Do turbo seals go bad from sitting?

I'm about to put a T3 on that allegedly was rebuilt with only 10K miles on it. Its probably been sitting for like 2 years, would the seals dry out and go bad or do you think it will be ok? I'm about to put it on and I don't want no surprises.

It should be OK but try to get some pressurized oil into it before starting the engine.

well let me ask you this... If we hung you up ona shelf with out any water what would happen to you after two years?

Ive read were people put turbos on that sat for a bit of time with no problems, and had a perfect working turbo. I heard that people put rebuilt turbos after a month burn up oil. I would atleast pull it apart and have a look, if it sat in the right conditions i could see it being ok. you never know.

if it was kept in a fairly dry and temperate place it will probably be ok. if left in direct sun or a hot place id say no. heat kills seals faster more so than sitting. not that ive used them on turbos but there are additives that you could put in the turbo a couple days before that are made to swell seals if you think they are gonna leak. i dont think id use them though.

Turbos don't really have seals in the traditional sense. That is, there is no rubber involved in what seals against the oil.

Tbird turbos and most others use a piston-ring type of seal.

Essentially... very little oil gets by the seal. What does get by gets 'slung' off the shaft into a cavelike passage that drains via gravity. This is why all turbos require gravity draining- the oil exiting the turbo cannot flow uphill, even the slightest bit of pooling would cause the turbo to internally back-up and emit a crap-ton of oil in a hurry out the tailpipe.

Just to be on the safe side, I'd flush the turbo oil inlet with some carb cleaner until some drains out the drain passage, let it sit for a bit, then pour some good quality synthetic oil into the oil feed. Let it gravity drain into the turbo while spinning the shaft by hand.

I just finished rebuilding the T3 I'm tossing in my '88. They're really not hard to take apart and assemble. WW 2 model design at it's finest! :p