EGR / Intake Ckeaning (thoughts and problems)

Hi all. I'll be first to say that I am not a mechanic. The intake on my 01 Jetta TDI was getting pretty plugged so I decided to follow the procedure provided by Snowball. Some thoughts, observations and questions. First, hang on to your tools. I have dropped my #6 allen wrench twice now, first time it went into the steel skid plate and I was able to retrive it wit a magnet on a stick. The second time, I don't know where it went. It's probably in the skid plate but I do not have enough clearance under the car to loosen it up and feel around in there. So tommorrow, I'll have to go buy another to complete the job. Second, What is it with VW and their clamps? You have to remove about three clamps to do this job and they are all (at least on my car) rotated exactly 180 degrees from where you would want them to be. You can't get at the tabs to remove the clamps! On the plastic hose going from the EGR valve towards the front of the car, I just ended up cutting the clamp off with a dremel tool and a cutting wheel. I'll replace it with a new clamp. Next, the procedure says to remove the three # 5 cap screws that hold the EGR valve in. Once you get them out (and one of them is a giant PIA) and remove the 2 #6 screws that connect the EGR valve to the exhaust cooler, what do you do with the EGR valve? It is still attached by a vacuum line that connects the anti shudder valve to the multiport plastic fragile looking device. I tried to pull the vacuum line off this plastic piece but was afraid the plastic piece would break before the hose came undone. So now my EGR valve is hanging loose by a vacuum line. If I do get it off, how do I clean the EGR valve itself? It too is very fouled. I don't suppose I could throw the whole thing in a bucket of kerosene? Onward: When you come to the step about removing the coolant hose from the exhaust cooler, be prepared for about 1 quart of coolant to come not out of the hose, but out of the exhaust cooler itself. I wasn't ready for this (yea I know, here's your sign!) and I got my garage floor very wet. And finally up to the step I am currently at, "How do you get at the three bolts that mount the exhaust cooler to the intake. The top one seems easy enough, but I can't even feel where the other two are. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks -- rod

This won't help you much at present, except to make reassembly go smoother. Are you aware of some new hose clamp removal tool styles..?? The one that would help you has the clamping device connected by something like bicycle brake cable to the plier part you hold in your hand. You can put the clamping part on the tabs and then do your squeezing remotely. I bought mine on the auction site for around 20 bucks. Search under "hose (remover,plier,tool,clamp)" and that should get you a few candidates.... worked for me

For flat band clamps, you can buy an extended reach flat band hose clamp pliers by Lisle or Harbor Freight. A must have tool.
As far as the EGR valve, keep it attached to the vacuum line. Just lay some newspaper over your engine and place the freed up EGR in a plastic pan. Use brake cleaner, a screwdriver, small wire brush scrape and rinse off soot in the pan. Be VERY careful with the fragile plastic EGR valve parts.

In the future, you don't need to take the coolant hose off the exhaust cooler. Also, you can remove the vaccum line from the top of the valve by splitting the metal clamp open. Leave the plastic plunger attached to the valve.

Vice Grip pliers work pretty well as hose clamp removal tools.

The hose on the multiport device - cut the hose at the end of the barb and split the remaining piece when you have some time.

To clean the intake manifold, scrape out the loose stuff and then place it in a container of gasoline and let it soak for several days. Then brush it out and wash it with soap and water.

The EGR valve cleaning is a screwdriver and brush operation, followed by us of brake cleaner or similar. Don't soak the whole assembly or you will get fluid in the diaphram where you don't want it.

My 2c

JOhn C

Thanks to all who replied. I gave up trying to remove the intake and performed the riskier clean the manifold in place. I got a bottle of liquid gumout and a brass wire brush that was about two times the size of a toothbrush. I ran a shop vac continuously at the intake opening. I would dip the brass brush in the gumout, insert it into the intake opening. When the brush was as far in as I was going to go, I pushed it down into the carbon debris and pulled it towards the opening. I went around the circumference of the intake until it was for the most part clean. I did take the EGR valve off. It was about 70% blocked and the car only has 40,000 miles on it. This took an entire bottle of aerosal carb cleaner and the brass wire brush to get clean. I then ran the shop vac through it to catch any loose particles. When I got it all reassembled, it fired right up and runs great. Thanks again for all the good suggestions. rod in AZ

Glad that worked, the shop vac thing I mean. Pretty risky business with the intake still attached.

I feel your pain, buddy. This job is a total PITA. The kicker with me is that I did all the right things (EGR adaptation and elephant hose CCV) almost from day 1 when the car was new. It now has only about 40k km.

Last weekend at a GTG a fellow member LNXGUY removed the EGR, which looked pretty much clean as a whistle. However, the intake itself had a gooey coating of oily tar.

It was so discouraging to see, considering I'd done what's recommended to prevent this problem. I must say the intake wasn't nearly clogged, but it was far, far from clean. I did not take the intake off due to time restraints. Instead, I carefully wiped the goop with a cloth. Needless to say I didn't get too far into the manifold, but that's the next project (remove and clean intake).

After that, I need to have a race pipe installed, but I don't want the check engine light on, so that's holding me back on that component.

Muggins, www.rocketchip.com can chip your car so that the EGR system will be deleted.

Thanks for the tip, 03_01_TDI. But I'm not interested in more power. I just want a clean intake and no light.

Sounds like you had a good time doing the cleaning. Not.

FYI, I also did the intake cleaning with a vacuum on. I still got a piece of "stuff" down the pipe and stuck in-between a valve and the seat (I think). No compression and would not start. VERY Alarming. I ended-up cranking the car over for about 5 minutes until it finally started. I had lots of black smoke for a while. The car runs fine now.