Cleaning the Intake Manifold

[Suriyawong]

Hey guys, it's been a while, but I had to get on to share some pics from cleaning my intake manifold. My Golf TDI has been seemingly less powerful than when I bought it two years ago. It struggles to maintain speed up the passes between Butte and Bozeman, which never happened when I first bought the car. Spencer (Roadhog) agreed to help me figure it out, so we went to work on Sunday. Spencer's theory was the intake manifold having carbon buildup, so we started by checking that. Lo and behold...

The EGR


And the intake manifold where it connects to the EGR


And the other side...


Close up



Obviously, there's a bit of a problem there. We took it all apart (mostly Spencer since I'm not very handy) and took a couple of pics before we got to cleaning. Spencer recommended some good 'ol fire to burn out the carbon that's built up in there. A little WD-40 and a torch got us a nice little fire!








After we got everything cleaned and put back together, problem solved! The car maintains constant power now, unlike before when it seemed to dwindle around 3500 RPM. Tomorrow I'm taking a trip over to MIG in Bozeman to pick up a new battery. We'll see if my car still struggles up the passes like it did before.

Cheers!

[SweaterVest]

I always wanted to try that!

[Suriyawong]

Pretty straight forward with the ALH if you actually know what you're doing. It took us a while because we kept having to run to town for stuff. Had to cut a vacuum line, needed the intake manifold gasket (which I can't believe we even found). Grabbed some liquid wrench at some point, plus one last trip to get stuff to clean out the inside of the intake manifold. It was pretty grungy in there, so we ended up doing more than just the burn. I bought a wire brush and a couple of bendy plastic brushes that could get in there at the angle we needed. We checked two or three parts shops for those, but Ace was the only place we could find any.

Seriously worth doing though... it feels so much better to drive now.

[Roadhog]

I always wanted to try that!

No you don't.

[SweaterVest]

Yeah.... I do.

[Mikewire]

Nice.

How'd you clean the EGR?

[Suriyawong]

Was able to get a lot off with a screwdriver (carefully) and a dremel with a wire brush. Used some cleaning solution with a rag to get as much as possible. Looked pretty good afterwards!

Alas, I neglected to get pics after everything was clean because it was getting dark and I was short on time.

[MT-Getto]

I've done that minus the fire. Soak em in solvent or similar, get ya some good elbow deep gloves and a brush, and go to town. No fun.

[BigSkyGLI]

Wow! That was seriously gunked up! Good work and glad it solved the problem.