to those who need to replace o2

[Buff1110]

check this out, instead of spending 60bux each on universal 4 wire o2 sensors, i got a write up on probetalk on how to convert to a 1 wire set up. these sensors cost like 15-20bux each
check it
o2

[curtklze]

it says I dont have permission to view.

can you cut and paste the write up on to this post.

[papa roached]

SWEET!

[mxer4eva]

yeah i posted this thread a while back, in a thread where someone was looking to replace their o2 sensor. But no one paid it any attention. But any how ill repost it.

You don't want to look at the wires on the existing O2 sensor harness for color codes.

What you want to look at is the connector on the vehicle harness. Wire you want is the O2 sensor ECU input wire. The right O2 sensor input wire is Black/Yellow (that is black with a yellow stripe), and the left O2 sensor input wire is Blue/White.

What I would do.. is pull the old (bad) O2 sensor off the car, and cut the wires so you have the old sensor connector and as much of the wiring on it as possible. Then either buy a Universal one wire O2 sensor (comes with it's own crip connector and heat shrink tubing), or you could get a O2 sensor for a 84 caprice... I believe they are cheaper but you'll need your own crimp connector or my favorite solder and heat shrink.

After you get the new O2 sensor and have the cut off harness from the old O2 sensor what you want to do is identify which wire on the old sensor's harness is the one that you want to connect to the new sensor's single output. To do this you want to match up the wiring on the connector to the wire colors from the harness on the car, that way you'll be certain to get the appropriate wire regardless of who manufactured the old O2 sensor (different manufacturers use different colors for the sensor output). After you've found the appropriate wire, connect that to the new sensor output by stripping the two wire ends and either soldering them or crimping them together. The other three wires can either be removed from the connector (a little tricky but recommended) or you can cut them short and tap them off. It is important to isolate each wire seperately, because two of them are the heater wires and are connected to the main power relay to the ECU; shorting them will blow a fuse and the car will not run. Then tape it all up, put the sensor in, and plug it into the harness.

What I did with mine is I tapped a wire into the O2 sensor and ran it up near the battery. That way I could check the O2 sensor voltage to make sure it varies. I checked it again yesterday and from a cold start it takes about 30 seconds for the O2 sensors to start responding (mind you this is the one wire sensors that I bought new, and they are not heated). By responding I mean they show approximately .3-.4 volts at idle, and when I manually revved the engine by hand actuating the TB valve, the voltage would go up to about .7. That's on a 0-1volt scale 0 being lean and 1 being rich, so the numbers I'm getting seem appropriate.

[curtklze]

?sweet? what is sweet? you cant even view it? there is nothing there? what is soo sweet about that?

[Buff1110]

all of a sudden u cant view pages on probetalk until ur logged in, anyhow basically it says u get a universal single wire o2 sensor for a 84 chevy caprice v6, bosch model number 11027 i believe. on my 92, i cut the wires on my old o2 sensor and u splice the 1 wire from the new o2 to the blue wire on the harness. u save 60bux by doing it this way and it works the same

[lakersfan1]

For further search reference, I'm adding the word: oxygen

How can you have a thread about oxygen sensors, and the word oxygen isn't mentioned once?

Anyways, the Bosch units were $23 a piece at AutoZone. It helps ALOT! I was almost at 100K miles. It eliminated all the dead spots in my acceleration, and made it easier than usual to get up over 7K RPM.

[Bradmx32003]

Is this simple to do for someone who just learned how to change his own oil?? Any tips at all? Or just read and re-read all this over and over again till it makes sense?? I just relaly dont wanna screw this up. Both o2 sensors on my 92 v6 need replacing... and to get original sensors would cost like 800 with labour =( and for universals it would cost 150 a piece for the sensors and then labour so probably around 500 incl. labour. So any tips on how to save money would help ALOT!! thanks.

[lakersfan1]

It's pretty easy. Took me only about 15 minutes of time tolling around under the hood, and 15 minutes in the house cutting and soldering.

The only tools you'll need are a 10mm socket to take out the front air box intake section under the lip of the hood and the plastic L resonator on the left side of the air intake. Then, an adjustable box wrench to take out the old oxygen sensors, and put the new ones in. And of course a soldering gun with solder, electrical flux, a wire crimp/sprip tool, and 8 2" long pieces of fairly narrow heatshrink. Maybe a little electrical tape for good measure. Also a piece of 150 grit - 400 grit sandpaper.

-So buy the pair of Bosch 11027 oxygen sensors.

-Let car cool off (open hood if you need to to make it faster - at least an hour after last time you ran the car)

-Take out the intake resonator and the intake part under the lip. (Assuming you don't have an aftermarket intake on)

-Jack up the entire front of the car as high as you can with your jack. The front wheels should nearly be off the ground. Put jackstands under each side of the front to keep from killing yourself.

- Slide ALLLLLLLLL the way under the car and look for the rear exhaust manifold. Find the oxygen sensor, and get your adjustable box wrench adjusted so it fits with no slack and wrench it off. Once you get it moving, it should be easy enough to undo by hand. When you get it out, let it dangle and get out from under the car.

- From the top of your car, look down where you took your intake pieces out, and find the front exhaust manifold oxygen sensor. Take out the same way.

- When both are out and dangling, follow each oxygen sensor's wires to the oxygen sensor wire clip. The clips will look like they are permanently mounted, but you should be able to slide it off a hidden retaining clip to the side or up/down. [Hint: the rear oxygen sensor is mounted near the right VRIS actuator all the way at the back top of the engine.]

-Take the sensors with thier wiring to your soldering area.

- First clip all the wires at the base of the oxygen sensor itself so you still can use the wires and wiring harness.

