406 2.1 egr and hydraulic clutch

[kelpiebat]

Morning to all, the wagon is newly acquired with XUD11BTE diesel and 5 sp manual built in '98.
A look inside the plastic inlet manifold finds it to be caked in 1/4 inch of sooty crap, so 1st thought is deactivate the EGR; is a ball in the vacuum line the best way.??
Secondly, the user handbook talks of 'Maintenance-free hydraulic clutch control. NEVER OPEN THE RESERVOIR'. Am hoping someone can enlighten me about its operation and especially the warning.
Thanks.

[steve_earwig]

Dunno about the egr, standard practice seems to be to blank it with plates.

The clutch hydraulics is meant to be a sealed system, there's no way of bleeding it. I don't know why topping it up is disallowed, maybe because it'll overflow if the clutch is changed.

[kelpiebat]

thanks for that. Being familiar with blanking a 407HDi I looked for but couldn't find a suitable place for installation of the plate.
I gather that simply unscrewing the cap is not going to result in some catastrophy happening to the system that needs dealer help.

[madmadmax]

you can just unplug the egr and put a ball or a bolt or somthing in the end then put a clip of some kined round it

[kelpiebat]

That's great news madmadmax, nice and simple. After seeing all the crud in there you'd have to wonder why Peug designed a system that ensures an unfiltered and oxygen free waste product is mixed with clean filtered air.

[Uberderv]

Yes unplugging it will disable the EGR, the solenoid is on the bulkhead. The clutch system is sealed and cannot be bled unless you change the black plastic pipe with a suitable flexi section. If you do this be careful as the barbed section on the M/C is easily broken (as I've found out) :-)

[kelpiebat]

That's good news uberderv on the EGR and some wise caution re the hydraulic clutch. Without thinking I unscrewed the top of the clutch 'reservoir' on the firewall and am/was worried I may have let some special clutch air or the activating genie out and it won't work again. Car's engine is being repaired after a cam belt slip so have not been able to test the clutch.
Does anyone know of a good procedure to remove the original cam belt tensioner.?? Have unsuccessfully tried double nutting.
In a thread somewhere it was stated the tensioners are very robust as is the idler, but as it was the idler separating into 2 pieces that wounded this engine I feel that at 245,000 miles both should be renewed.
Thanks.