ERG Plate Removal/Cleaning - With Pics

[Hodakaguy]

After reading quite a few threads on clogged EGR Plates my Uncle and I decided to clean our EGR plates on our Insights this past weekend. I pre-ordered the needed gaskets and had them on hand. My blue 01 has 50K on it and his silver 05 has 76K on it. Neither of us were experiencing any problems with the EGR system but we decided to check/clean the plate since its so easy/quick to do. Now that its done at least we know they are clean...one less thing to wonder about.

Tools Needed:
1/4" Drive Universal
4" 1/4" drive extension
10mm Socket
12mm Socket
Pliers
Torque Wrench
Ratchet

Materials Needed:

New EGR Gasket - Head Side. (You may be able to re-use this gasket but it is a crush type gasket and its safest to change it out after removal)
Part Name: Gasket, EGR Spacer.
Part Number: 209978.
Quantity Needed: 1.
Price: $15.49 from Majestic Honda

3 Rubber Intake Manifold O-Rings (Not a necessity but they are cheap so we replaced them)
Part name: Gasket, IN. Manifold
Part Number: 209975
Quantity Needed: 3
Price: $4.19 each from Majestic Honda

Time: About 45 Minutes


Start by removing the plastic cover on top of the engine. Remove the three 10mm bolts/nuts that hold the plastic cover onto the engine. Take care not to drop the washers that are underneath the bolts (I would recommend taking a screwdriver and picking the washers out of the cover before you remove it, once your moving the cover around it's easy to drop them). Place the washers/nuts/bolt in a safe place, a jar ect.




*NOTE: At this point it is a good idea to take a air hose and blow any dirt off the intake Manifold/EGR plate area that you can. The cleaner the engine is at this point the less chance to getting dirt into the intake manifold or head while its open.

Next remove the 10mm bolt (Red Arrow) holding the air intake tube onto the engine intake manifold. Then pull the intake tube out of the joining air box connection and remove it from the car.

Next disconnect both hoses at the Green Arrows.




Next remove the 5 -12mm bolts/nuts holding the intake Manifold onto the engine. The upper three bolts (Red Arrows) are easily reached. The bottom two nuts (Green Arrows, the left nut is hidden in the pic by the hose) are a little harder to reach and take a bit of patience. You can reach these two bolts with a 1/4" drive 4" extension with a universal joint on the end, just slip them under the intake manifold...its still a tight fit. You can also get a 12 point 12mm box end wrench on them to help break them loose.




Once you remove the 5 bolts/nuts holding the intake manifold on gently pull back on the Intake manifold and slide it off the two bottom studs. Once clear of the studs you can hold the intake manifold back with one hand and slide the EGR plate off the studs with the other hand. Remove the EGR plate from the car and let the intake manifold rest back against the studs.

The engine should look like this at this point. EGR plate removed and Intake Manifold resting in place.




This forum only allows 4 pictures per post so I'll continue the thread below.

Hodakaguy

[Hodakaguy]

Continued from above.....

Here's a shot of the EGR plate removed from the car. This is the Engine side of the plate. Both of our plates ended up being nice and clean, just a slight amount of carbon buildup. We cleaned both plates and removed all traces of the buildup before re-installing them.




Here's a close up shot of the buildup on the plate. It's kind of hard to see in the pictures. There is just a slight film built up on the passage walls, I've seen some peoples posts where this channel is completely clogged solid with build up. It was nice not to find that!




Next remove the EGR plate gasket from the head. Just slide it out off the two studs. Set it off to the side. NOTE: Notice the orientation of the gasket. There is a small tab with a hole through it that sticks up in the air on the left side of the gasket (Red Aarow). When installing the new gasket make sure this hole is on the left side still. You really can't install this backwards because of the bolt pattern, but it will save you from having to pull it back out and flip it around.

Next Thoroughly clean the whole area. Clean the mating surfaces on the head. Make sure you don't let any dirt/grit fall into the intake ports in the head.




Here's a shot of the head with the EGR gasket removed. This is before it was cleaned.




Continued Below.....

Hodakaguy

[Hodakaguy]

Continued from above.....


At this point we replaced the three rubber O-ring seals on the intake manifold. They are the seals that seal the intake manifold to the EGR plate. Since they are a rubber O-ring type seal you should be able to re-use them without any problems pending they are undamaged. If you re-use them check them carefully for nicks ect.

Since I had already ordered them we decided to use the new gaskets on both of our cars.

The old gaskets can be tricky to remove since there isn't a lot of room to work with. I took a pair of fine nose pliers and grabbed each O-ring with the side of the pliers, then just pulled them out. Here is a shot of the Intake Manifold with the grooves for the O-rings, they have already been removed in this pic.




Here's a shot of the new O-rings for the Intake Manifold. The little nipple coming off the O-ring is the alignment tab. These tabs face down on the intake manifold and fit into a molded notch.




Now install the new EGR plate gasket into place. Pull back the Intake Manifold with one hand and use the other hand to slide the gasket onto the two studs. Push it back firmly against the cylinder head. NOTE: Make sure the tab sticking up with the hole in it (Red Arrow) is on the left side.




Here's a shot of the new gasket installed on the engine.




Continued Below....

Hodakaguy

[Hodakaguy]

Continued from above....

Now you are ready to re-install the EGR plate. Take one last look and make sure there is no dirt or grit sitting in the intake passage ways, both the intake manifold and the cylinder head. Clean any dirt off now.

I used a couple hoses taped to my shop vac to vacuum any dirt off the EGR area and to make sure the tracks were clean.




Install the EGR plate back onto the two studs and firmly slide it back against the cylinder head. Then slide the Intake Manifold back onto the studs and back into place.

Now you are ready to torque up the Intake Manifold. The 12mm bolts/nuts for the Intake Manifold need to be torqued to 16 lbf-ft. Start with half that amount and using a crisscross pattern bring the manifold up evenly to torque so the gasket gets crushed evenly. After this initial half torque then I go to the full torque (16 lbf-ft) and do it again.




The bottom bolts are the hardest to get to and the torque wrench is at a slight angle which will throw the reading off slightly. I went ahead and torqued them anyways adding a slight bit extra on these two by feel.

You can see the angle in this pic.




After that then just re-attach the two hoses, re-connect the intake tube and re-install the plastic cover over the engine....then your done!

It really is a simple job to do and afterwords you know that your EGR plate is nice and clean. If your having bucking problems then you might want to look at this plate as well as your EGR valve (There are some excellent posts on the EGR valve to be found using the search).

Hodakaguy

[crxgator]

nice writeup, what did you clean the plate itself with? and after pics of it?

[Hodakaguy]

Originally Posted by crxgator

nice writeup, what did you clean the plate itself with? and after pics of it?

Carburator cleaner and a bunch of rags worked great. I used some Q-tips to clean down in the passages. I thought I took some pics of the plates clean but I guess I didn't....bummer.

Hodakaguy

[Kevin Dougherty]

Great post, thanks very much.

[john1]

Dumb question:

Looking at mine, it doens't appear that there is a plate between the intake manifold and the head (2000). This leads me to believe that the plate IS the flange looking part of the intake manifold. How does the plate attach to the intake mani?

Reason I wonder is if there is another way to seperate them as one of my bottom nuts is rusty and doesn't want to come off.

Thanks,
John

[60MPG]

Originally Posted by Hodakaguy

Carburator cleaner and a bunch of rags worked great. I used some Q-tips to clean down in the passages. I thought I took some pics of the plates clean but I guess I didn't....bummer.

Hodakaguy

Still a great post. Builds up my confidence, I already bought the gaskets, just waiting for the right time. Thanks

[Artric]

Just did this earlier. Haven't had a chance to take it out for a spin yet, but I'm going to be so happy if it fixed my problem. It really was bucking like a bronco! That's how Mike Dabrowski put it, and it's a very accurate description.

Luckily, if I still have the problem, I picked up a spare EGR valve to swap out. Let's hope I don't need to!

Man, mine was RIDICULOUS! I ended up reusing the gasket (I'm cheap). I had to scrape off tons of gunk on both sides with a razor knife. If I had to do it again, I would have considered buying a new one, but it will likely be fine.

The bottom bolts were a real PITA. I was able to slightly break them loose from the top with a box end wrench. But I couldn't re-mount it on the bolts, because they didn't turn far enough to catch another tooth on the wrench. Using a bendy socket extension helped, but mine really sucked (walmart brand) because nothing was holding it on the extension. I didn't need it to remount them.

I used brake cleaner to try and get the stuff out of the channels, but that and a rag wasn't cutting it. I had to use a small phillips head screwdriver to scrape a lot of it out. I can't be 100% sure, but I don't think anything was fully blocked, but there was A TON of crap in there. A TON.

I also scraped some out of the head, where it comes into the EGR plate. That could potentially clog up too, but I haven't seen anyone mention cleaning that out a bit.

The non-metal IM is very interesting. People use plastic spacers to keep heat from metal IMs from their engine. Ironic that in our case, we'd prefer a metal one to transfer more heat in. Oh well, you just can't win.

Thanks very much for the help, I really appreciate your write up!! Can't wait to try it out!!