Removing butterfly's from inlet manifold.

[peanut]

Ok hopefully someone here can help out. I have a 97 NK Pajero with the 3.5l 6G74 motor. It has developed a vacuum leak where the butterfly shaft comes out of the middle section of the inlet manifold. Has anyone had to deal with this before? Someone has told me that you can remove the butterflys and shaft and just plug the hole up, anyone done it? Cant buy the shaft or seal from Mitsubishi as a spare part, would need to buy the complete section of the manifold at a cost of $1000+, second hand seems near on impossible to.

[Beer Baron]

If you remove the butterflies you will lose bottom end power. When they are closed it makes the air intake longer and generally produces more bottom end power and when they are open its shorter to produce more power higher in the rev range. I would leave it in and try and match a seal up to something else. Do you have any pictures of the faulty seal ?

[peanut]

OK, just had a look at the parts diagram of the manifolds from mitsubishi. Can see what you mean with the butterflies now, my preferance is to fix or machine up a new seal so will skip that idea now. Will pull it apart when I get a chance and measure it all up to make a new one that seals then grease the old one up till I get the new one done. Will take photos when I get it out.
Cheers