thinking of removing my intercooler in order to straighten out all the cooling vains as half of them are bent over, would this make a great difference to the intercooler if i cary out this operation and is there anything else i could be doing under the bonnet to help car run smoothly eg cleaning air hoses etc and is ther a way to clean the boost solenoid would i loose any pressure or anything if i remove any of thse pipes to clean or will it be quite safe and advangteous to do so ,anyone think of othere things i should be cleaning under thebonet thanx

 

Straightening the fins does make a difference, but if you're going to take the I/C off, it's also well worth washing all the dead insects and other rubbish out first.

Turn the I/C upside down and run water through it, either from a shower or a hose at "normal" pressure. Don't use a pressure washer under any circumstances, as you'll mess up the fins on the bottom as well! Run the water, give it a good shake, run the water and repeat until the dead things stop falling out. Then when it's dried you can use a cocktail stick, small pair of pliers, small screwdriver or similar to push the fins back into shape. When you've done it, it might be worth giving it another go with the hose, as you'll probably find more rubbish dropping out now the fins are straighter!

As for other things, by and large it's down to how far you want to go, but I'd say the general idea would be to clean where it's dirty!

There's no point taking the boost solenoid off unless it's messing about. Same goes for the other pipes and bits & pieces. If you're going to take the intercooler off though, you may as well use it as an excuse to give the whole back end of the engine bay and bulkhead a good clean.

Before you start, make sure you've sealed the turbo exit, throttle body and dump valve return pipe. It's not a bad idea to use bits of plastic bag and a rubber band round the outside as seals, instead of stuffing tissue inside the pipes.

If you push tissue (etc.) inside, not only is there a danger of pushing crap in, if you push it in completely, you might forget to remove it later, with disastrous consequences for your engine!

The other thing that might be worthy of special attention is the battery, and the area underneath it. Take the battery out, wash both it and the plastic tray, then clean the chassis. Muck that lingers there tends to do damage to the paintwork pretty quickly due to battery acid contamination. The standard Subaru battery isn't sealed!

BTW, gotta ask, have you given up punctuation for lent?


[Edited by greasemonkey - 18/07/2003 17:17:48]

 

ha ha just not very computer ,literate mate thats all , ha ha well it looks a buggar of a job straightening them fins up as they all seem to brake or get worse

 

You can do it if you're careful. Remember: patience, Grasshopper