Smoke from front of engine (m57) 2010.

[Diesel Spectre]

It’s alive!!!
So the cleaning went well. They were able to clean the dpf and get the resistance through the filter cut in half. Their machine backwashes with a mild solvent (for ash) and uses hydraulic pressure to push the ask plugs back through. They said the filter was at the top end of “still good” when I brought it in. Said I didn’t really need to clean it yet. After the way this job has gone, I had no desire to do any of it again any time soon so I had them do it. They got it down from 1.4 to .7 (resistance through the filter walls). So after the cleaning (waited a few hours for it), I took it to the machine shop and dropped it off. There were 2 bolts broken off in it (one for the lower mount to the block, and one on the flange for the LP egr cooler). After 215k miles, they were pretty brittle. I was a little careless pulling them out because I wasn’t reusing the dpf. I did buy the hardware to replace the broken fasteners but instead of fighting with broken bolts, I decided to let the machine shop do it. My daughter came with because it wasn’t far. She’s got her drivers permit and needs the practice driving. That was a mistake. About 1/4 mile from the house she crashed my wife’s minivan. Everyone is fine but It’s done. So I seriously had zero vehicles. They say bad things come in 3’s so I guess I’ve got mine out of the way for 2024 haha.
So Thursday I got a ride to pick up the dpf from the machine shop. Took most of the day but I got it buttoned up last night. I ended up using a few rigging straps and a small chain fall to pull the subframe back to where it belonged. Hooked a strap around the top spoke of the rear wheel and another around the bottom spoke of the front wheel on the same side. Hooked up the chain fall between the straps and tightened it up until the subframe was aligned again. The strap placement caused it to roll up the ramp instead of down so it didn’t crush me. Actually worked well without any drama.
So it’s all back together and runs great. Sounds great. Smells awful since I painted the exhaust manifold.
So to start initially, I didn’t want to just fire it right off. Wanted to get oil through the lines to the turbos since all that was replaced and empty. I hit the button so it would turn over for a second and immediately hit it again to stop ignition. I did this quite a few times over about 5 minutes. My theory was that the mechanical oil pump would fill the lines but without ignition, the turbos wouldn’t get any real speed to them. This should help keep the heat and friction down until I had oil to them from the pump. I can’t say if it worked or not but it made me feel a little better about initial start up with new, dry turbos.
It doesn’t squeal anymore and it sounds like it should. Tomorrow I’m gonna hook up ista and reset the dpf.
Perseverance wins the day but man was it hard won this time. Between the unfortunate snafus and just plain unrelated bad luck, it seemed like I was going to be stuck in the driveway forever. Thanks all for the encouragement though this process. I probably would have struggled quite a bit more if it weren’t for the resources and knowledge base here to draw from. That’s ultimately why I kept updating the thread. Hoping that my misadventures will be able to enlighten future readers as to what to look out for and potential problems.
Truthfully, I probably didn’t have to replace the turbochargers. I eventually found the exhaust manifold leak at the block and I could have just replaced those gaskets and put everything back as it came off and kept driving it without issue. The route I took was by far the more expensive choice but I feel really good about everything on the passenger side of the engine being new. I shouldn’t have to worry about a problem over there for another 200k miles. Would it have been cheaper and less problematic if I deleted it? Absolutely… do I regret not doing that out of the gate? No. I can say with certainty that I can pass emissions inspection where I live and not have any issues since I remain above board. If I deleted, that would always be hanging over my head. Here, it’s a $10,000 fine and they impound your vehicle. I’ve heard stories of them threatening to crush vehicles not put back in 10 days.
I still have plans to do the timing chains and vcg. I also have the rear shocks and e brake actuator to do. Maybe I should just start a build/OEM restore thread.