Engine management lights come up on my dash and the diagnostic’s say it the ERG valve. So mechanic’s said I should do it myself, which I plan to while he services it (I’m not completely daft). Any recommendation for the best clean product to do this? Not looking to leaving it soaking overnight, just want to get it clean while at his garage.

Expecting something along the lines of (not my picture)

Also while I have the part off, what’s the advantage of blocking the inlet with a blanking plate, as it’s taken 90K to get blocked up, I’m doubting the car will last another 90K TBH..

On my Van I just used a screwdriver and a rag, some wd40 and a couple of broken fingernails. Wasn’t that difficult IIRC, as for blanking them off I really have no idea what to do, mebbies a bit of alloy thin plate and some arraldite perhaps, dunno..

blanking it not an issue, it’s more, is it worth bothering with?

Cheers for the tips, real world info is useful

I clean mine on my last car. I used a spoon to scrape off the thick, then carb cleaner and wire brush to take of the deposit stuck to the egr and casing. One point to note, I also removed the manifold with the venturi in as that was equally gunned up. My reasoning is that the venturi was not opening fully and creating the blockage which caused the build up in the first place.

Rubber gloves and a pre-emotive bucket of soapy water for you.

Kevj was removing the manifold easy, or a pain to do? Seen vids on youtube suggesting how blocked up it gets, and was wondering about doing it too.

Mine was a 2.2Tid lump in a Saab 9.3. The manifold was 6 or 8 torx bolts iirc. Taking it off was easy but take care with the gasket unless you buy a new one in advance.

I didn’t blank mine but have been told that you may need the chip re-programmed to not read the egr valve ot you will constantly have a fault. That was for Saab mind.

k, mine on a VW 1.9TDI engine, I’ll ask my tame mechanic.
Cheers for the info though.

you will need to get the egr wiped from the ecu or the dash light will just regiter a fault. there are no advantages perforance wise just meansyou wont need to replace the egr or clean it again, if it works like its ment to you mayfind a very very small increase in fule usage but were talking very small.

A can of carburettor cleaner, an old tooth brush and a egr blanking plate

There are only 4 star bolts hold my van ones in, just had a look. I had to take a couple of rubber hoses off too, one underneath that was bunked up so I pulled it off bothe ends and cleaned it,the one on the top was clean. No gasket on mine so I smeared it with grease and bolted it back on.
You must take into account my van does about 3k a year… also I need to change one of the injectors but I can be bothered at the mo..

Loads of places to get blanking plates from..should be able to get one from eBay. I made mine for my vectra out of an old coke can…http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/vauxhall-egr-blanking-plate

When I cleaned mine on my vw T5 I used a can of spray brake cleaner but carb cleaner will work as well.
It took about 15min’s to sort out.

Cheers guy, don’t think I’ll bothered with the blanking plate. Got warning for the injectors too, but as it works fine for now, they can wait another day.

One thing I was told by my mate who services it was to take it for an “Italian tune” ie: thrash it at the rev limiter in 2nd or 3rd (depending where you are on the road) for about a mile.
It sounds like the crank will fall out but it does help (I’m told)

*off for an “Italian tuneup” 😆

2.2 mondeo here, for the £3 and 5 minutes it took to blank it, might as well.

Carb cleaner makes cleaning them out very easy, any solvent’ll do it but the more evil the better imo.

What you have to remember is the valve is feeding that same cancerous gunk into the inlet…

I recently had to change the turbo on a Pug 2.0 HDI, so had to take the inlet manifold off anyway and it was somewhat constricted by all the carbon build up, which means efficiency is going to suffer.

Cleaned it out with a blowtorch… remember it’s all combustible waste, otherwise recycling it through the engine wouldn’t end well.

All said and done, I’d say there is a strong case for blanking… if you go to the trouble of cleaning the inlet as well as the valve, you’ll probably even get a few extra mpg.

After a bit of reading around online, blanking the egr can up as one of the ‘recommendations’ for my Freelander 1 TD4 and I definitely felt there was a performance improvement. Did inform my insurer…think it added about £40 to my annual premium

I would not bother blanking it as it may increase the time the engine takes to get up to temp. You probably know with a Diesel they take forever to get warm anyway.

Take it off, scrap it out with something like a plastic spatular and then get some carb cleaner or something in there. Might be worth doing the inlet manifold just below the EGR valve as well.