OK, so... I looked at the picture on the first post of this thread, read the instructions, (including the part about it should take around only 30 minutes), and decided to improve my car's performance...
I bought a new EGR ($134, online & delivered). Figured I dont thave the time to mess around with a rusty old car part (my MSP has 123,500 miles on it today). So I spent the money...
Disconnected the air intake from the throttle body. Was easy to unscrew / loosen the hose clamp, but removing the plastic intake from the throttle required a bit of effort; it wouldnt come right off, had to wiggle it back and forth with some force to get it off. I also thought about the consequences of me dropping something accidentally into that throttle body.... Compounding that minor intake removal problem was the adjacent metal tubing from the master brake reservoir, an easily bent item... needed to be careful to not hit it.
I also needed to move another air duct, from/to the air filter. I unclipped the filter box top, and pushed it to the side.
But I realized there was still no way I could easily get that EGR thing off. Who was the idiot that designed this layout?? I don't have small hands, and needed more room. I really needed the battery out of the way. Which meant I needed to remove also the anti-sway bar that cross over the top of the battery from shock to shock. That then gave me the room I needed.
Then the electrical connector to the solenoid wouldnt come off. Of course there's some simple clip on it that I should have been able to figure out, but even with an engineering degree I couldnt... so I forced it, breaking part of the plastic cover off it. (Probably the part with the clip; so then it came right off.)
I read in that first post there are two 12mm bolts holding the EGR on, so I got my smallest ratchet with a 12mm socket (it fit on both bolts nicely), and turned. No luck; it's stuck. After f*ing around with various angles and positions for like half an hour, I realized -- wait a minute... although "righty tighty lefty loosey", these were pointing UP, so I was turning the wrong way. I really have to start drinking less when I do car work. They then popped loose easily.
The EGR dropped off easily, as did the metal gasket. I cleaned that as best I could, as I was going to re-use it. The new one went on easily; I used Loctite on the bolts. I also used electrical tape on the connector, with a zip tie to hold it on. After re-assembly of everything (total time = 4 hours?) the car ran ... worse than before.
I originally did this because of the severe hesitation on full acceleration; I wanted to get the EGR & PCV changed before I got the ECM reflashed. But now, there is a rough idle / near stall at idle, where there wasnt any before. I hope the reflash will fix this too...
I write all this to let these things be lessons learned to others...
