Helpful Advice/ EGR System

[mwbean]

ok, so I just bought this used 1997 Legacy outback from a used

car dealer here in Medford,OR When we test drove it seem to

run ok there were a few minor issues with it so we offered $ 300.00

less than asking price and they took it. then when driving home

to seattle. about halfway there the CEL came on. I stopped and bought

a OBD II tester and it came up as a EGR FAult. We Drove it around a while

like that but eventualy took it to a Soob dealer to get a what they call a pre-

purchase check and cost 98.00 . they said the egr hoses were mis-routed

a few other things. my question in my mind is why did'nt the tec just re-route them would only take at couple of minutes for him.

 

anyway, the saga contiues. When I first checked the operation of the EGR Valve it was acuating as spelled out in the chilton manual but after pouring the chilton manual for about a half a hour and checking the routing info on the hood if figured out the correct routing of the hoses. When I checked it

again the EGR valve stopped working. what the hell?? so I checked here and found a few posts that said that the EGR can get dirty/carbon build up on the valve seat or in the downpipe to the manifold.

 

but the hoses were routed correct and the purge looked pretty new so I just assumed like a idot that

the EGR Valve was bad so I ordered a new one. I repaced it and the old one was pretty cloged up with carbon but not so bad that it problbly could'nt be cleanded. Also squirted some carb cleaner down the

the downpipe and let it sit for a hour. I reinstalled the EGR Valve and figured it would fix the problem- Wrong:banghead: so I went out and bought a vaccume tester and started checking all the vaccume sources and found out

that there was no vaccume comming out of the purge valve. so i took it off

and untimatly that it was clogged with goop/carbon so i repeatly sprayed carb

cleaner in all the ports espically the one that gets pressure from the return on the intake manifold (the bottom large one) after doing that a few times

the fluid coming out was not dark and nasty but fairly clean. I reasbled and

now have vaccume comming out of the purge valve to the EGR valve. I cleared the code with my tester and it hasnt come back yet but have just done around town driving will probably take it on the freeway today and see what hapens......

 

but the moral of this story is to check the operation of all componets in a system to see if all work propery before buying expensive parts:D:D

Edited December 5, 2011 by mwbean

[porcupine73]

Hope that patches it up!

 

Two other common causes of EGR issues on that era are those little metal tubes, they get rust buildup and blocks the flow, and there is a little inline 'filter' heading over to the 'pressure sources switching solenoid' PSS and that likes to get plugged up too.

 

Rusty metal tubes running under throttle cable

 

Plugged up filter

[mwbean]

Thanks:clap:

[davebugs]

I usually sell the EGR and the vacuum piece together because I have had others tell of the same issue. Never experienced it myself.

 

And EGR's are kinda pricey new.