Good times were had this past Sunday night...
Ok...here goes. I'll keep it brief cuz I'm at work. Checked the actuator rod on the 'lil turbo. Worked quite well, i.e., moved about an inch (+/-). Took off downtube, turbo looked fine. Took off rubber hose that leads into the intake/EGR set-up. Peered inside. Looked okay at the connection point. Removed ERG/pre-intake module that the rubber hose hooks to and peered inside the "intake". OMFG, was it clogged! I made the mistake of putting my pinky finger inside to see how far it would go in, and I have to say that I have a new-found respect for proctologists. I'd post a link of my pic I took of it on my iPhone, but I don't know how to do that. It was NASTY! I spent the better part of another hour deciding if I should buy that Tourag V10 TDI I saw on ebay w/ 103 miles on it a few days ago, but by the time I got up the nerve to buy it, it had already been sold. So alas, I decided I'd just clean out the intake. I didn't really want to take it off, but thought I'd get too much crap down into the engine if I tried to cean it the way I thought I could if I didn't remove it.
Sooooo, I kept it on. I fabricated a long vaccum tube for my shop vac and a small pipe cleaner and an old screw driver that had the end bent over (like a paint can lid opener) and began picking away at the gunk whilest the vaccum was running. I figured that since the EGR crap was concentrated in density near the front of the intake that the rest of the intake wouldn't be as bad, which is kind of why I left it on. (I guess this is the long version of the story). So after picking, scraping, reeming, etc., the intake out, and putting everything back to gether again, I tried to start the car. I believe I must have got some gunk down in there, cuz life's not perfect, so I squirted a fair amount of diesel into the cylinder in order to "dilute" the sh*t that more than likely ran down into the cylinders. After waiting about an hour, I tried to start it knowing full well that the diesel probably diluted the nastiness and some of it seeped passed the rings into the oil, which I then changed. I gave Wifey the honor of trying to start the car, so if it went kaboom, she would feel guilty enough to let me get the Tourag (which she kinda wanted more than me, and yes, this point, it was sold, but she didn't know that. So if it did go ka-plowie, she'd feel bad enough to let me get another Tourag once she found out the other one had been sold. Yes, I'm going to hell for playing these games w/ her. )
So she turned the key, it didn't start, but it did turn over fine so I assumed no valves were bent, no pistons hurt, no guilt...so my idea of letting the nasties that probably leaked into the cylinders get diluted w/ diesel hopefully worked. It did putter a couple of times, so I assumed that some gunk probably got hung up somewhere, so I told her to "turn the key harder". She did and it started just fine! The front yard looked as if someone had been burning wet leaves for a while, but she was happy that she turned the key harder and that it started! I did believe that the Cat and Muffler were choking under the nastiness that came through it, so I let it idle for a minute to warm up and then ran it around my 4-mile test loop, and I must say...I have found the cure for ED. It has never, EVER ran so strong! Once smoke out the tailpipe quite (burned all of the nasties up), I ran it hard, I mean HARD! I always since day-1, lossed power about 3K rpm. It would run hard, and pull all the way past 4k rpm. Whe I shift it wouldn't hesitate, it would just pull, pull, pull! I was able to take it on the hwy to work today, and I could actually pull-out and pass people in the left lane by downshifting to 4th and stepping on it. Before, I always had to gain speed in 5th and time my passings w/ available space. It is truly amazing how much of a difference cleaning all of that sh*t out makes. I know I don't need a Tourag now (or do I), but I am actually looking forward to driving this car from now on.
Going forward, I'm wondering if I should cap-off the EGR vaccum line to it doesn't open. I did this for a week a couple of month's ago not knowing the extent of how bad the clogging was, and then reattached it because the engine light was annyoing me. I hate to do this because if something else goes wrong, I wouldn't know it unless I go to Autozone on a monthly basis to ask them to check the 'puter for the error codes.
Any suggestions on what to do at this point, besides driving it hard once in a while, which I will obviously do, would be helpful...
Thanks for to everybody for the info on this thread. It really got me inspired to figure out what the bleep was wrong with my car.
Finally, I have to say, that even with that intake clogged as bad as it was, I could still muster about 85 mph out of the car, and it ran fine less than 60 mph and under 3k rpm. This is a true testatment to the toughness of these little diesels and how well they can run when they are maintained on a routine basis. I had no idea that they ran this good. (I bought it used w/ 101K miles on it and it now has 161K on it and it is completely reborn!)
Take care.
-Mike