Fixing a Turbo Failure on a Sennebogen Material Handler

I headed out to Caldwell, Idaho, on a hot summer day to troubleshoot a Sennebogen 825D material handler with a customer complaint of “a blown up engine.” When I arrived I found a Cummins 6.7 with a massive oil leak and excessive blowby. The entire machine was coated in an oil mist.

I started the machine and noted that the engine smoked a lot while running, but otherwise it sounded good. My initial impression was that the engine itself was mechanically intact. So I started my troubleshooting process by ruling out an internal failure of the base engine. I plumbed in a pressure gauge to the engine oil filter base and checked the engine oil pressure.

The engine oil pressure was just fine. So, I removed the engine oil filter and cut it open to inspect what kind of debris was caught in the filter media.

Not bad for an engine with over 20,000 hours. Next I moved onto inspecting the turbocharger. I removed the turbo compressor outlet tube and low and behold, about a quart of oil came out.

Simple enough, the machine had a turbocharger failure. Next, I pressure washed the machine to remove all the oil and began further inspection. I wanted to determine the cause of the turbocharger failure. After removing all the engine covers and cleaning the machine, I found a hole in the intake manifold inlet tube.

Simple enough, the turbocharger had failed due to unfiltered air entering the intake system. Next I moved onto the repair phase of this job. I ordered a new turbocharger and all new intake tubes, and I removed the air-to-air cooler to have it pressure tested and cleaned. Once all the replacement parts arrived I returned to the customer site and installed the new turbo, tubes, and the freshly cleaned air-to-air cooler.