Update: Did a cleaning and a half today. Rinsed the intake manifold with petrol and washed with Kleen Green afterwards. If you have half a Saturday to kill, here's a messy one for you... :banghead: Also rinsed the intercooler radiator and EGR with some petrol.
I have not deleted the EGR as yet as I am still looking for an appropriate kit, but alternatively Bossman did a EGR castration and I'm onto the details of something similar. This entails keeping the EGR body, but stripping out the insides.
I removed the blades from the swirl flaps and popped the spindles back in and assembled the entire intake manifold, vacuum hoses and electrics. Also replaced crank breather valve with a new unit. Service procedures indicate that this unit needs to be replaced at every 3rd oil service. I cannot recall this ever being done by BMW, so further investigation might lead me into another battle with BMW re the link between the breather valve and turbo failure...
All that is left now is the pop the turbo back in and it's plumbing through the intercooler up to the EGR.
Then for an oil service. Got a new air, fuel and oil filter and picked up oil from Midas as per BMW's recommendation. Castrol Edge 5W40 (pls don't flame...). The list price was R380 for 5 liters, but the tag showed R200, so they had to give it to me for R200 and I took 3 x 5 liters
Lastly I took the cat that I decatted earlier to Speedy to ask them to weld the two seams back together and they wanted R228 for one cat's work. Took in home, fine tuned my welder and did a weld that will make even Bosal jealous. Saving money by DIY is definitely the name of the game!
I'll be away for two weeks, so the soonest I can get to the service would be first weekend in Sept. Will post updates then. :thumbsup: