Intake Manifold Cleaning and OCC?

Here's a pic of the EGR pipe after I removed it. I used a pipe cleaner on one side of the opening before I snapped the pic so it's a little cleaner than it initially was. But the carbon build up you can see was like that all the way around.

 

Looks like your efforts are well placed .

Get ready to clean the cooler and Intake manifold, as you’ll see plenty of opportunity .

But better to do it and then your good for awhile.

 

Oof. Completely clogged. I sprayed some brake cleaner into one end and it didn't come out the other side. I don't think I have any hand car washes around with pressure washers so I have to figure out how to go about cleaning this.

 

Congratulations on getting it off! How many miles on the car?

For sure remove and clean the intake manifold too, it's the final leg of the EGR. And consider oil catch can when you can manage it.

If you can't manage a pressure washer:

It wouldn't hurt to try hot/strong Oxi-Clean solution: plug one end and pour it in, let it sit about an hour, rinse and repeat. Run wire through to open up passages, especially at the beginning when they're most clogged, I believe it needs to be around 20 ga? I found a regular diameter coax cable wire worked good, not the higher diameter stuff. It just fit.

 

Thanks! I really appreciate the tips from you and Ray. The hoses on the intake manifold came off using a screwdriver to push while I pulled, the ones on the EGR I gripped and twisted with pliers. That was a pain! For one of them of the space was so tight and the hose tighter, I had little room to twist and just moved it back little by little with small twists until it came off. It took longer than removing the studs and the hidden nut.

The car had around 145k when I bought it about a month ago, now it's just over 147,000. Considering how long the EGR was clogged I'm wondering if I'll still have a head gasket issue to deal with later. Fingers crossed that I don't.

I cleaned the intake manifold today as best as I could by spraying it with brake cleaner and then the water hose. I sprayed brake cleaner through the hole that connects to the EGR pipe and a ton of carbon came out. That seemed to be the dirtiest part. It was oily but I didn't think it was that bad. There was a little pool in the bottom of it that I found concerning, so I may do the oil catch can at some point.

About the EGR, I spent the afternoon spraying it with brake cleaner until it started to trickle through and now I've been soaking with oxi-clean. It seems to be getting better little by little. Thanks for the tip about wire, I'll look to see if I have some laying around.

 

Did you get the little EGR passages in the intake, one per port? A traditional pipe cleaner might actually be best for those.

I used oxi on the intake too.

 

I'm actually in the garage doing that right now. I sprayed more brake cleaner into the EGR hole and more sludge came out, so I think I'm going to fill it with oxi clean and leave it to sit overnight.

 

So I finished putting it all back together last night and everything seems great. The car defintely feels a little smoother and in normal mode doesn't seem to resist the accelerator as much as it used to. In hindsight I may have taken the intake manifold to the car wash as well just to blast out the chamber that connects to the EGR pipe and ordered a new gasket as mine was flattened. I also should have cleaned out some of the carbon deposit on the pipe that connects to the back of the valve.

 

I apologize for hijacking your thread. I hope any of my experience can be of use to you. As for tips, watch out for the gasket on the back end of the cooler before you remove it as it doesn't have any clips. I used pliers to yank it out after carefully sliding the cooler out a little. When putting back, the NutsAboutBolts method of securing the cooler with the center bolt first did the trick and helped me to not drop the gasket. For aligning it, once it was secured I used pliers to move it around and put in the top stud first which made it easier to do the bottom stud and adjusting the gasket with pliers if I needed to.

To stay dry using a pressure washer:

Grab a one gallon zip-lock bag and cut a slit at the bottom, in the center. At the car wash, or wherever, lay the cooler onto the drainage with the pipes placed through the holes or between the rails to brace it and then place half of it in the bag. Then grab the pressure washer and place it through the hole in the bag and put the nozzle right into one end of the cooler. This way once you've paid and the water comes on you won't have a mess or a hard time getting it in there. Now put your free hand around the hole to seal it and brace the washer then blast away. Anything blowing back will enter the bag and flow into the drain. If the cooler is loose you can move your hand and the bag closer to the cooler so you can brace both at once. While you're blasting it also helps to move the nozzle around row by row to make sure you've gotten all the crud out. You'll see carbon either shooting out the end or running through the bag.

I came up with this on my second trip to the wash, after the first one ended up with me soaking wet and having cleared only a fifth of the pasageways. I think some of the folks at the wash were confused and thought I was nuts, as I was also standing next to a very dirty Four Runner.

 

I 2nd on the pressure washer method. I did the exact same thing w/ my cooler, brake cleaner, wire and 4-5 oxi clean soak. I thought it was clean. I can see my flashlight thru it.

Today, i fired up the pressure washer and ran it thru both sides and wow, a lot of stuffs came out still.

 

So I have tried oxy baths for weeks, ez-off oven cleaner, and wire and still barely getting rinse water to run through. Got some warm weather and got the pressure washer out and like everyone lots of gunk came out. I could FINALLY, but barely, see the light of day through it. Last week sent it to a friend with an ultrasonic cleaner and the pipes and valve turned out flawlessly. He has run the cooler through 4 times already and still getting crap out. He said the solution was darker than a GOT episode. So he is still working on the cooler, but here is a pic of the other parts. I'm thinking if the cooler is really clogged, it might be worth your time just to find a shop with a unit to clean them.

 

Wow, that's REALLY bad! Glass beader???
If you leave it soaking long enough, even in just plain water, it should loosen it up enough.
You should search the net for a replacement one. I forget where I found mine, but it was from a junk
yard somewhere. It was $50. It doesn't look clogged at all. But when I pressure wash the house, I'll
spray oven cleaner inside it and use the pressure washer to clean it out.
Then the next time I clean the EGR circuit, I will install the clean one and save about 20 minutes.
Then I'll clean the original one for next time.

 

I'd avoid Oxi or oven cleaner on the valve, being aluminum. It might not be detrimental, but it will for sure dull the finish. Maybe just cosmetic, not sure.

 

Yeah, that's my plan too.

btw, those are after cleaning pics, not before I have pics of the dirty parts in a different thread. Thought there would be interest in seeing how clean the US gets them.

 

US equals Ultra Sonic?

Hindsight is 20/20, but anyway, for a lot of reasons, it's good to clean the EGR circuit sooner than later. When it's near-terminal clogged, it's a lot harder to clean by any method, and you've tortured the engine a lot longer.

 

Yeah, sorry for the shorthand. force of habit. I deal with therapy Ultrasound daily.

agreed! But if someone is late to the party, seems like having them cleaned in an ultrasound bath is less time consuming and less elbow grease. If a shop could do it for less than $100, i'd gladly pay that instead.

 

Just another Prius driver acting wierd at the car wash................without a car...................(LoL)

 

You can get them off ebay for less than $100. Do a search in junk yards. They are out there!

 

sure, but anything in a junk yard/online you have a high chance of that one being dirty as well. I'm all in favor of having two sets so you can easily swap them around. But seems like a waste to just buy junk yard ones every year too. I guess the scenario in my head: high mileage prius owner reads this, gets a junk yard one, cleans it up, swaps out the old dirty one, now has to clean the old dirty one (which is probably pretty clogged) for the next time. So at some point something will have to get cleaned and if someone doesn't want to take the time to clean it, finding a shop with an ultrasonic bath is a viable option for them. If it isn't that dirty or they don't mind a little elbow grease they can certainly clean them with all the other methods previously discussed. At one point I posed the question if ultrasound would work and no one had an answer. So I figured i would give it a try and report my results.