Wow!! I just finished tackling the intake and EGR cleaning project. What an eye-opener this was. First of all, my EGR and intake was at least as clogged as the one pictured above. Not surprising after 168K miles.
When I started this morming, I didn't have a 3/8's drive 5 and 6mm hex head socket; I do now! These came in very handy when fingering the bolts off and on and getting a little more torque on them. A 3/8's drive wobble-head adaptor came in very handy when it came to reaching the bolts in tight spots...this applies to the majority of them.
As for cleaning the intake and EGR; I did a combination of 3 techniques witnessed on this forum and youtube. First of all, I scraped off as much as I could with a medium sized screwdriver; then I poured a little gas in each opening of the intake and let it soak a bit while I tackled the EGR valve. Next, I carefully lit the fuel that was soaking in the intake and burned off as much as would burn off. Finally, I took my 2600 PSI pressure washer to both the EGR (carefully) and intake (after cooling). I'd say after these three steps, the parts are all but new looking.
Assembly of course was just the reverse.
Lessons learned: Stretch your back and legs before starting; you'll be bent over the engine bay of the car for a good 3 to 5 hours. Place the parts removed in some type of order on the ground to make it easier to know which part is next for reassembly. It might not be a bad idea to remove the belly pan to make retrieval of dropped tools and parts much easier. I could have saved myself a good 30 to 40 minutes of time by doing this. Thankfully I had a telescoping magnet that saved me some frustration. Make sure you wear expendable clothes and have plenty of band-aids for the knicks and scratches.
Well, this was a project well worth the time, but not for the faint of heart. Glad I did it, but more glad that I won't have to do it again for awhile. Take care.
