I'm stupid about tightening the wastegate.

I know it needs to be done because I'm only making 4.5psi and I hear this awful rattle on decel. I tried to keep the can-side rod from spinning by grabbing it with some pliers, but I bent out the little ************ on the flapper side while trying to figure out whether you actually loosen the nut by turning it counter-clock or take up some slack in the rod by tightening the nut. It makes no sense.

Here the dude says to "Loosen the nut and and screw the end of the rod." Which end?
Here the dude says "Adjust the bolt that attaches to the flapper arm." Adjust it how?

Would someone please translate to retardese before I break something?

 

Loosen the nut, tighten rod to position, jam nut against rod to keep it from moving.

 

1) The end that goes into the actuator can.
2) The end with the hole in it that loops over the wastgate.

Loosen the nut. Screw #2 towards #1. To do this, you must hold #1 securely while you twist #2. If you twist #1, you will fubar your wastgate can. When the rod is at the desired length(measuring from hole on the end of #2 to the can at the end of #1), tighten the nut against #2.

Rinse, repeat until you have reached your desired boost level.

 

Yup. Hold the rod still, loosen the jam nut, "shorten" the rod by turning the end, viola!

 

There, got it. I worry about the wastegate can -- the rod turned inside it a little bit, and I heard some kind of weird sound like a spring popping loose. Lovely.

For anyone who searches in the future: the brass nut is a lock nut, and it's loosened down the thread because the turbo end of the rod is also a screw. You pull the cotter pin out of it and lift the rod off of the wastegate, then spin that thing a revolution or two to tighten it. Replace the cotter pin then retighten (gently) the lock nut.

 

You're not supposed to turn the shaft inside the wastegate. That tends to break them. Be careful next time you get into boost.

 

Yeah, I know. The lock nut was on so tight I had to remove the whole assembly from the turbo and stick the little bastard in a bench vice to keep it still. I hope replacements aren't too expensive...

 

If you only rotated the shaft a bit without spinning the thing like a top, it should be fine. The GReddy actuator is a piece of doo doo anyway for any kind of boost above 8 psi. Do a search on helper springs, replacement actuators, drop kicking the damn thing out of the garage door, etc, and you'll see what I mean.

 

Yeah dude if you did break the stock actuator, you should look into braineacks post about rigging a 300zx wastegate. Apparently it holds boost way better, not sure if you were planning on upping the boost significantly later or not..

 

The greddy actuator is such a piece of **** you should pray that you did actually break it. In that case you wont need to rig up a spring system of ghettoness to hold high boost levels in the future.

 

You can take the spring out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the spring.

 

i have my factory greddy wastegate somewhere in the garage if you need one. Like FIREINDC said, i used the an actuator from a t25 off a 300zxtt boost comes on faster and holds better!!!!!

 

Adjustment worked! Boost comes on way faster now, so I guess I didn't break it all the way.

Thanks dude. I'll keep my eye out the next time I go to the scrapyard.