Rebuilding a Turbo - anyone done this? How?

So our 2005 vf40 turbo is blown. my brother-in-law is a self-taught mechanic and has done a lot on a lot of different cars - dropping new engines, transmissions, replacing clutches, flywheels, brakes, oil lines, etc. He pretty much does everything himself. I have read about "rebuilt" turbos. How would one go about doing this? I saw this link on ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/IHI-RHF5H-Turbo-Rebuild-Kit-SUBARU-Legacy-VF38-VF40_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp3286Q2em63Q2el1177QQhashZitem1c0892ca0cQQitemZ120402921996QQptZUKQ5fCarsPartsQ5fVehiclesQ5fCarPartsQ5fSMQQsalenotsupported

and was wondering if he could re-build himself. How long would something like this take to do? How would we know all of the parts we needed? Is there a certain kind of blown turbo that is not re-buildable? Like it's too far gone to fix? I'm just a simple housewife who's trying to save a few (thousand) bucks. Any info you could give me would be great. thanks!

It generally has balanced and all kinds of technical stuff. This is not a do it yourself job. Blouch does rebuilds, but I would just get a vf52.

used vf40s come up weekly on here...search the marketplace...you can pick up a used one usually between $300 - $400

Honestly, I would find someone that is upgrading their turbo and selling their stock VF40. Rebuilding it yourself will be nearly impossible, and not very reliable. Upgrading to a VF52 would introduce many other costs. You should be able to get a used VF40 on here, nasioc, or some other forum for maybe 500 bucks.

Ok, thanks for all the info! I have been and still am looking for a used one, but we'd like one that isn't too beat up, and it seems like a lot of people on here race. So, I'm a little skeptical about the reliability of buying a used one - i.e. don't want to go through all the trouble of replacing it, only to have it bust again pretty soon. Anyone have any tips on carefully buying a used turbo?

Just ask how much shaft play there is (preferably none) and for pictures.

 

It's not the most reliable turbo in the world but mine is at 65K with no shaft play at all.

 

BTW did you figure out why it blew? Search for "turbo banjo bolt filter", it might give you some clues.

Yea, I've read the thread several times over about OEM turbos blowing, but it doesn't really matter at this point why - just that it is broken. I'm pretty sure that it was the banjo bolt filter clogging, but we took it to the dealership, and they didn't say why it blew, they just said that it did (which we already knew before we towed it there). We only took it to see if we could negotiate with them at all to get them to cover, but no dice. So now we want to try to fix it ourselves rather than fork out nearly $2k

Do you race it?

 

It's not the most reliable turbo in the world but mine is at 65K with no shaft play at all.

I don't race but it is running more boost than stock and has been for about 20000 miles.