I've had my manifold off for a couple days now. Like everyone said, it had copious amounts of black goo in it. An engine shop did most of the work with their parts cleaning cabinet. I took it home and wasn't quite satisfied so I took a soldering propane torch and warmed it up slowly.
I figured out that when I had the 4 inlet tubes pointing up like chimneys, I could blow the torch through the crankcase vent tube inlet and basically set all that crap on fire. After that I was able to put the torch away and let it burn for about ten minutes. it billowed smoke out the four pipes for a while and when it settled down I was able to just knock all the ashes off the walls and dump it out along with the embers still burning.

That aside, I'm starting to grasp that function of the ARV but I've never seen one, and I can't get a good pic with google image search ... I guess that acronym is a common one. could someone link me to a picture?

I also made a little sheet metal replacement for my EGR gasket onto the IM so it looks like its there but is not able to rock the IM's world like it once did.

and is the offender in this room today? Could you please point to it?

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JT
is the ARV the think just left of the Turbo that is piped to the turbo via the black hose? I don't know

It's the unit at the top of the turbo with the small plastic line going to it.

-Jason

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1991 350SDL. 230,000 miles (new motor @ 150,000). Blown head gasket

Tesla Model 3. 205,000 miles. Been to 48 states!
Past: A fleet of VW TDIs.... including a V10,a Dieselgate Passat, and 2 ECOdiesels.
2014 Cadillac ELR
2013 Fiat 500E.

aha,
maybe why I failed to understand and grasp this at first is because its just counterproductive. why have a turbo to build intake pressure and then have a valve to reduce that pressure so dirty exhaust can get into the intake. It sounds like a bunch of incest to me! exhaust running the turbo to build pressure for the intake which is (somewhat) counteracted by the ARV to let exhaust back through the intake for another round by the EGR. When does it end?!?

As mentioned, the ARV is on '85 W123's, Federal flavor. My white wagon developed a very pronounced whistling sound upon accelerating along with only about 5-6 pounds of boost. I was told to plug the ARV and yes, that fixed my issue. Below I had it plugged with a golf T for testing, and when I determined that that was my problem I inserted a BB in there and plugged the line back into the ARV so it looks "clean".

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Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John