EGR valve replacement

Well look here that silver cooler that cools your EGR gas that's like an intercooler for a turbo on a small scale kind of like a radiator for air. So all you need to do is set it in the bucket or send it to the machine shop and have it tanked or you set it in a bucket of a mixture of pick your poison it's talked about here a bunch mean green and the powder stuff you use in the laundry seriously dump that in the bucket try to get it to dissolve drop the cooler in it let it sit there for days I start with a whole day then flip the cooler over blow through it see all the nasty black come out of it dunk it back in the stuff for another day let it sit when you're done there should be nothing coming out of the cooler The fluid should run through it water clear and come out the other end water clear as long as you're seeing brown black stuff coming out the other end or the other end in reverse when you flip it over your job is not done I have one here that's never been able to clear It sits here just to show people so there's always that. The new valve needs to be the updated part which anything after 2013 I think you'll be covered I don't think you could find the old part even as new old stock from people who sell that stuff I think I just paid I don't know $112 in a Toyota box brand new part etc etc with the updated firmware electronics whatever is going on with it that's all I could get this was just a few weeks ago. So you're on the right track a lot of times the EGR valve will be bad if you take it apart look at the business end of the thing there's this little ramp and all this stuff that can break etc The EGR valve to be honest about it really doesn't get that dirty it's the cooler that gets all clogged You look at your valve and whatnot it's not very dirty that'll clean right up immediately now whether the valve works properly is another story you undo the motor pull the cover off look at the rotor the part that turns none of that is really very dirty It's just some black soot on it which comes right off with the mean green but I would say you're smart to replace the EGR valve no doubt and you should get an extra cooler even if you buy a used one so that every 60,000 mi when you have to do this you have a cooler ready to go You just take off the old one don't have to worry about dropping it in a bucket right away bolt on your clean one You're going to leave a nut off the very bottom And maybe put some bolts in place of the studs on the EGR valve. My EGR valve and cooler are actually just floating in between their two mount points because I was looking at it so often for a while The car still failed massively anyway regardless of all the cleaning so didn't really make any difference but that's another whole vehicle.

 

Top two links in my signature are EGR related (on a phone turn it landscape to see signatures).

200k miles, makes me wonder what prompted the interest in EGR cleaning? Having left it this long, you’re well into head gasket failure time. Any such symptoms, say cold-start engine shaking, coolant “consumption”?

 

Oh absolutely because when it gets to the point where you see the jug lower and coolant level your engine's trashed for the most part it starts with the seepage we are talking about a little tiny water droplet or a few of them are getting in a cylinder or two so let's take number one cylinder If you were to stick a boroscope down the spark plug hole which means you have to take the wipers in the tray out and all four spark plugs and keep them in order first thing you do is take a magnifying glass nothing high powered and look at each spark plug where it penetrates the cylinder bore You see the very fine little t niny droplets? That is vapor that's escaping past the stacked head gasket and getting into that cylinder that you're looking at now now look at number 23 and 4 you'll notice that other cylinders do not have them vapor droplets on the ends of the plugs they're running generally dry now if you want to look further just because and you have access to the boriscope you can send it down the hole that you saw the vapors on the plug on and then make it look back up at the cylinder head and block mating surfaces and as you scan around that surface you'll notice it's wet up there like shiny wet and maybe some water droplets That's the water that's putting out the fire in that cylinder bore what happens when the seepage is low is when you start the car you get the rattle you step through the gas pedal to the floor it cleans up the water by burning it literally with the spark plug and then the water goes away and the engine runs fine most of the day till you park it and let it sit for a couple hours like while you're at your job then the buildup of water starts while the car is sitting with pressure on the radiator there's a clue You may pick up on it. So this is where you are It seems like this is very costly and expensive to be bothering to repair this your car should be in near perfect condition something you want to keep for a while not fix and sell tomorrow because everybody does this when you see a generation 3 for sale the minds of the intelligent purchase person is immediately drawn to the fact that this model has engine problems it's a known fact everybody's nearly in the same boat except a very few and so on people shy away from this model very quickly just because of this issue It's a cute little car but it's not one that's a keeper so that's where you are I hope you don't have too much tied up into it and I hope you don't decide to tie up a whole lot more It will be very disappointing. You have to kind of observe and kind of know when to exit the boat so that you get in the lifeboat without stepping in the water and drowning sorry. But there is no problem You can spend eight thousand plus dollars trying to fix it if you desire personally I don't enjoy beating my head against the iron anvil. And good luck with whatever your choices

 

As reported here, head gasket failure invariably starts with coolant leak, typically on exhaust side at cylinder one (at “passenger” end of engine, aka the “front” of the engine).

It may then progress, say to exhaust getting into coolant. This can be checked for, with what I believe is called a “block tester”. But that seems to be later on.

 

That makes sense when the coolant pressure pumps up and you have 9 or 10 lb on the radiator cap or whatever the rating is it's something like that that pressure is going to push generally passed whichever cylinder part of the head gasket is damaged into the given cylinder putting the fire out or trying to quench the fire creating an imbalance torque spring start to slam and things start to happen eventually it will crack the girdle and more or less the engine assembly usually it's on the back side towards the firewall You got to look and make sure all that's good before you even think about doing any rebuilding

 

Those symptoms sound more like when I had spark plug issues or a clogged EGR runner in the intake manifold. Did the spark plugs ever get changed? Check them either way. It's actually worse if they did because of how prevalent counterfeits are. If they got changed around 15-25k miles ago they are highly suspect. If this is something you can do or know someone who can, take them out, keep them in order, and take good pictures. Might as well change them at this point, but the real reason is to examine them.

You could also use that as an opportunity to take a look in your cylinders with a borescope (take pictures), but with no rough running on startups you might be safe from head gasket failure. It's looming, but I suspect people with HG failure get frequent rough startups most of the time. Checking at this point is still a smart move.

I think examining spark plugs is the play here (assuming no trouble codes) because they could give you clues on the head gasket, the plugs themselves, and the intake EGR runners all in one shot and it's a pretty straight forward easy job. I wouldn't get an EGR valve just yet.

 

I think that's normal

Well that works against one theory since they're unlikely to put counterfeits in, but I still think examining spark plugs is a good idea.

 

It is common in early stages to see no obvious coolant leaks. The sluggish operation is highly suspect.

We had a guy here a couple of weeks ago with seriously gunked up spark plugs only three weeks after they were installed. So it’s worth getting someone to inspect them. Unfortunately the whole wiper motor assembly and housing has to come off to access the plugs making a dealer inspection expensive.

The best path forward would find a small independent hybrid shop who would remove the plugs and do a borescope inspection.


Car Care Nut HG Borescope at 7:40

First part of this video removes the wiper assembly

 

If it's not shaking or running rough while this occurs, then I think this is typical of first acceleration (if it's just after the engine starts). At least it is on my car.

 

Video 13 here explains spark plug access, if DIY is in the cards. Contrary to video, spark plug torque is 15 ft/lb with clean/dry threads.