My 109 Land Rover turbo update

OK it is 6.30.2015, a couple of weeks ago I went up and brought my turbos home. That story is told on another post. 

Once the broken bolts were drilled out and after a cursory inspection I took the exhaust housing down to my sandblasting guy Ian at Santa Cruz Metal Polishing. Ian quickly cleaned it off and didn't charge me for the quick job! Looking at the housing there were no cracks in it so this was the one piece I needed to finish off a complete turbo.

Next up was checking videos online to see how difficult it would be to rebuild the turbo myself. I must have watched half a dozen of them and convinced myself it wasn't that hard......
Had to find the correct rebuild kit for my Garrett T2. Checking online proves that it goes by many names and numbers so I had to dig a bit to make sure. I found one on Ebay from someone called TraderGreg. Forty-five bucks!

Had everything I needed and more as it also fits some other Garrett turbos. So I set up my table for the rebuild of a turbo I had not taken apart with some trepidation.

Finally after an hour or so I got finished;

Since I didn't have witness marks to align the housings I had to keep everything loose and put it on the engine before tightening it up.

I made sure I assembled it with engine assembly lube and put engine oil in the bearing for the turbo.

Then I tried starting it up......The starter clicked and spun but not the engine. I tried it several more times and sometimes the engine would turn and the starter would disengage the flywheel but keep spinning. I got out my hand crank and made sure the engine could turn freely,,yeah that's OK. Tried it again and the engine caught it was idling at around 2 grand so after only a few seconds I shut it off. Exhaust smoke was everywhere, loud with no exhaust hooked up. Who knows how long ago it last fired up.
   As it was late in the day I called it quits. The next day I put on the exhaust downpipe.

I took the time to back out the idle screw, I don't know where it should be but I didn't want it running so fast. Then I fired it up,.....well, I tried to anyway, the starter dog just won't stay engaged. So maybe the battery was a little flat, I charged it overnight. And fired it up,.....well, I tried anyway, Starter just spins, the dog won't even try to engage.

I got very disheartened, So tired of fighting with this thing EVERY STEP of the way. So I walked away from it for a bit. I have another starter to try but haven't wanted to do the work yet.

Now it is in the 90's and too hot. but I'll get back to it soon.