EGR Blanking: To blank or not to blank?

[Crasher]

It was only a 90's Tory election picture of Blair, I wasn't trying to frighten you, mind you, made me loose sleep.....

[zollaf]

most scary thing about blair is how he manipulated the whole country to allow him to make money. clever really, buy a load of property on the cheap and then artificially raise the house prices , sell the lot and ,make an absolute fortune. genius,,,,

[defever]

Going off tangent from Blair and his affairs...

So I've nearly done a full tank of driving since I cleaned up the parts, mostly long distance A / M route and bit of local stop / start driving and idling at a garage. It is holding around 58MPG on the DIS (around 52MPG in actual calculation), which is what I expected and is similar to what I used to get before I started noticing the limp mode. So, it's going okay.

Other than this:

IMG_0615.JPG

That's at the EGR return blank plate on the intake manifold. I cleaned up the manifold inside and outside so that black oily stain is since I had it cleaned up. And it seems like an oil stain leaking from the EGR hole. The bolts are tightened as much as I can turn the ratchet so it must be seeping from a microscopic gap between the infold, gasket, and the blank plate. Perhaps the aluminium blank plate doesn't provide a tight seal?

So my questions are:

• could this leak be sealed with a new gasket, blank plate or is an application of silicone grease a good idea?
• Should I be looking into that much of oil going into the intake, presumably coming all the way from the turbo?
• Is this amount of oil (and leakage from the gasket) something to expect for a '99 diesel?

I hear bit of oil ingress in the intake is inevitable, but I don't know how much "little" is accepted and if this is something to look into.

A little bit more in sight to this would help me settle a bit about this kind of leakage.

Many thanks in advance!

[Doctle Odd]

Like I mentioned earlier you didn't need those new plates and gaskets, simply blocking the pipe that opens the EGR is enough, anyway what's done is done. This stuff is great Permatex 20539 Indian Head Gasket Shellac Compound | eBay

[defever]

Perfect, thank you Doctle.

I did wonder if putting the EGR back and blocking the vacuum hose is a better option. I like things minimal and tidy so I want to try out the sealant and see if that seals better. Thank you for the link.

The Shellac compound is for low temp (up to 177C) on a paper / cardboard gasket and hose connections. Can this be used for turbo oil return gasket as well (I have a leak there, too...)?

As for oil in the intake, should I be looking into it?

[Doctle Odd]

I been using shellac as instant gasket years before instant gasket became popular. The reason I recommended you blocking the pipe is it minimises disturbance. I suppose you could use sump sealant but it would be an expensive option to seal that small area.

[defever]

Thank you Doctle. Sealant is new to me. Just quickly read up different colour sealants (red and blue) and grey Permatex vs silicone sealants. Interesting but bit oa a minefield for someone who never thought about any of these.

So it sounds like, generally, metal to metal gasket is the best seal, then application of some sort of sealant (temperature dependant?) WITH or WITHOUT the gascket is the next best?

If I use the shellac, does that mean I don't need the metal gasket at all?

When I removed the EGR, I don't think there was any form of sealant attached to the metak gasket. I don't think, but I don't know if I wiped it off the surfaces without realising it.

[Crasher]

I still use aviation grade Shellac when I build VW air cooled engine cases. I tried the VW silicon used on the Mexican engines and it leaked.