Tiny Diesel – Tiny Engine Bay

For for the first time in a long time, I’ve had a chance to do a little automotive maintenance. Fritz was overdue for an oil change according to the windshield sticker. (I know I haven’t ever changed it) The oil pan was surrounded by a thick plastic pan with gaskets— It’s apparent purpose is to collect oil and let it seep out of all areas to create a bigger mess. That was the first part to go in my ‘not gonna go back on this car’ pile. It uses a massive oil filter, and it is plenty hard to get to.
Next thing I wanted to tackle was to clean out the intake manifold. These engines are bad about clogging up the manifold to the point it chokes off the incoming air. This is a result of the oily engine blow-by mixed with the sooty EGR gas. Getting everything off to get to the manifold bolts was bad enough, but getting to them was entirely harder than it needed to be. I ran into a part I’ve never seen before: an EGR cooler. It looks expensive. Check out the pictures below to see how much gunk was built up. It was pretty bad. I got it all cleaned up and put back together… now I can move on to the next thing that needs fixin’ on Fritz.

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