Intercooler cleaning

[Father Ted]

Having done my oil change and changed the air filter, I got to thinking if I could clean any excess oil out of the intercooler. But, looking at videos online, it looks like a b*gger to take out.
Could the intercooler be cleaned in situ? Is it easy enough to do?
Is there any benefit to doing this if the car is running fine?

Any tips / advice gratefully accepted.

[SwissXC90]

The benefits are clear: less emissions.

You could flush some solvent through the intercooler. Bit of a bother with pipes and adapters etc.

[Father Ted]

To be honest, emissions are pretty low anyway, but, I get your point.

If I flush some solvents through with intercooler in situ,would I be able to get it all out? Is there a drain at the bottom? I don't want to suck anything in to the intake.
I'm sure I could fashion something to blow compressed air through afterwards.

[SwissXC90]

Originally Posted by Father Ted

To be honest, emissions are pretty low anyway, but, I get your point.

If I flush some solvents through with intercooler in situ,would I be able to get it all out? Is there a drain at the bottom? I don't want to suck anything in to the intake.
I'm sure I could fashion something to blow compressed air through afterwards.

Not sure it there is a drain. Don't think so.

If one of the pipes is on the bottom then a flush in place would work.
Otherwise, you'd have to remove it to flush it.

[IainG]

Hi

Originally Posted by Father Ted

Having done my oil change and changed the air filter, I got to thinking if I could clean any excess oil out of the intercooler. But, looking at videos online, it looks like a b*gger to take out.
Could the intercooler be cleaned in situ? Is it easy enough to do?
Is there any benefit to doing this if the car is running fine?

Any tips / advice gratefully accepted.

Surely if there is oil in the intercooler it is coming from somewhere(turbo). If you clean out the intercooler that leaking oil will then still continue to go into the intercooler.
If you replaced a turbo I could see the advantage of cleaning the intercooler as the new turbo should have less oil leaks.
Any oil in the intercooler will just get fed into the engine and burnt.
So unless you stop the oil going into the intercooler in the first place I can see no benefits.
Iain

[Father Ted]

There isn't so much oil as to suggest a problem, but every car I've owned which is turbo'd, there has always been an accumulation of oil in the intake pipes, Probably only a tiny amount, but over the years (car is 17 years old) it builds up. It's not an issue in the pipes as they are quite large bore, but the intercooler is smaller channels and this could ( maybe?) inhibit airflow.

So, now that I have some time on my hands, I'm thinking about being proactive. But I'm not so keen as to take half the front end out just to clean the intercooler.

[SwissXC90]

Why don't you just pull off whatever pipes you can and clean the pipe internals? That'll certainly help. And make you feel good.

[Clan]

Originally Posted by Father Ted

Having done my oil change and changed the air filter, I got to thinking if I could clean any excess oil out of the intercooler. But, looking at videos online, it looks like a b*gger to take out.
Could the intercooler be cleaned in situ? Is it easy enough to do?
Is there any benefit to doing this if the car is running fine?

Any tips / advice gratefully accepted.

There is no point , any oil condensed out of the crankcase ventilation gasses gets blown through anyway and will soon return even if you spent hours cleaning it . No oil can build up due to the high air speed taking any oil droplets with it.

Not many people know that the first T5 models had a 2 mm hole in the bottom of the intercooler which blew down into a labrynth in the undertray so that traces of oil got blown away in the airstream !

[Father Ted]

Originally Posted by Clan

There is no point , any oil condensed out of the crankcase ventilation gasses gets blown through anyway and will soon return even if you spent hours cleaning it . No oil can build up due to the high air speed taking any oil droplets with it.

Not many people know that the first T5 models had a 2 mm hole in the bottom of the intercooler which blew down into a labrynth in the undertray so that traces of oil got blown away in the airstream !

Thanks.
I'll not worry about it then

Might change the oil in my Haldex unit instead! Got to find something to do or she'll have me painting the house!