i suppose if we want to look more into this then ill start.. ive openend over 12 of these ct9's at this stage and all had minimal shaft play but were all blown.. all turbos suffered the same symptoms.. (sorry i dont have the correct names and ares for things but bare with me)... ive noticed where the journal bearing sits at exhaust side, that the oil channel for that bearing gets clogged up and cakes and hardens like cement, so what ends up happening is the bearing over heats and wears down and in turn wears down the oil seals "wich are made from spring steel"... heres the interesting bit tho..... as the oil passes beyond oil seals it meets the high temps from the mani and cakes again... if you look at the back of exhaust wheel ull see a step and this step fits into a recess on the main housing . as the oil makes its way out and cakes, it forms an non natural seal which actually prevents the oil from coming out of housing but over time this wears down the step on the back of exhaust wheel and bye bye turbo... the turbo i have on my car has been on it since i rebuilt the car,(about a year and 3 months) it blew oil for about a week and stopped and hasnt happend again until last week.. on inspection the step was completly worn and the recess was completely caked with hardened oil.. if yee would like pictures of what im on about ill be happy to show yee as my explaination may be not the best.. pictures speak for themselves... ive seen this on both ct9a's and ct9b's and all had the same look so cant be a fluke.. ive rebuilt 4 of these turbos and i didnt use rebuild kits as they need to be balenced, (btw,im sure its the compressor wheel thats balenced, not the shaft but in bad cases the shaft needs to be balenced also..all the compressor wheels i have here have small drill hols on the back of them, different sizes).. i just swapped over the journal bearings in all 4 turbos and they are still going strong but if the shaft is 2 worn where the bearing is on exhaust side,a rebuild kit is needed.. budget turbo building FTW.. had to get that out before i forgot about it..lol