Whats the best way to clean the inside (and outside) of the intercooler?

I'm probably going to have the opportunity to take the intercooler out of my mk1 Octy vRS at the weekend and wondered whether it would be worth cleaning it up.

I know the oil breather system returns oil vapour upstream of the turbo to be burnt off in the engine so does it tend to leave oil residue in the intercooler?

Fabia-vrs.com - How To Clean The TDI Intercooler

HTH

Bas

Cleaned out the intercooler and a couple of boost hoses at the weekend, there was loads of oil in there and it's now (seems to be) running better.

May do a written guide on how to do it on the Octy if I can remember the sizes of the bolts Takes about an hour, or an afternoon if you want to dry the intercooler properly.

To help dry out the I/C in situ while the hoses are disconnected (its held in place by three bolts with the hoses off) either

1. connect a hair-dryer to the top I/C hose connector to blow water out or
   
2. connect a wet/dry vacuum cleaner hose to the bottom I/C hose connector to suck water out
   

In either case gaffer-tape makes a good water / air-tight connection.

BTW, was there much junk on the outside of the I/C?

The back of it was spotless but the front had quite a few flies and other crap stuck all over it. Didn't realise until I took the bumper off that it has a plastic funnel between the intercooler and bumper to direct the air (and all that ****) at the intercooler

I'll be doing this soon, as I think an oil filled IC is causing my TB to get all oily and grubby all the time, causing the old 17705.

I'll probably remove mine from the car, since it's fairly easy to do.

Did you remove the MAP sensor and clean it separately?

I like that dual compound ducting! Thought the rubber/plastic mix was pretty cool!

My intercooler had 5mm of oil inside it, not a lot really after 110k. I bet it could easily make its way to the inlet manifold. Another thought maybe to fit a catch can.

I'm aiming to fit a catch can in the new year hopefully. I found the worst part of the piping for accumulating oil was the pipe between the turbo and intercooler below, it has a wide flat part as shown below so there was about a cm deep pool of oil in the bottom, a good shake of the pipe and sticking some rag in there cleaned most of it out.

Yeah a catch tank is definately the way forth. All this breathed oil can't be good for the turbo. Or sensors, or TB...

Looks like a nice weekend job for the new year then.

Hey Guys,

I have a Octavia L&K 2002 1.8T with ONLY 41,000 Kms. I have been using always Castrol Synthetic 0W-30

I need to clean my TB so if I see to much sludge inside I will have to clean my Intercooler

How do I remove the intercooler? Do I really have to remove the front bumper to do this or can I remove it front the back removing the right wheel and removing the plastic thats is under the front fender.

Please advise what to do.

THX,

Isaac

It helps to remove the front bumper otherwise it's hard to undo the bolt holding the side/bottom of the intercooler. And you will also need to remove the lights to get to the bolts holding the top of the intercooler. It's not a massive job, as long as you've got the right tools it can be done in just over an hour.

Link here for instructions with pics:

http://briskoda.net/technical-guides/cleaning-intercooler-mk1-octavia-vrs/128584/

It helps to remove the front bumper otherwise it's hard to undo the bolt holding the side/bottom of the intercooler. And you will also need to remove the lights to get to the bolts holding the top of the intercooler. It's not a massive job, as long as you've got the right tools it can be done in just over an hour.

Link here for instructions with pics:

http://briskoda.net/technical-guides/cleaning-intercooler-mk1-octavia-vrs/128584/

Hey chicken_eyebrow,

Thx so much for your reply and for the link. Your DYI Cleaning Intercoler was exellent:thumbup:

Isaac