ZD30 using a quart of oil a week, no visible leaks. Help 🥺🥺?!

Sterilux · Mar 6, 2023

Hey everyone. So my D22 Navara ZD30 uses a lot of oil. There are no visible oil leaks, no drops of oil on the ground. Only thing is, there is a lot of oil around the intake pipes, manifold, turbo and even on the EGR pipe. I do have a catch can fitted (a cheap one) but the amount I'm seeing is quite excessive.
I'm starting to think it's the turbo that's leaking and blowing heaps of oil into the intake. But before tackling that, does anyone have any other ideas?
300,000kms on the clock, pretty hard driving and towing

Old.Tony · Mar 7, 2023

It could be the turbocharger, it has oil fed into it. A bad or worn seal in the turbo can allow that oil to either enter the air intake or enter the exhaust stream from behind the turbine (this should mostly be combusted).

There are a couple of things I'd check:

* Look at the coolant reservoir. Oil should float to the surface and be visible here, if there is any then you may have a leaking head gasket.
* Examine the turbocharger. Remove the intake hose and try moving the impeller, both from side to side and spinning it. There should be no sideways movement and it should spin freely and smoothly although it shouldn't spin on for long at all.
* While at the turbocharger, remove the air hose PAST the turbocharger and wipe a finger in the oil within the hose - examine your finger under a bright light. Any sparkling indicates wear from the turbocharger.
* If the oil is all in the catch can, chances are your piston rings have either worn, the bore is scarred or the rings are gummed up. There are products available in auto stores to "unsieze" piston rings and sometimes they work - this is worth trying as a first step but you might need to consider popping the head and the sump and removing the pistons.

Turbochargers can be repaired by purchasing a new bearing+seal kit and this may be good enough to give you another 300K from the engine, but if the impeller has had any contact with the housing (metallic fragments in the intake) you should consider replacing the turbo.

tweak'e · Mar 10, 2023

check that your not overfilling it. they are very touchy for that and its sometimes better to under fill it a bit.

Sterilux · Jun 24, 2023

Hey all, just thought that I would post an update:
So it seems that the problem was that the turbo was leaking, kind of badly. When I took off the rubber intake hose, there was a pool of oil just in front of the compressor wheel.
I opted to replace the CHRA, or the turbo core, instead of the bearings and "seals". I bought a Maxpeedingrods CHRA from Amazon.com since Amazon was my only option for online purchases. I don't expect the China turbo to last long, hoping for maybe 3 years out of it so that I can fit a non-chinese one when my wallet holds more than just my driver's permit

.
Since fitting the replacement, I've driven the ute normally like I used to and after about 13 weeks, the oil level hasn't dropped a bit.
I do have a boost gauge fitted, and I didn't notice any different in cruising, accelerating, under load or maximum boost pressure over the original.

TL;DR: Turbo was the source of the leak so I replaced the CHRA with an aftermarket Maxpeedingrods CHRA.