Hey fellas, got a V8 2004 super cab, anybody here change their own oxygen sensors?

I know where they're located, I changed the upstream left hand side, but the upstream right hand side seems impossible to access without the help of a child or someone with tiny arms and hands.

I have perfect access to the exhaust end of the right-side upstream sensor, that's not an issue at all. But the electrical end of the sensor is way up by the dash. Am I just not seeing a better way to get my hands in there to disconnect the electrical connector, or do I have to remove some parts to get to it? It's annoying when you can see it, but can't touch it...

Thanks, guys.

 

Hey guys,

After a couple of hours and a lot of F-Bombs, I managed to get the upstream right hand sensor out on the 2004 V8 Super Cab. For anybody out there that is trying to change their sensors themselves, it is possible to get to the electrical connector end of the upstream right-side sensor from underneath, behind the wheel well. The left-side is a piece of cake in comparison. You don't even need to jack up the truck, really.

I got it out with the help of a friend. I could only get up in there enough to get my finger to press down on the tab while my buddy pulled on the cable, and we finally got the electrical end of the sensor disconnected. We found that my arms were blocking the cable as I was depressing the tab, so it was very helpful to get a zip-tie around the sensor cable (also a huge pain in the *** to do) so he could have something to pull on while my arms were blocking the actual cable itself as I was depressing the tab.

Then, to unscrew the exhaust end of the sensor, we found that the special O2 socket is useless on the right hand side because there's absolutely no room to fit the O2 socket, and a rachet on top of that because, in a great moment of Ford design, the exhaust end of the sensor is pointing up rather than down (works just fine for the upstream left side though!). Use a regular 7/8 wrench and a hammer to get it loose, spend 10-15 minutes slowly and painstakingly unscrewing it with the wrench to the point where you can use your hand to unscrew it.

We found it was better to cut the sensor cable as close to the exhaust end as possible, as the sensor cable was getting caught up in rotation due to only having 5 inches of head room, and actually preventing rotation. Even then we still had to push the wires over with every full rotation...F-bombs galore!

The point is...it's possible to do this without removing any parts. Don't give up, and just hope your hands and wrists are small enough to fit into that space! Afterwards, it brought great joy to stomp on the old sensor, trust me. You'll feel better.

For more info or clarification, PM me

 

Hello, A friend's saga of removing the left (driver's side) upstream sensor from his 1997 F-150 4.6L came to an end yesterday.

We got our hands on it and couldn't turn it.
We removed the front drive shaft, got our hands on it and couldn't turn it.
We removed the "Y" pipe and it broke while trying to turn it.
We drilled and tapped out the remainder with a cold chisel and chased the threads.

The metal was very well fused. 56,000 miles over 17 years.
There was no compression washer from the factory.
The replacement sensor had a washer and we copper anti-seized it. Kira