Is it an easy job?hiw long did it take you. Is your dobli chipped?
About an hour and a half, including cleaning the throttle body. You could blank the EGR all in the same job the way I did it.
Easy? Mechanic: eyes closed, one hand behind back.
Sunday morning hobbyist: 2 spanners out of 5.
I may as well do a bit of a write up:
Before you start, buy a brake bleed nipple - ideally one about 30mm long, and a rubber tap washer (the old fashioned type with a hole through) and a nut that the bleed nipple screws into - I believe this is about 7mm but I found the one I needed in a box of wonders and I have no idea what it is
You will also need either silicon mastic or perhaps better, a 2-pack glue. I leave that judgement to you. I used mastic. Technically, the pipe (now my EGR is blanked shouldn't get anything in it that will attack the mastic. If something does, I suspect the mastic coming unstuck will be the least of my worries
Steps:
1) Take the top cover off the engine. 10mm socket
2) Take out the battery and the battery box. (10mm and 13mm socket + extentions)
3) Undo until very loose the jubilee band round the "in" pipe from the inter-cooler to the throttle body. DO NOT pull the inter cooler pipe off the bottom yet, because if you drop something, Sods Law dictates that it will end up in it
(9mm socket)
4) Loosen the 3 bolts holding the throttle body to the end of the inlet manifold. (13mm socket and extension)
5) take out the 2 Allen headed bolts holding the corrugated pipe to the EGR - LONG Allen key or star key 8 or 9mm (can't remember!) (You could move the fuel filter but you just have to push it out of the way half an inch for the allen key, so I didn't bother.
6) Use a small screwdriver to tease the vacuum pipe from the throttle actuator.
7) Undo the nut holding the pipework captive fitting to the top of the throttle body, pull the pipework clear.
8) Fully undo and remove the 3 13mm bolts that hold the throttle body and inlet manifold together. Keep an eye out ready to catch the gasket from between the throttle body and the inlet manifold if it falls. The whole throttle body assemble can now be worked out of the inter cooler pipe and pulled out.
9) Clean the whole thing thoroughly with whatever your favourite cleaning agent is and dry it.
10) While the throttle body is drying, carefully work a drill into the hole in the end of the bleed nipple - drill it right through, open it up as much as possible. You want free flow through it, and as bought, it wont be. When you're happy with it, put it to one side and get your nice clean dry throttle body.
11) Drill a pilot hole in the throttle body around 30 - 40 mm before the flange that joins it to the inlet manifold, and around the 2 o'clock position when the body is mounted to the inlet manifold.
Use the hole for the 13mm bolt as a guide for this - you want to be able to get your socket and extension back on without the bleed nipple being in the way.
open the hole out so that the hole is an interference fit on the nipple's screwed end - because the body is ali and the screw is steel, it will cut a bit of a thread for itself - but you MUST get this right. Remember: you can take away, but you can't put back
the nipple has only a tiny land - it's only slightly wider than it's thread... and theres nothing worse than a hole thats a bit too big..
Once you have the nipple sitting right, and the hole is a nice interference fit, stick your fingers up the throttle body and pur pressure on the nipple with your thumb and using a spanner turn the nipple into the hole. As it cuts it's thread you'l feel it "bite" and once it's done a couple of turns nip it right up against the throttle body.
Inside the throttle body put mastic or epoxy caefully around the thread of the nipple (you don't want to block it) then work the rubber washer down the thread of the nipple and then screw the nut on tight. Add mastic / epoxy until you're happy it's not ever going anywhere, and set aside to dry.
12) "refitting is the reverse of removal" as they say. If you're blanking the EGR, then stick your blanking plate in and you're done.
I think it is probably easier to do as I did and mount the pipe for the gauge *before* putting the throttle body back on the car, but that's a matter of choice.
Battery back on, fire it up, and you should be good to go...
Sadly, bad light stopped play... If the weathers nice tomorrow, the gauge goes in the car. For now it's in a plastic bag tied up out of the way in the bonnet.
