Started stripping the engine in preparation for cleaning - outside and inside!
Locking tools in place in prep to remove the timing gear
The oily crud is a centimeter thick in places
Three paint marks still does not excuse bodging the timing belt job!
Timing gear off
Manifold next as there are two coolant pipes and a ton of oily crud under it. Before removal all this oily crud has to be removed otherwise it will fall in the inlet ports. This is looking down under the fuel rail, in between the head and manifold.
MJ's patented 'sucking crud out of small spaces tool'
Loosen the dirt with a pokey stick first, then suck out as much as possible with this tool
Then, spray with brake cleaner to get rid of all the oil, scrape and vacuum again, and then blast it with compressed air to leave this:
Now the manifold can be lifted off. Ew.
More oily sand under the inlet gasket. This is removed very carefully with the vacuum and a cocktail stick to loosen it, then cotton buds soaked in more brake cleaner
Much better
No oily sand in the ports. If you drop grit down here taking the manifold off on a port with the valves open then it will drop in to the cylinder and score the bores as soon as the engine is turned over. Loss of compression follows and the engine only has a limited lifespan left. The only way to get the dirt out is to remove the head and hope the piston isn't at the bottom of the bore. That's why its essential to clean all the grit out
before removing the manifold! Its also why I will never buy one of these engines if the manifold has been taken off by someone else since the engine is effectively scrap at that point.
You can clearly see the injector spray pattern here where it washes the carbon off the inlet ports. This is what the FSI engines are missing (since the injector goes directly in to the cylinder) so the black stuff just builds up and chokes the engine. On port-injection engines like this the carbon deposits are normally a film no thicker than paint on the port walls.
Inlet ports taped up to stop any fod getting in there until the manifold goes back on.
Out of focus, but the thermostat is not as bad as I was expecting
Its quite a light emulsion which hopefully will be fairly straightforward to clean
Yuk!
Water pump out - again, not that bad
Ready for cleaning tomorrow
I'll clean out what I can by hand first then probably make up some plugs and adapters for the various holes so I don't have to fit any of the external pipework back on. I found some Forte cooling system degreaser which is specifically designed for this job. Someone gave it to me (Dean or Bert maybe?) and its just been sitting on the shelf. Kinda handy! Once I've cleaned what I can from outside, I'll plug up the holes and fill it with the Forte and hot water and then spin the pump to move it all around.