Well, I was getting nervous about my EGR cleanliness so I went at it. Much easier than I thot. I bought this Ford kit for O-rings and gasket.
Good thing I did as the gasket came apart during removal.
My valve really wasn't too bad. This is with 61,000 miles on the engine.
Pretty much all the carbon was very powdery and loose. Most of it came off with a tooth brush, but I soaked the valve (Lower part only! Keep all liquid out of the upper part of the valve!!) and brushed it some more to get everything off. The two seats were clean, so I'm pretty sure the valve was working just fine.
Here's a photo of the front of the engine so you can see what I had to remove to get in there.
I put duct tape over the turbo charger outlet hole in the intake manifold to be sure I didn't drop anything in there.
By the way, this is also an excellent time to change the upper fuel filter too. Much easier with everything removed.
The job took me around three hours total. As I said, I don't think it really needed it yet, but I'll drive much happier knowing it's clean.