So the exhaust on our equinox started sounding like a redneck 4×4. I took it to Car-x and discovered that there was a broken line for something called the “egr valveâ€. apparently this thing returns some unspent exhaust back into the engine and re-burns it or something.
googling it, I found a forum post that said that during mid-production, they changed the type of egr valve being used, with a different shape, thus, you pretty much need some sort of conversion kit, or, buy a new valve with it. ..WHich is ok, since the bolts that were holding the tube onto the valve were so old and rusty that one of them snapped off during removal. these bolts had something called “pseudo-studsâ€, fake screws coming out the top. Many things about this repair were horribly annoying and head-scratching.
old and new valves, side-by-side. note that they are shaped completely different.
old and new hoses, note that the older one is longer. it’s missing the double connection thing because, well, that’s what was originally broken. The connector was…
…Stuck down on the exhaust manifold… maybe you can see it there,black thing off to the left… it looks black because i’d been blasting it with wd-40. that, and the pb blaster, turned out to be a waste of money and time. the only way to wrench those bolts out of the exhaust manifold were…
…to use THREE extenders, and an adapter, on my ratchet. Unfortunately, using 10mm halfway stripped one of the bolts, so I had to hammer a 3/8 socket onto them and…
Use a 4-ft long pole that slid over the handle of the ratchet.
new egr valve installed! and burning pb blaster off the exhaust manifold obscuring the glory.