Member Since: 23 Oct 2020
Location: Southampton
Posts: 11
EGR Cooler delete
I have just purchased my Disco 3 so very new to it all but thought I would share my recent problem solve, the EGR story.
I bought the D3 with water coolant disappearing. After running a C02 test I concluded it was either EGR coolers leaking or head gaskets. I thought it worth a punt to examine the coolers first and try.
Now there is heaps on this forum for why and why not on EGR's, bottom line for me was affordability, so if they have failed, then they are to go.
They are pretty straight forward to get off though the turbo side is a wee bit tight for spanners etc. Removal suggested that both had been leaking as can be seen by the water and rust up the inside.
I couldn't afford new ones at the mo and wanted to ensure that the EGR coolers were eliminated from the equation to prove HG.
So I cut the connectors from the coolers where they mate onto the exhaust manifold and welded the holes up. With a new gaskets this tidied up the manifold ends.
I then cut the link pipes from the coolers to the inlet manifold valve half and simply squashed the cut ends and crimped over to seal them. I then wrapped the pipes in TESA harness tape to tidy them up.
Lastly, the water hoses needed dealing with. Someone on the forum posted a very useful picture of the cooling system where I decided that the EGRcooler circuit is completely separate to anything else. To blank a got a couple of plastic 3/4" hose tails and then tapped the internal hole with a 1/2" BSP tap and planked the hole.
I also wrapped this in TESA harness tape to tidy it up/ look a little more factory and not be so eye catching.
I used these blanks to plug the free end of the hoses that come up from the main hose assembly coming from the bottom of the rear of the radiator. I completely got rid of the EGR cross over hoses at the from and rear of the engine.
To finish the job I cleaned the inlet manifolds etc out which were very gunged up with oily sludge. They were so clogged this could only help a smoother, less turbulent airflow into the ports.
I got a local remapping guy to run a EGR delete on the ECU which cost about £80. that was perfect as he came out in a van to my house to do this and identified a bunch of other fault codes for me, thanks Steve.
Bleeding the water system was fine using the normal bleed point at the top/front of engine.
There was no unanimous answer on the forum here regarding running temperature after losing the coolers but I can answer with confidence that the car got up to normal running temperature perfectly.
I can not answer if my MPG has increased as I had not owned it before this.
I will say, with the EGR's gone, its so much easier to work down the sides of the engine now, which has allready been very useful as I have now confirmed head gasket failure, oooops! Now that's another story
I hope this is of use to people. Thanks again to all those that posted that helped me get here.
3rd Jan 2021 6:19 pm
defector
Member Since: 23 Feb 2009
Location: Greater Manchester
Posts: 1420
If yours is a Euro 4 D3, then there will have been mini thermostats in one end of each EGR coolers.
In pre EU4's the main thermostat was used to control flow to the EGR coolers.
Mine was a EU4 and so started running cooler after removal so i checked the coolant flow diagram and successfully blocked the coolant flow similarly to your methodology and all has been fine for the past few years.
3rd Jan 2021 6:35 pm
malcmack
Member Since: 23 Oct 2020
Location: Southampton
Posts: 11
Yep, mine had the thermostats, its a 2007 HSE.
Glad to hear that I found the right path, thanks for the confidence boost.
3rd Jan 2021 6:40 pm
lynalldiscovery
Member Since: 22 Dec 2009
Location: Maidstone
Posts: 7274
Wonder if HG failure is going to be the new D3 thing?
3rd Jan 2021 11:26 pm
malcmack
Member Since: 23 Oct 2020
Location: Southampton
Posts: 11
To be fair, the HG going on mine could have been prevented. I got the car from my sis who kept using it even though the water kept disappearing, instead of fixing it just got topped up with water and driven. It clearly overheated at least once.
There was a lot of rust evident in the water as it was topped up without coolant whilst the head gaskets themselves had rust on all the faces of each leaf, I would hazard a guess that this also aided the failure.
So, lessons learned, don't wait until its too late and always use the recommended fluids!!!
The other lesson for me, a 300TDI is soooo much easier to work on. My nipper and I did joke more than once about swapping the V6 out for one to make life easier
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