I got my IHI RHB5 in the mail today (damn its a small turbo). There is no shaft play but its tough to spin. It does spin it just feels like there is resistance. I put some oil in it and it got a little better. Is a rebuild necessary?

 

put your mouth up to the exhuast housing and blow really hard. check and see if it spins. J/k......hmmmmm its not going to spin for very long. The wieght of the center section might be throwing you off. The turbo's that i have had in the past only spun for maybe a second or two. Do you know where it came from. Its possible that it has been sitting around for a while and just needs a motor to loosen things up again. Thats just my theory.

 

I think it has just been sitting a while. It did free up alot but it still doesn't keep spinning like my other 2 RHB52's. I'm usually just used to checking play, I never had anything like this before so I was just double checking that its not the bearings or something I'm not aware of.

 

I've had alot of turbos that were kinda hard to spin, and after some nice hot oil flowed through the center section they free'd right up, it wouldnt hurt to spray some lube down there and try to work it free. I usually spray lube everywhere, and disassemble them and clean all the carbon off the backing plate behind the exhaust wheel.