Information on EGR system and intake Manifold Cleaning

If you shine a flashlight through the other opening, you should be able to move
around and see light through it.

 

I found this info interesting from the dealerships side of the coin. This guy has some good advice for diy'ers too.

 

Hi all (esp Mendel!)
Been through a whole lot of Prius chat about EGR and manifold cleaning that has been super informative. Tackled the EGR pipe and cooler yesterday on 2010 gen3 with 150k miles. Cooler completely clogged with soot. Chucked a straightened coat hanger in a cordless drill and managed to get the cooler channels clear after three rounds of that, followed by four or five with oven cleaner, then a pressure washer per recommendations.
My question concerns cleaning the intake manifold. I have it off the car, and I’ve taken a lot of oily gunk out of the EGR circuit, and run brake cleaner through the entire assembly per nuts about bolts on YouTube. However, there are numerous mentions on the forum about cleaning the EGR channels in the IM. however, the EGR ports in the IM appear to be blind and inaccessible. How can I be sure that the ports are clear? I’d be very grateful not to have to go through the entire disassembly process again, esp the blind nut under the cooler.
last question: the large intake manifold gasket appears to be in pretty good shape. Possible to reuse? Or false economy?
Grateful for any advice.
joe

 

There are small diameter EGR passages in the intake manifold, that branch off from that main EGR gallery, one per port:


^Thanks to @Mr. F for above pic.

I’ve had my intake manifold off twice now; second time I did replace all pliable gaskets, but orig did look good still. Still, only just past 100k kms on ours lol.

 

There is one hole for each cylinder. It's about the size of a .22 bullet.
I use a bore brush and gunk to clean them out. (using a drill) Yours appear to be completely
clogged.
You may have to use that coat hanger to open them up so you can completely clean
them out.

I would NOT reuse the gaskets unless you had no other choice. You can get them through
toyota inexpensively.

 

Here's the part no's I used, all the pliable gaskets interfacing with the intake manifold, ordering through Amayama. Prices are in Canadian dollars:



The metal gaskets between the EGR components and at exhaust manifold connection are metal: I wouldn't bother changing unless they're bent. Be careful not to drop the rearmost one, at exhaust manifold. If you can manage to extract the stud at EGR cooler's lower bracket, you can then leave the two rear studs on the cooler, and they will keep that rear gasket from falling.

 

I used gaskets from rockauto. If you replace the metal gaskets with ones from RA, the replacements may be quite a bit thicker and things won't line up very well.