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Yes, that little metal pipe seems froze on there GOOD! I've already sprayed it a few times with PB Blaster to try and loosen it, and mildly heated it with a torch, no luck so far> And it seems to take a 21 mm wrench, sometimes a 22mm wrench, the wrenches tend to slide a bit on the nut-shaped portion, so I'm afraid I'll round the nut off Any tips for getting it off?
Should I just say the heck with it and use a pipe wrench or what? If I mess it up, I doubt I can find a "new" one... any and all help will be appreciated, please tell me how YOU did it successfully! Thanks!!!

If you do mess it up I believe I have like 2 spares for my truck, I'd be happy to send you one (if you sent me the $ to do so. I don't want anything for the pipe).

It can be hard, go ahead and use a pipe wrench, but I'd really try the torch thing again, and failing that, vice-grips and a hammer. Even when loose it can be impossible to turn by hand.

Yeah, OK, I'll give it a "wack" this weekend and see if I can loosen it at all. Our Luv is an '81 with the 1.8 liter gasoline engine. Are all the EGR cross-over pipes the same for all years? Thanks.

As far as I know they are. I've had them come right off and others not. Today I cut mine to get it off. I am not going to reuse it anyway. I did cut in a way it could be welded back together just in case though.

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OK, I'm over it. Where's the beer?

Heat and penetrating oil worked for me. I also picked up a flare nut wrench that fit it so I wouldn't round off or flatten the nut. It is basically like an open end wrench but wraps around the nut a little farther so it won't round it off into nothing. If you can get the intake side loose though you can use a closed end wrench the same way. You just feed the wrench over the intake nut and along the pipe. Once you start to get that nut out of round, that pipe is not much good any more.

For the heat you want to try to get the manifold nice and hot and it might help to cool the pipe. The last one I did I planned ahead and ran the motor to heat it all up then cooled the nut with a few ice cubes. Slide on the wrench and hit it with a hammer, bang its open.

The pipe is made of stainless so unless you are able to weld stainless steel cutting it is pretty much a done deal too.

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95 Isuzu Trooper Daily Driver
86 Isuzu Trooper reliable backup
77 LUV 2wd stock beltway blaster (resting)
79 4x4 LUV project: 2.6L, 5spd, 31s (eventually)

MEPR: Man, my 4x4 makes all other LUVs look good

GREAT to know!! So what SIZE flare-nut wrench does it take? I've tried regular metric wrenches in both 21 and 22 mm...neither does the trick quite right... please let me know, I'll be working on it today and I see you are online right now as I type this... THANKS!

Don't know if you had the head off already or not, but with all the head gasket jobs I did, I pulled the head, intake manifold and carb and exhaust manifolds off as one assembly. Much easier to work on it on the bench. Just don't forget the small holddown bolt behind the head.

No, ended up NOT pulling it this weekend yet, so that is good. Yes, I've thought of pulling it all as a unit, won't I need about 6 hands to do that though? I'm not sure how to stop timing chain from slippiing off and messing up the timing... if that happens, I'll have to remove the timing cover, which I am pretty sure, means the oil pan has to come off, which means a problem what with with the engine still in the truck....

You can let the chain slip off and still be ok. You put the crank on tdc 1 and 4, and line the cam up on a mark and just put the chain back on. It's in the shop manual. It can be done. I just did it on mine a month ago.

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OK, I'm over it. Where's the beer?

Another hint. Take a piece of wire and fasten the chain to its sprocket by wiring through the sprocket holes at the top. This keeps everything in time, then keep the chain tight by hanging the whole assy from the ceiling with a bunge cord. You probably need a third hand to hold the whole assy tight while you slip the head up over the chain. Thats how I used to do it.
Rondog is right, a good idea to get all the timing marks lined up before you start.

I've done a few now and all I did was wire the chain to the cam sprocket and unbolt the sprocket from the cam. I never messed with trying to pull it tight from above with a bungee cord. If you leave the tensioner tight (the plastic thing the book tells you to turn to lock it back) the chain doesn't really have room to move on the bottom crank sprocket. Line up the crank with 0 degrees using the timing mark on the pulley. If you get it with #4 at TDC then the cam marks should be lined up and visible as well. Then when you put it back together you can see the pistons, just line up the cam bolt on the sprocket and put the rockers back on.

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95 Isuzu Trooper Daily Driver
86 Isuzu Trooper reliable backup
77 LUV 2wd stock beltway blaster (resting)
79 4x4 LUV project: 2.6L, 5spd, 31s (eventually)

MEPR: Man, my 4x4 makes all other LUVs look good