhaust made up the week after, then the intake piping the week after that… then get it mapped. Sounds doable… at the moment.