Cleaning diesel intake manifold

pablo128

I'm pretty sure my manifold is clogged up. 05 Avensis D4D. I had the elbow with the throttle flap off before and it was pretty manky. I could see into the manifold a bit and it looked worse again.

Anyway the plan is to take it off, clean whatever loose gloop is in there, and leave it soaking overnight in something.

Now I have at my disposal, washing up liquid, concentrated tfr, and green diesel. Which would be best, or none of the above?

CJhaughey

pablo128 wrote: »

I'm pretty sure my manifold is clogged up. 05 Avensis D4D. I had the elbow with the throttle flap off before and it was pretty manky. I could see into the manifold a bit and it looked worse again.

Anyway the plan is to take it off, clean whatever loose gloop is in there, and leave it soaking overnight in something.

Now I have at my disposal, washing up liquid, concentrated tfr, and green diesel. Which would be best, or none of the above?

If it is anything like my IM that I did on a Honda Accord, liquid alone won't work.
You need to physically remove the tarry stuff by scraping it.
I used a piece of stainless wire from a windscreen wiper blade bent into a hook to scrape away the deposits until I could get to metal I then used very strong degreaser to remove the rest of it with a scrubber brush.
It took me the best part of a day to do it.

If I was to do it again, I would be inclined to bring it to one of the DPF places that can use a high strength ultrasonic bath to clean it for me.

Its not easy and not pleasant and you will likely end up covered in horrible sticky black carbon.
http://dpfireland.ie/manifold-cleaning/

pablo128

Yeah I plan on scraping the best part out but for the hardened stuff just leave it soaking overnight and go at it again the next day just to make it a little easier.

CJhaughey

pablo128 wrote: »

Yeah I plan on scraping the best part out but for the hardened stuff just leave it soaking overnight and go at it again the next day just to make it a little easier.

I don't know what the Avensis manifold looks like but the Accord was hard to clean due to the intake tract being long and bent.

smuggler.ie

Last time i attempted to clean intake manifold i used GUNK degreaser (motorfactors have this in bigger containers) and power-wash. bath-powerwash-bath-powerwash-.... multiple times.

CJhaughey

its an arse of a job.

landcrzr

CJhaughey wrote: »

its an arse of a job.

Did you think it was worth it once done? that is, was there any real difference in performance?
I only ask because I have CRV with 135k miles on the clock.

Glen Immal

Did it once on an astra, absolute hoor of a job, no difference in performance after but fuel consumption improved considerably

pablo128

I'm getting overboost, where too much throttle and the boost cuts down. High in the revs it's ok but it's low in the revs it happens. No eml. I've replaced more sensors and bits that you can shake a stick at. Some made a difference but the core problem remains.

FDave

Cleaned the intake and egr of a 09 D4D Auris and it improved fuel economy by about 4 mpg (trip computer). Car felt more responsive by just a little bit. Its a very dirty job but worth doing every year or 2. Its the cleaning of the egr that makes the biggest difference as it operates in the lower rpm range. My intake to the valves on the engine block side were fairly clogged too but i left them as the carbon build up is kinda like tar and i didnt want chunks going into the engine. Where the egr bolts to the intake was about 70% blocked. I used kerosene, brake cleaner for egr and a wire brush.

CJhaughey

landcrzr wrote: »

Did you think it was worth it once done? that is, was there any real difference in performance?
I only ask because I have CRV with 135k miles on the clock.

Yes, I it made a considerable difference on the ICTDI engine, There is 5 ports on the head with one of them being the EGR intake port.
The EGR was blocked from a 25mm Ø to around 16mm Ø
The engine ran smoother afterwards and throttle response was improved.
I estimate I scraped about half a jamjar full of sticky carbon out of the intake in total.
If I was to do it again, I would take it to the DPF cleaning place and have them clean it properly, I wasn't sure that I was able to get all the residue off inside the manifold due to its design.

fancy pigeon

I roughly cleaned out the manifold in the 607 one evening, scraped out the goop with a screwdriver. I'll take it off fully some evening and clean it fully, with the quick clean it got the car has been noticeably less smokey

In the days of the 406 I would take the manifold off, scrape the big sh*t out and set fire to it: leaves it very easy to clean out. Great care must be taken not to compromise the integrity of the manifold though. Always had them as clean as a whistle

Farfromhome02

Soak it in petrol or diesel after you scrap it out
Leave it overnight

pablo128

I finally got to this earlier. I have the manifold soaking in a strong tfr solution. I gave it a quick scrape out first. I'll have a look later this evening and change the liquid if needed.

This is what I got out so far.

pablo128

I had another go at it there. The messy stuff is mostly gone, and I even had shiny patches inside. But I was able to see where the heavy build up was and I got a fair bit more out. I used a screwdriver and a pry bar. I could probably do with some sort of long brush, but it's back in a fresh tfr solution so I'll have another go in a few hours.

pablo128

Right well the car is back together. If I'm honest, if I was to do it again I wouldn't leave it soaking in anything. I still had a fair bit of scraping out to do anyhow. I think scraping along with blasting it with a power washer would have been vastly quicker.

However you live and learn

I can't comment really on how the car is running as it just got a quick spin to the folks house and back in heavy traffic. I'll update when I put some miles up.

Truckermal

When I was a Chemical Sales Rep 2 decades ago we had stuff that would clean that stuff like wiping the crumbs of the kitchen table! It would also remove your skin too so it was removed..

CJhaughey

Like I said I would rather pay someone else to do that job, most stuff I don’t mind doing but I would draw the line at that.

case_sensitive

I'd start with scraping, followed by the big red wrench https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrYwjGCvfsI

Then acetone soak, followed up with pipe cleaners or old alloy cleaning brush (bendy). I bought a 5L container of acetone from a lad in Finglas on Adverts, use it for cleaning things down before TIG welding, but it's a very good all-purpose solvent. Dissolved the switch and motor in my Lidl oil pump too.