clean EGR or not. opinions wanted.

[deejaaa]

here's a video, pics just didn't come out clear enough. is this bad enough to mess with? tried to get the screws loosened but one was really tight, other was a pain to get to. figured i would see if it's bad enough to go through all the trouble.
technical problems. will try another route.
here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeJHQncxHj8

 

[Rembrant]

...figured i would see if it's bad enough to go through all the trouble.

Personally, I'd be cleaning it, and the intake too.

Wouldn't hurt to check/clean the tubes in the EGR cooler as well. Mine were almost plugged.

I picked up a spare intake so I always have a nice clean one that's ready to go. They're cheap on the used market.

 

[deejaaa]

thanks. i will get on it my next days off.

 

[UhOh]

Yup, clean it and the intake. You'll find that things look/are worse on the backside.

Also be prepared to clean the intake ports in the head: had to do this on one of my cars (interestingly, it was the car that actually was less clogged).

 

[inti1808]

Hello, I have passat 2011 and the engine light came up, I checked the code and I came up ( Exhaust Gas Recirculation 28EGR Valve Malfunction ( code P0403 ) I cleaned the Throttle body and new EGR solenoid but the light it come and go, but the car drive smooth I dint fill any problem, any one had this kind of problem before or know what might be the issue of light to come up.

 

[Rembrant]

thanks. i will get on it my next days off.

Hey Deejaaa,

Do you have a Miti-Vac or similar?

http://www.harborfreight.com/brake-bleeder-and-vacuum-pump-kit-60770.html

It's handy to have for cleaning the EGR as you can use it to open the valve and get all of the crud off of the valve seat and port. Not required, but handy.

You'll need a few gaskets and seals. Just cheap stuff.

We normally have to replace bolts here as well in the land of rust, but it shouldn't be an issue for you.

See how everything else looks...the manifold, and the flex tubing to the EGR valve. If they're all pretty dirty, it wouldn't hurt to have a look inside the EGR cooler as well. There's about 20 little 1/4" tubes in there, and they can get quite plugged up. Again, not a big deal, but worth a look if everything else is pretty dirty.

 

[UhOh]

have a look inside the EGR cooler as well. There's about 20 little 1/4" tubes in there, and they can get quite plugged up. Again, not a big deal, but worth a look if everything else is pretty dirty.

Can anyone say what a plugged up EGR cooler does to performance/operation?

Before engaging in intake cleaning I'd done some research and I really didn't see actual reported instances of such plugging. Lots of references to checking for it (no pictures?).

I'll have to confess that I only looked at both my cars' coolers from the EGR valve end and I recollect only seeing some slight build-up around that outlet (I scraped and blew and vacuumed it out- seemed to flow fine). Now I feel like I have to go yank them off both my cars!

 

[Rembrant]

Can anyone say what a plugged up EGR cooler does to performance/operation?

Well, the dirtier it is, the less efficient the EGR cooler becomes. Coolant warm-up times would suffer, and if left long enough, EGR flow would suffer. In my case, my EGR valve and intake were really plugged up...and by association, so was my EGR cooler. I didn't count the exact amount of tubes, but I'd say it was 30% blocked. So, a 3rd of the tubes were completely plugged, and the remaining 70% of the tubes were probably 50% blocked. It took me quite a while to get them all punched out.

Does it matter much in the grand scheme of things? Maybe not. For me, it was one of those things that I couldn't leave alone. I didn't want to re-install a shiny clean intake and shiny clean EGR valve with a dirty/plugged EGR cooler, and I had it all apart anyway.

Before engaging in intake cleaning I'd done some research and I really didn't see actual reported instances of such plugging. Lots of references to checking for it (no pictures?).

Well, it could very well be that my plugged up EGR cooler was a unique case. It could also be that many times, people do not check it...you have to remove the outlet flex line from the cooler to see the internal tubes. Although mine was quite plugged, my car wasn't throwing any codes for "EGR - Insufficient Flow".

So, to answer your question...does it affect performance/operation? I don't know. For the few of us that are running stock cars with the EGR systems still intact, it's probably worth a look. Judging by the lack of reports of problems, I'd have to say that it probably doesn't matter.

Going by how dirty mine was, I'd like to think it worked better once it was cleaned. Then again, my car feels like it works better after a wash and interior vacuum.

 

[deejaaa]

i am going to have to do more reading on this. i need to get everything together before i tear into it. is there a real good pdf/link i can read just to skip all the bs?
thanks for the help and replies.
ps, i was just at HF today but bought a framing nailer to fix the fence.

 

[TNguy]

Be sure to have a set of Allen sockets, not just wrenches. Makes the job 10x easier. I like the stubby ones on the intake and EGR cooler

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[UhOh]

One tip that I used was to slightly tighten the intake manifold bolts before loosening. Don't know whether I can say how much it helped, but I encountered no problems removing the bolts (on both my cars). People seem to have issues with stripping out the heads of those bolts; this is supposed to help reduce this. Be careful, however, to not go overboard; you just want to budge the bolt to break it loose.

You'll find that the EGR cooler is a pain to work around. I wired mine up to hold it out of the way, though it's still a bit in the way: hard to find a point to anchor it to the firewall side such that it is held back away from the engine. Some remove it entirely (probably not a bad idea as you'd then be able to clean it if required), though you'll have to mess with coolant.

I used this as a guide:

http://www.myturbodiesel.com/wiki/i...l-cleaning-of-carbon-build-up-mk4-tdi-engine/

Note the mention of the bolt extractors. Good idea to have! The above tip, however, should reduce the need to use these. I was glad I had them when I did my TB: ONE stupid balancer bolt!

If you find that you need to clean the intake ports on your head (took me an extra 3 hours):

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=434238

I used a seal pick on the one head that needed cleaning:

http://pics.tdiclub.com/showphoto.php?photo=111044&title=double-trouble&cat=500

http://pics.tdiclub.com/showphoto.php?photo=111047&title=double-trouble&cat=500

 

[Rembrant]

Yessir, some of those bolts are a bit of a pain to reach and remove.

I normally replace all of those kind of bolts...living here in the land of rust, they're usually not worth re-using once they're removed.

My manifold to head bolts were ok to remove, but I had to drill out the M8 bolts on the EGR cooler flanges on both 03 TDI cars. What a pain.

I have a nice little collection of old butter knives bent into different configurations for cleaning the ALH intake. They worked like a charm last time on the heavy stuff. We have a parts washer at work, so after I got the heavy stuff out last time, I left the intake submerged in the washer for a week, stopping by every other day to give it a scrub.

I know for some of the bolts in there, they're a bit difficult to reach with the 3/8" drive Allens. I sometimes use the long end of regular Allen wrenches, and then use a deep 1/4" drive socket with and extension on the short end.

Rem