Has anybody rebuilt a Procharger on their own? - Lateral-g Forums

Blown353 · #1 02-17-2007, 10:56 PM

As the subject states... my Procharger has always had a slightly "weepy" rear shaft seal that unfortunately has now become a leak. After driving 80 miles today there was quite an oil film all on the bottom of the unit. It's not the drain plug.

Procharger likes to ding people quite a bit of money for a rebuild and take their sweet time doing it... so I'd like to do it myself if possible.

I know the seals they use are easy to get and cheap $4 Chicago Rawhide pieces, but how the heck do you get the impeller off without damaging it to change the rear seal? I can't figure out a good way to press it off.

A while back I found a thread on a mustang message board that outlined how to rebuild a Procharger yourself but I can't seem to find it now. Hoping someone can help out.

Plan B is to send it back to ATI for inspection/resealing but I thought I'd ask here first.

frankenstang · #2 02-18-2007, 10:57 AM

Here's a link to a HUGE thread on the Vortech rebuild. I helped Silver86 rebuild his A-trim into a hybrid using a bad S-trim. We used the impeller and volute from the 's' on the good 'a' case and had good results. I imagine the Procharger is not too much different. Good luck.

http://www.corral.net/forums/showthread.php?t=780865

907rs · #3 02-18-2007, 11:07 AM

Troy, send Jeff (3kidsnotime) a PM. He's been dealing with Procharger in marine applications since their early days. He should be able to point you in the right direction.

Good luck!

3kidsnotime · #4 02-20-2007, 11:24 AM

I would recommend calling 913-338-3086 and speak to Dorian at ati and explain the time factor needed, As far as cost they charge the rate for repairs needed. Admittedly they can be slow at rebuilding especially during race season. But with the posability of damaging the impeller that depending on what model you have can be spinning 60k is quite a risk with pressing issues, you will be hard pressed to get them to sell you a impeller only, or any rebuild parts. For liability reasons and just plain crashing your head unit I would send it in.

Blown353 · #5 02-20-2007, 01:05 PM

I will be giving them a call shortly. The guy I purchased the unit from (Scott @ SDCE in Rhode Island) moves a LOT of ATI products so I'm hoping that will help things along.

The unit functions great aside from the oil leak at the impeller shaft seal, I'm hoping it will be a fairly inexpensive fix. No odd noise or debris on the magnetic drain plug.

My biggest fear is lead time-- I'd really like a 3 week total turnaround (1 week there, 1 week servicing, 1 week return.) If their wait time is longer than that I might consider 2 day shipping. I need the head unit on the car for at least another week to fab my intercooler piping once the intercooler shows up then I'll be shipping it out for service while the IC piping goes out for high temp ceramic coating.

My other worry is that the leaking seal is a sign of one of the high speed side bearings going out and getting sloppy.

Blown353 · #6 03-19-2007, 10:22 PM

Just an update in case anyone is interested...

Tonight I said what the hell and tore it apart on my own. Piece of cake, really, teardown procedure is pretty much identical to the Vortech teardown on the Mustang forum and the internals are very similar with the exception the Procharger has one more lower gear to serve as an oil slinger/aereator.

Tomorrow I'll be pressing the impeller off (Procharger uses an extra snap ring to retain the rear high speed bearing, unlike the Vortech) and getting the PN off the rear seal. Then all I have to do is hit up a local shop for new seals and a new o-ring for the case halves. I'm also going to run the numbers for the bearings that ATI uses and see what their ratings are. Oddly enough, one thing I'm not liking is the front side high speed bearing is a GMN S6204CTAA7, which is mfg. rated at 51K RPM, while Procharger rates the max safe speed of the impeller at 62,000. I'm sure GMN has some safety factor built into their maximum allowable speed rating but my feeling is that ATI is pushing their luck by rating their superchargers at 62K rpm-- which is overspeeding the bearings by 11K RPM.

I'll have pictures of everything later this week but if you have any sort of mechanical skill and access to a press this is certainly something one can tackle on their own-- as long as you don't mind taking the risk.

**XcYZ** · #7 03-20-2007, 06:44 AM

Cool, Troy. I wouldn't mind seeing pics of the internals.

Blown353 · #8 03-20-2007, 10:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by XcYZ

Cool, Troy. I wouldn't mind seeing pics of the internals.

I'll take some as I'm putting it back together.

Pressed the impeller off today in an arbor press (much better feel than with a hydraulic)-- another easy task although it took a bit of hanging on the handle to get the sucker to pop free initially.

I already know I'm going to have fun tomorrow trying to get a replacement for the rear high speed seal... it's some oddball double lipped seal with no visible part numbers or any other kind of ID anywhere on it to identify the maker. The guys behind the counter are going to love me.

**XcYZ** · #9 03-21-2007, 06:51 AM

Did you do it by yourself? Or did it take extra hands?

Blown353 · #10 03-21-2007, 07:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by XcYZ

Did you do it by yourself? Or did it take extra hands?

Extra hands were needed for safety. I held everything while a friend worked the press. You can't remove the low speed shaft & bearings ahead of time because with the impeller in place the input shaft gear hits a high speed bearing. Once you get the impeller pressed off about 1.5" you can then remove the low speed shaft & bearing assembly... or if I didn't have the extra hands it would probably have dropped.

Murphy would like nothing better than to let something expensive hit the floor if I attempted it on my own.

Update:

The high speed seal appears to be custom-- so says my friend at Motion Industries. I'm going to try a CR double-lipped Viton seal and see how that works because they appear to work for Vortech. If it still leaks then it will be going back to Procharger since I can't procure what seems to be a proprietary seal. Ugh.

Also, the case o-ring is not an AS568 standard size so that also has to be custom. I'm going to have another friend vulcanize/splice together a viton case o-ring for me.