Turbo re-fitting on VP D3

Just had turbo refurbished, fitting instructions say to turn over the engine without starting to purge air
from oil feed, how do I prevent the engine from starting?

You could try unplugging the crank angle sensor. I know the hard way that when they fail the engine won't start. If the turbo has been properly serviced there should be oil in the bearings and I guess you could pour some oil down the oil feed line before reconnecting it so that the start is no different to a normal cold start. Main issue we had with those turbos was the variable vanes getting sticky. If you are lucky they stick in the low boost position and you just get low power and an alarm. If you are unlucky and they stick in the full boost position I expect that would explain why so many of those engines have grenaded themselves. They are quite simple to clean yourself if mr Volvo is trying to charge you large $'s. Just need to pay attention to the detail of how they come apart the first time.

Thanks for that Aliboy, I had the turbo reconditioned by experts because it had a howl which reverberated through the boat
at around 2500 RPM I refitted it today and used a syringe to fill both the turbo and oil feed pipe, managed to crank the engine
3 times for a couple of seconds before it started and then turned it off again, pressure was up to 75 before I started and let it run. Cost for refurb by AET turbos was £245, lots of new bits and was like new what I got it back.

That sounds pretty fair. We had a pair of D3's very early in their production and all you could get was Volvo telling you to replace the turbos every time there was a boost problem. When the 2nd one went to low boost straight after we replaced the first one (at horrific cost) I said "stuff that" and pulled it apart to see what was going on. I started building turbo cars in the 1970's using truck turbos and home made manifolds etc so pretty comfortable with them but hadn't seen variable vane tech before. Once I got it apart I realised what the weakness was and that a 30 minute vane cleaning job would have it like new again. Like a lot of other stuff that Volvo say is 'unservicable' it is really just a case of some common sense being applied. No turbo should be failing at 600hr intervals and these weren't failing. Just getting dirty in very close tolerance areas.

This one has done 1400 hours, it was working but had this howling noise which did disappear at higher revs, the diagnostic
guy said both oil seals were leaking slightly and it was way out of balance, it did look quite dirty and had a very slight "click"
when you spun the vanes like it was catching something, anyway all seems good, just need to get it on the water to test it
fully, the heat shield has seen better days but at £350 + from Volvo I'm just going to have to patch it up or replace it with
something else, any ideas?

They use a version of this engine in a car so I wonder if the heat shield is the same. If it is it will probably be a fraction of the cost for the same part.