-Then recut all four wires so they are staggered in length by about a 1/4 inch length each so in case the heatshrink came off, they wouldn't short. The blue wire should end up being the longest wire when you're done. Repeat on other wire harness.

- Pull the flexible shielding back as far as you can and tape it up so it doesn't try sliding down over the wire ends while you're working on the ends.

- Put a piece of heatshrink over both black and a the white (all individually of course so they each have thier own shiedling.) Use a match (or a heat gun if you're fortunate enough to have one) to shrink the heat shrink. If using a match be sure not to leave it on so long to start melting the heatshring. If the heatshrink can still slide up and down the wire afterwards, you need to go back and use a smaller diameter heatshrink.

- Then use your wire stripping tool to cut back an 1/8" of wire on the blue wire end, and twist the wire tight.

- First, make sure you slide a piece of heatshrink over the oxygen sensor wire before you start assembling it. Then, insert the end into the crimp connector provided on the end of the oxygen sensor.

- Crimp the connector on the blue end nice and tight.

- Stuff a little flux in the crimped hole all the way around the perimiter.

- Use a soldering gun (not a soldering iron) and heat up the metal crimp connector until the flux starts bubbling.

-Then, push some electrical solder into the sides of the hole while still keeping the hot soldering gun on the metal crimp connector to keep it hot. The melted flux should suck the solder into what's left of the hole in the crimp connector.

- Slide heatshrink over crimp connector and shrink just like you did the other heatshrink.

- Untape the flexible shielding and slide it back over all the wires all the way down to the oxygen sensor so that the wires by the harness side are exposed.

- Go back to car. Sand down the flush outside part of the sensor mounting hols in the manifold until shiney metal is exposed. One of the wires you just eliminated was a ground, so the sensor will now need to ground to the exhaust manifold itself, and rust won't do. Try to be careful to not get any sanding dust into the hole. If you get some inside the lip, try to clear it with a pinky finger. You don't want that stuff getting into your catalytic converter and clogging it any more than it already is.

- Then, plug in the oxygen sensors to the respective wire harnesses. Make sure when you plug in the rear sensor, to slowly lower it down to where the exhaust manifold is.

- Do the front harness first so you know what you're doing on the one under the car. Take off the protective plastic cap from the oxygen sensor. It should have anti-sieze compound on the threads. Make sure no anti-size got on the head of the oxygen sensor. If it did, wipe it off gently with a clean rag or towel.

- Then, turn the oxygen sensor counterclockwise 4 complete revolutions [The wire starts binding up.]

- While rotated, insert in hole in manifold and start threading by hand. Use the adjustable box wrench when it starts to get hard to turn. Turn it until snug with firm, but not hard, pressure.

- Insert the plastic intake pieces again.

- Start car. Let warm up 30 seconds or more, then take on test drive. If you don't get any check engine light, you're good to go.

The only difference between these sensors and those obnoxiously expensive OEM or 3 wire ones is that the one wire sensor does not have a heating element in it. What's that mean? That your car will run rich until the oxygen sensors heat up. How long you ask? 30 seconds to a minute. Once they're warmed up, you'll enjoy just as much fuel savings as if you had bought the $100-$200 a pop OEM oxygen sensors.

<small>[ March 06, 2004, 07:16 PM: Message edited by: lakersfan1 ]</small>

[jpwmx3]

That's a great write-up!....I thought I had to do my O2 sensors when my car started to intermitently bog down bad and my CEL light come on. I pull the codes and its both O2 sensors.!
I couldn't believe it, noooooo, don't do this to me...I took a chance and bought a $4.00 bottle of water remover for the fuel tank and put it in.
After that, the car ran great (must have got bad gas with water in it), I reset the computer and now no new codes, no hesitation and completely normal running engine.
So sometimes it can be a very cheap fix if you try the simple things first before spending big buxs.

[lakersfan1]

BTW, this will only work on OBD1 engines. So not sure if some of the foreign MX-3 V6 went OBD2 after they stopped selling MX-3 in North America. The OBD2 had 4 sensors instead of 2, and the computer will check for the existance of the heaters in a 3 or 4 wire oxygen sensor.

[Bradmx32003]

hey thanks ALOT laker person. That will help me out tons. Should cost less then 800 bucks now.

[Gro Harlem]

Sweet write-up lakersfan!!

I just replaced my O2's this past weekend.


just a tip for people who want to use O2 sensor sockets and a 1/2" drive ratchet...this is the procedure I used to remove mine:

Front O2 sensor:
Remove the intake stuff that is in the way, and remove the distributor cap (no need to remove wires). Get a 2" extension and plug it into the ratchet, unplug the O2 sensor and put the O2 socket over the sensor THEN plug your ratchet into it. You should have clearance to loosen it with the disty cap removed


Rear O2 sensor:
Jack up the car as high as you can get it, secure on jackstands. Remove the crossbrace (4x17mm bolts) and you should have access to the O2 sensor. Now, you will need to put the socket over the O2 sensor BEFORE plugging the ratchet into it. Once you have it on there, slide the ratchet between the downpipe and shift-stabilizer rod and plug the ratchet about 1/2 way into the socket. I couoldn't get mine all the way in so 1/2 way worked for me. I used a cheater pipe once I had all that stuff on there to loosen it. Might take some trial and error with positioning your ratchet, but you should have enough room to get the ratchet on the socket, but the handle will be damn near touching the flex pipe while you loosen it.

[lakersfan1]

You had to remove your crossbrace? I got in there just fine without it. Didn't inconvenience me in the least. But on probetalk, they said the same thing for some reason.

[Buff1110]

i didnt have to remove any braces, just drive ur car up on ramps and get underneath it, i had plenty of room to reach up and change teh o2 this way.