EGR valve on 1.0 iq

[buddyspudface]

hi everyone, just thought id put this in here as these iq's are all getting on a bit and i am sure more and more people are doing their own servicing. yesterday i decided to remove the EGR valve on my 37000 mile iq2. no real reason other than i wanted to do it as part of normal servicing.. id say its a 3.5 spanner job out of 5 spanners. a little tricky but doable by the home spanner man with a 12 mill spanner 12 mill socket set of maulers, brake cleaner and 4L of anti-freeze... you will need to undo ( remove and clean if wanted ) the inlet manifold as the egr valve bracket sits behind it ( why do this you silly people at toyota as iv never seen such a stupid design ).once the 6 bolts holding inlet are removed you can position it out of the way ( please can someone tell me how to remove it totally from the engine bay as the !Removed! thing would not come out even after dropping the engine mount on the left ).then undo the 3 bolts on the egr valve and your now able to remove the holding bracket from the engine. now just push the egr valve up and over the retaining bolt holding it in place...this is of course after you have drained the coolant from the radiator lol.....with the egr valve in your hand ( i also removed the actuator with just the 2 screws holding it in place being careful not to loose the internal spring of course ),your now able to see how well your engines been running regarding the condition of the valve.... ( wish i had taken pics but it was raining at the time ). my valve was super clean no crap/soot anywhere,even after spraying with brake cleaner which just stayed crystal clear i didnt get any dirt of it. with the activator removed it was simple to just press down on the valve and check for free movement.. installation is just reverse and of course after cleaning up all gasket area's( i reused all gaskets as being careful when removing ). i have included 2 pics of an engine ( not mine ) which clearly shows all the bolts that are needed to remove the egr valve.. just look at the stupid design of the holding bracket which sits behind the inlet manifold. hope this helps people understand any quotes you might get for replacing an egr valve.