What's going on with my EGR?
 

https://i.ibb.co/9sfDYsh/20210323-165915.jpg

Anyone here have any idea? Recently opened it up to disable it but it's so caked hup from the inside even in the exhaust

What car is this on?

oil blow by. egr's kiill diesels

That is why if possible the circuit should be disabled. Before massive buildup occurs.

Some manufactures like Volkswagon and Mercedes got caught to the tune of billions of dollars by electronically cheating and turning them off. After the fixes they will remain on unfortunatly.

If you car is a 123 model I would remove and clean the manifold. Then make the egr circuit non functional. It helps the engine in other ways as well. As the diesels get newer it gets harder to achieve. Disabling the circuit that is.It is very simple to do on the 123 models.

Looks like I know what il be doing this weekend. Anything else you recommend I change while I'm down there? Glow plugs are a year old.

Rollguy here sells an affordable kit of block-off plates if you remove the EGR, or at least did when I bought one for my two 300D's. Not to scare you, but perhaps the innards of your intake manifold look similarly occluded with gunk. A common problem with diesels and the newish direct-injection gas engines. I understand for the later, manufacturers are beginning to add a small upstream fuel injector to keep the intake clean. As is, DI owners must remove their intake for a good cleaning every 50K miles, which isn't cheap. Goss's Garage on Motorweek discussed it.

Remove that EGR!! I've used the kit from Rollguy. It's easy and cheap.

I didnt figure it would be costly. My plan was to hot ta k the manifold to get all the grease out and put on new gaskets.

Normal. The port is just plugged, the rest of the intake will just have a minor coating that doesn't affect flow. A coin under the EGR valve face will seal it.