I was trying to open them up with air pressure the other day when one of them got stuck. I have tried to get it unstuck and can't. It is stuck open. The actuators work great, but the ports open real slowly. How do I get it to unstick? How do I remove them to clean them? Can you pull them through the front or do you have to take the manifold off?

Now I have one port stuck full open and one halfway or so.

 

I believe to remove them you must take out the manifold. Must have started to get seized in there from not working properly.

 

Is there any way to un-seize them without taking the manifold off. Will carb cleaner work?

 

Be careful with carb cleaner (or brake cleaner) as these products are designed to use Acetone (prime ingredient) to dissolve any oil deposits and will flow any loose carbon or 'crust' directly into your engine. The best way to remove and clean the '6-ports' is to have, in hand, the lower manifold gasket, some rags, some water based solvents which won't damage rubber, and enough time to take off the upper intake manifold, lower intake manifold, and then remove the '6-port' sleeves for thorough cleaning.

There isn't a way to remove these sleeves without taking off the lower manifold. I would shy away from just spraying carb cleaner against the actuator rods and leaving it at that, as the carbon buildup that you're likley to find is what's caused the sleeve to bind.

If you spray brake cleaner down there, you may free up the sleeve, but any carbon that was binding the sleeve has now been blasted into your engine, possibly causing carbon-lock the next time you go to start it up. Additionally, some of the Acetone based brake cleaners out there specifically state that they should not be used near rubber parts (think oil control O-rings, and water jacket O-rings in a rotary) which could be damaged by exposure to the cleaner.

Mazdatrix has the lower intake manifold gasket for about $13. Ask me how I know this...

Good luck on taking yours apart - it's not difficult, just time consuming. BTW, be extra careful when dealing with the oil injection lines - they are very brittle after being in the high temperature environment for this long, and very prone to breakage. Mazdatrix has these for about $23 each... HTH,