V6 Inlet Manifold Opened.
 

I have some rattling V6 Inlet manifolds lying around and curiosity got the better of me. I opened one up to try to understand the problems a little better, what a can of worms we face in the future. The picture one shows the butterflies in the open position, picture two shows the operating rod in position and that's where all our problems come from, the axles that the butterflies are on are hard plastic in a hard plastic carrier, the pictures three and four show the kind of wear I've described, not all of them seem to wear but the ones nearest the vis motor do wear a lot. The carriers are sonic welded on to the manifold rather like a crown being placed. I'd say it's very possible to remove them and swap bad ones for good ones, they wear out the axle and carriers and go very baggy, it seems that this then puts a strain on the operating shaft and, the areas where it clips on to the butterflies elongates and then simply falls off, this results in the butterfly just flapping around. The last picture shows an elongated hole and the shaft is nothing but scrap, it's made from hard plastic and wears badly. I reckon the only way to get round this problem is a new type of shaft and find a way to bush the axle holes for the butterflies, if we can't solve this then all manifolds will end up scrap at some point, I do think regular oil changes will help but not enough in the long term.

Could the sawn-off sections be re-joined OK?


TC

It looks like the operating shaft does not have a proper support to take its weight so the butterfly spindles and ball joints are supporting the weight of the operating shaft.

What about regularly adding an upper cylinder lubricant to the fuel? Expensive over time, but was recommended to me by a Land Rover service center.

Those pics are gold to someone like me.:bowdown: I bought the 190 that Rick saved from the scrappie and plan to continue the work needed to keep her running properly. I'm sure I'm going to be looking at the inlet manifolds at some point with 140k miles on the meter. I can see from those pics how having 6 flappy butterfly valves must wreak havoc with the mixture. My V8 is more economical than the V6 at the moment.:eek: There is definitely work to be done. Tickover when the engine is warm is too high, and when coasting it ranges between 1k to 2k revs intermittently. I can see Rick did a lot of work replacing vacuum lines ( amongst many other things...all good ). I'm in the process of re purposing a disco smoke machine to run some smoke tests on the whole inlet system. Any and all advice very welcome as always.

A chap on another forum , I can't remember his name, but the forum was X Power actually didsome research and was going to do repair kits with metal replacements , he had a couple of mock ups and a finished item that he was trialing but I don't know what happe ed as he stopped posting and I haven't been on the forum for a year or so, might be worth checking out again

Just checked on the Xpower forum and the chaps user name was Sheddist the article was back in 2010, but its worth a look as it has some pictures and is a clever design, he was going to sell them but suddenly stopped posting, the article is under Reparing inlet manifold KV6 article, try this link
repairing inlet manifold kv6 https://forums.xpowerforums.com/showthread.php?t=54886

But...
 

I've looked at his design and it has a major flaw in it, the butterfly axles are still rotating in the plastic housing, so they are still wearing out there and that's where the rattles come from. I've been thinking it out for a couple of days and I do have the answer but I'll need to knock one up and try it on my V6. In 2010 I suspect that the wear on the butterflies and spindles wouldn't be too great, in 2020 it's likely to be the major issue with repairs.

I recall seeing notice of a complete replacement for the existing mechanism in development, piggy-backing off the VIZ-controlled system somehow and on this site I think. That was a few years back and not seen or heard anything since.

Hi Michael.
I opened one back in 2014 after changing it due to the death rattle photos below of what i found inside.
https://i.imgur.com/LMzhWWJl.jpg1

https://i.imgur.com/IP1RoTBl.jpg2

https://i.imgur.com/BPyYAOjl.jpg3

https://i.imgur.com/TS0cRCLl.jpg4

https://i.imgur.com/LJnhQykl.jpg5

https://i.imgur.com/jfGZTXcl.jpg6

You can see how the sockets to the ball have broken, where do these broken bits go? into the engine i presume.

https://i.imgur.com/qbGxeN5l.jpg7

You can see below how they go brittle and break off.
https://i.imgur.com/k1cFFcIl.jpg8

https://i.imgur.com/SwpP49ql.jpg9

https://i.imgur.com/4vMgStIl.jpg10

https://i.imgur.com/K3RtJ2Zl.jpg11

https://i.imgur.com/rKzIGWxl.jpg12

here you can see how the oil gums up the flaps, i have just removed mine from my FL2 which is easy compared to the 190 V6 manifolds.
https://i.imgur.com/DBi2qagl.jpg13