EGR Valve and EGR Cooler Replacement: Chevy Silverado 2500

This video details the replacement of an EGR valve and EGR cooler on a Chevy Silverado 2500.

Transcript

Today, we’re working on a 2006 Chevrolet Silverado with a 6.6 Duramax in it, and we need to do an EGR replacement on it. And while we’re in there, we’re going to go ahead and do the EGR cooler as well. And to do that, we’re going to have to go ahead and take the air intake assembly out, our intake manifold cover, our air horn, and of course remove quite a few different electrical connections from different components and get those out of the way, so we can access the EGR valve and the cooler.

When you get to the air horn itself here, you’re going to find a clip that’s not going to be a clip that you take off with a screwdriver. Best way to do that, just get you a nice pic. Get right in between that groove. Lift up. And that clip will come right off. Not a problem.

Now, while we’re in here, now that we can actually see the EGR valve itself, we’re going to go ahead and disconnect that before we go any further. So now, we’ve got that disconnected. We’ve also went ahead and pulled quite a few bolts out on this engine wiring harness bracket. Once we get some more of this part of the horn removed, you’ll actually be able to see where we can pull that completely out of the way, and have more access to the cooler itself and the EGR valve. And there’s a few of them, again, bolts up here. And there’s another one down here we’re going to access here in just a few moments.

So now that I’ve got the main bolts removed, to take the air horn out, one thing I’m running into is this wiring harness is preventing me from being able to go straight up with the horn itself. So the studs that are still behind here, where the nuts came off, I’m going to remove those to make it easier for me to slide this out and access that EGR valve and that cooler.

So now I have those studs removed and I’m able to work this around and out from behind the alternator and that wiring harness. The one note I will make is, is I did have to go in and remove the bolt from the alternator on it stud, just to get around that boot that’s on the back of it. And as you can see here, now that we have it off, we have quite a bit of carbon buildup and soot. Once we get that EGR valve off, you’re going to see too, quite a substantial amount there as well. So this is going to be a job that’s going to bring this truck back to life.

And so now, that we’re able to access the EGR valve, and of course the cooler, we’ve got a few next steps that we’ve got to go through before we can start removing things. One, we have two lines for the coolant that we do need to pinch off and remove. We’ve got one up top in the front here, and then we’ve got one routed around in the back. We’ve also got in the back for the EGR cooler itself, two different mounting holes that we’re going to have to remove the bolts from. So we’ve got those in the back. We’ve got our two hoses we need to pinch off, make sure we don’t have a mess with coolant to get that cooler off. And then, we’ve got a few bolts around EGR valve itself. Get those removed, get the cooler off, and we can replacing parts.

And so now, we have our EGR valve off or cooler off. And as you can see, we’ve got just a ton of buildup in this EGR. So replacing that’s definitely going to make a huge difference. And yeah, we’ll get back to that now.

Now that we have our EGR cooler and EGR valve removed, what we’re going to do, is we’re going to have to reuse some things that came from these. So things like the studs for the bolts that go on the backside of the EGR cooler into the exhaust, those are going to have to come out and be changed over to the new EGR cooler. And a tip on that, take two of the 12 millimeter nuts that you’ve taken off of various components throughout this build, and back those up next to each other. Tighten the one in the front against the one in the back. And then, you can take that back nut and you can work that stud out pretty easily. And then, that can be transferred over to the new EGR cooler.

Now, another note, you’ll see we have some gaskets here. Before we reinstall all this we’re going to make sure on the front side of the motor, we’re going to have these gaskets placed in where they’re supposed to go. So we’re going to reuse these bolts and studs. We’re going to get our gaskets taken care of. And then, we also have one final bolt from the EGR that was not accessible when we were tearing down. We’re going to take that out, so that we can take this old EGR off. And we’re going to reuse that bolt to put the new EGR on to the new EGR cooler.

Now that we have our EGR valve mounted back to our EGR cooler, along with our coolant hose and pipe, that’s all mounted back on. And it’s going to make it for a much easier reinstallation. On the studs, that were on the backside of the EGR cooler, the bottom stud’s a little bit hard to reach with any type of socket or wrench. So what we’re going to do, we went ahead and replaced the top stud, so that way we can mount our gasket on. Once we get this in place towards the back and get this flush with the exhaust, then we can reapply this stud from the backside and actually be able to get this mounted with a much easier level of installation, than if you tried to put that in, in the first place. And you would need pry bars and possibly another hand or two in there to get everything moved around and get that put in. So that’s one of the best ways to do that and that’s how we’re going to do it.

And what I’ll do is I’ll loop this hose on the other side of the alternator. Because there’s going to be some studs and things in the way, and that’ll prevent me from able to get this flushed with the exhaust. So I’ll do that now. It’ll make it much easier again for installation, here.

Now we can take our stud and work our way in from the back with that. Make sure your gasket is aligned on the bottom as well, so that the stud does go through.

So now, that we have our EGR valve and cooler back into its proper position, reinstalled from the backside on the bolts, we’re going go back through the reverse order of when we took it apart. We’re going to go in and put our hoses back together, back here on EGR cooler. We’re going to get our PCV valve put back in place, and the hose. We’re going to go back through the steps of making sure all the bolts are torqued down the right specifications and in the right spots. Then we’re going to put our air horn back on, and we’re going to get this thing reassembled.

Now that we’ve got everything reinstalled. We’ve done a double check to make sure all of our pigtails and our connections are remade. All of our hose clamps are tightened back up. All of our bolts are good and tight and torque down to the right specifications. We’re going to go ahead and make sure we get the coolant top back off, because we did lose a little bit pulling that EGR cooler off.

And just keep in mind, some of the things that we did that were a little bit different. We had a couple of tips for going through the backside with the stud, making that one go in last. That way it gives you a little bit easier installation reinstalling the part. And then, also when we were taking the cooler and EGR out, removing some of those studs, as well as our coolant hose over back here behind the alternator, which makes it a lot easier to uninstall the part as well.

Now it’s time for us to get the truck started up, clear out any codes that were related to the EGR problem we were having before, and then also do any relearns that were associated with the reinstallation of the new EGR valve and EGR cooler. And hopefully now, you have a better understanding of how to replace the EGR valve and EGR cooler on a 2006 Chevrolet Silverado 6.6 liter Duramax.