Smells like burning oil... but its not?
 

Today I noticed a smell, sort of like burning oil. It would occur when I would get into the throttle a bit, I didn't notice it at light throttle.

The oil doesn't smell or look like it has diesel in it, and the level is good, and the truck doesn't seem to be using any.

It smells different from blowby, and doesn't smell like the "SmellTella-T oil".

No blue smoke other than a little at startup.

My clutch is rated for 350HP and I'm nowhere close to that, so I don't think its slipping and causing the smell.

Could it be the turbo going bad?

Its dark out now, so I'll take the intake tube off tomorrow and take a look inside.

My guess would be it's exhaust-related, since you smell it on accelleration. bingo - i'd check out the turbo bearings...

I took off the intake tube and looked in the turbo. It looked ok, there as no oily residue anywhere, just a little bit of black dusty-looking stuff here and there. It wouldn't really rub off, it was on there pretty good. Virtually no play in the shaft.

How would I check the rest of the turbo out? I've never taken a turbo off before, is that required to check the bearings?

Also, I got under the hood today after going for a good long drive, and messed with the throttle. I noticed a stumble at the higher RPMs in neutral that made a bit of blue smoke, but there was no burning oil smell that I could tell. That to me sounds like injectors, but I don't think thats related to the burning oil smell at all.

But, since I was revving it in neutral, and the turbo wasn't making much of any boost, that leads me to believe you are right and it probably is an issue with the turbo.

Any advice on how to diagnoise/correct the problem would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Dennis

Most times if oil is leaking into the exhaust section of the turbo you'll get blue smoke and after a long run there will often be oil drips from the tip of your tailpipe.

Hm... I cannot for the life of me figure out what this would be. The tailpipe didn't have any oily residue in it, just soot. Then again, the smell just started showing up the day before yesterday.

do u have shaft play in the turbo?

There is minimal side-to-side play in the turbo, and when I move it front to back I can feel it shift - I'm not sure if its just moving or taking up a minuscule amount of slack, but I can "feel" a "click" (if that makes sense) when moving the shaft back and forwards.