Yesterday I finished up putting the Helicoil thread inserts into those two stripped bolt holes. It was actually pretty easy to do.
I didn't put any thread locking fluid on neither the Helicoils nor the bolts when I put the compressor housing back onto the turbo, but I did use a thread sealant on the bolts as well as some red RTV silicon sealant on the sealing faces of the turbo and compressor housing flanges. Everything went together pretty easily, but I did notice some issues with some mounting brackets on the STS pipes that I will need to deal with. Someone bent them away from the mounting bolts on the frame and now there is some metal to metal contact that will make a rattling noise when I drive the car. And sure enough, when I took the car out today for a test drive, I can plainly hear that passenger side piping rattling when at a stop light.
I'll take some pics later on of those mounting brackets for reference.
But in any event, after the test drive, I didn't see any oil leaking from the turbo. And I did run the car up to where it went into boost, so it appears to be holding air pressure as well. But there are still some minor things I need to fix, apparently. There is a slight misalignment with the output pipe to the STS plumbing, that I might need a slightly longer coupler hose for. And the brackets I mentioned earlier to stop the pipes from banging against each other.
But all in all, the car ran pretty good on the test drive. I think I've got the 500 break-in miles on the clutch now.
