The PCV breather box on my 940T is inaccessible.

On my shadetree mechanic’s Day of Frustration I had three problems.... Access, Access and Ignorance.

I’d planned every step... researched everything exhaustively. All to little avail. I was going to penetrate the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ on my 1995 940 Turbo... and replace the breather box, replace the rear coolant hoses and the ECT sensor. Good intentions.

Got the Throttle body housing off without too much trouble... even though that one bolt inaccessible by a socket wrench was torqued on at about 180 pounds. (ten minutes of banging an open end wrench with a hammer and lots of magic penetrating spray finally worked) Removed the Tranny fluid stick handle to make even more room... not that there actually was a lot of room.

Finally able to barely see the bolts that hold the breather box on... the rear bolt was accessible... but clearly the front bolt was impossible to remove without first removing the mystery assembly ontop of it. In fact I was unable to insert even a narrow screwdriver between the PCV box bolt and the mystery assembly that protrudes over half the bolt face.

I looked all through my useless Haynes 940 book. No mention of this assembly anywhere that I can tell. It resembles the idle control valve (which sits about 8 inches above it). This mystery item also has what looks like a diaphragm of some kind within a conical aluminum housing... but it also has two hefty aluminum pipes coming off it, attached with mighty hurking 20mm banjo bolts. One pipe leads to the intake manifold top, and the other leads to the exhaust manifold. No doubt many of you can tell me just what this is.

Not only do the bolts anchoring these aluminum pipes appear immovable (since I don’t have a 20mm open end wrench), The threads appear totally weathered by heat, ... but they’re hard to access and I have no idea what’s holding the main assembly on even if I DID get them off. So that’s where I gave up. Those of you who pop off your PCV boxes in 30 minutes plainly do not have this mystery impediment!

Also I note that accessing the rear coolant-to-firewall hoses is a near impossiblity, at least for me. I’m impressed with you guys who can do that so easily. No doubt you can bench press 350 pounds with just your fingertips... alas... not me! I managed to loosen three of the clamps... but getting any of the hoses to budge even 1/16” was impossible, even with a pair of lockjaw pliers. Cut the hoses? I’m not sure the knife would fit back there. I didn’t think I’d be able to fit the new hoses on. Anyhow, I cried Uncle at that point and put it all back together.

Conclusion: The INTAKE MANIFOLD MUST BE REMOVED to do these job by a mere mortal.

Switching out the ETC sensor was fairly easy... though it was reoriented in a hard to reach position for the electric connection. Still get the fault code... after all that. I’m certain now the sensor was not at fault, but there’s a break in the wires... that’ll be the Devil to fix.

At least I did replace the thermostat... and cleaned out the Throttle body housing. Guess you got to know your limits as a shadetree mechanic.....