Smart Roadster Turbo pressure issue

Since I have had my beloved Smart Roadster, turbo pressure has been a bit low in it. Actually, it is only a half what it should be. 0,5bar instead of full 1bar. It have not bothered me much, until recently. Though it is great ride even now, I have made my mind and I want a full turbo pressure. Inspection shoved no obvious damage or leakage in the system, so I started with googling, as is tradition. Or, in this case help was found from a Facebook group. From there I learned the correct length of the wastegate actuator. Mine was not in the ball park. Obvious first step was to adjust it to a correct length. A minor problem was that heat from turbo had seized its adjustability. Next first step was to take actuator out of the car and release seized M6 nut and thumb wheel. And of course being such a small vehicle, there is very little room to do any kind of work in the motor compartment. So I had to jack the car up and remove some stuff to make clearance and access to wastegate actuator.

Here one can see the bell housing of the wastegate actuator and piping placement. X-frame has been already taken out.

X-frame had to be removed since it was blocking my access to remove the wastegate actuator.

When I was granted enough clearance, I was able to get wastegate out for a closer inspection. It turned out that adjusting mechanism was really stuck.

The wastegate actuator himself. And seized adjusting mechanism.

Well, look at that! Well cooked.

I started gently with some rust removal and cold spray, with no luck. I knew it before I even started, but this was a good excuse to empty those two not so useful cans.. 🙂

In comes the big gun.

Aand yatsy!

I made some maintenance here..

And even a step further was with stuffing threads with this..

Now it was only a matter of putting all back together.

Oops.. What kind story is this without a hiccup.

When putting the X-frame back I encountered a small obstacle. I was happily using my wrench when this happened. Oh **** I might have said. It was all too smooth before that. A fun few hours project had just turned in to a nightmare. What do I do now? That was my thought exactly. I do not own a welding machine to weld a nut to the bolt to get it out. But I own a tap which can undo broken bolt. So I set my cordless drill and started to drill a hole in that bolt. Hole is needed for using that undoing tap. When drilling I saw broken bolt moving. “Wait a minute, it is so loose that I can remove it with a pair of pliers. Phew, that was a close call..” That reminds me of this. I hope that I have not used my all luck with broken bolts with these two cases.. I put new bolt in and continued assembly which went smoothly from there.

I wonder what caused bolt to snap. It was not the torque. I was just tightening it to squeeze parts together when it snapped. I am just guessing here, may be some previous owner had over tightened it. Or rust was the issue. Or may be both.. Who knows. Anyway, now there is an brand new bolt and everything is in order.

Test drive was useless because of the weather. Wheels were spinning in the snow and I could not get a good grip. Traction control kicked in all the time.

All in all, it was fun, eventually. I am not sure if correcting the actuator length was the cure for this disease. When there is less snow I can get more friction and can see what is going on with the boost pressure.

Cheers!