Oxygen Sensor

[Hi Ho]

I bought a new oxygen sensor for my 1990 Civic today. The one on there hasn't worked for ten years. :o Anyway, I don't have a stupid oxygen sensor socket and I forgot to buy one. :mad: They could eliminate the need for a special tool by making the sensor 1/16in bigger so a sparkplug puller would fit and allowing the removal of the wire. It just annoys me that all these special tools are needed for things that could easily be made to work with conventional tools. Anyway, what will replacing the oxygen sensor do? Will it make it run better? It already runs perfectly. Will it get better milage? It already gets 42mpg. I'm not sure what difference it will make if any. I did replace the fuel filter today since I have never replaced it even after 324,000 miles. The fuel inside the old one was extremely DIRTY. I need to start getting better at doing maintanance on time. :) I have never changed the transmission fluid. I'm afraid to. :eek:

[FLG]

The oxygen sensor controls the oxygen/gas mixture too much gas and you get a rich mixture. With rich mixtures unburned fuel makes pollution. If there's too much air you get a lean mixture. Which makes more pollutants, and it can cause poor performance and sometimes can damage your engine.

So when your oxygen sensor dies the computer doesn't know the air/gas ratio and it just well guesses, which can use more fuel then needed and your engine performance will take a hit.

If you have a heated sensor you should have changed it at 30k unheated 60k.

Get your new oxygen sensor in there hiho, you should see better gas mileage, better engine performance, less emissions and your cat converter will have less work to do.

[Spartan]

Wow. If it runs good and gets 42 to the gal I don't know what you could expect, lol.

-Spartan

[Hi Ho]

Nice! So maybe I'll get up to 45mpg with the new filter and oxygen sensor. Who needs a hybrid? :D

[Panama Red]

I usually buy my parts from the local Auto Zone. They also rent/loan tools when you buy the part. When I changed an O2 sensor a while back, I left a deposit for the wrench and they refunded the money when I returned it a few hours later. Made the job much easier.

[Hi Ho]

Well I'll just buy an oxygen sensor socket. I thought I had one but I can't find it anywhere. Maybe having one will inspire me to replace it more often. My 95 Civic is probably about ready for a new oxygen sensor. My van probably needs one too.

[Redfallon]

I would second PR on that, an O2 sensor socket is one of those things you'll use so infrequently....Although unless you're also replacing something with a core charge, you have to make a special trip up there....but it was $15 deposit to use one the other day...Most vehicles today the O2 sensor is on the manifold, that's almost justification for changing it in Autozone's parking lot :) If you're doing a sensor after the cat however.....

Hi ho- you *should* get better gas mileage, but with 42 already, I don't know, dang good for a 1990! 324000 is pretty good for a fuel filter too!

[Iniamyen]

It just annoys me that all these special tools are needed for things that could easily be made to work with conventional tools.

I hear that. Can anyone say TORX?

[Hi Ho]

Well I bought an oxygen sensor socket and replaced the dang thing. The engine runs noticably smoother. I thought it was running smooth already. I drove to town yesterday and the check engine light didn't come on. Today I went further, to Olympia and the check engine light came on twice! Now what?! The magic red light under the carpet (the computer) tells me... well I'm not sure. According to the manual if there are zero blinks the computer isn't working. If there is one blink it is either the oxygen sensor, pressure regulator, or spark plug misfire. Now, the light blinks as follows; one short blink, pause, one short blink. I'm not sure what that means. Basically the manual is telling me that if there are no blinks there is a problem and if there are blinks there is a problem. So what means everything's working fine? I'm confused. I don't know what's not working now. There is definetly no mis-fire. I'm not sure what effect a bad fuel pressure regulator would have. Any ideas?

[FLG]

To see if the fuel pressure regulator is bad you need a fuel pressure guage. If you can get one then that would be good, if you cant you can bring it to a auto shop and tell them to check it.

[MichaelS]

I could be completely wrong about this since its a Civic in question, but I know with GMs, your supposed to unplug the car battery for 5 minutes and do an 'idle' relearn after doing anything to the car that would affect the A/F mixture. The car would also have to learn the proper fuel trim (aka A/F mix) for when your driving.

Hope that helps,

Michael

P.S. do you know if the connector under your dash/steering is a 12 pin OBD 1 connector ?

[Hi Ho]

The manual says to disconnect the battery for 15 seconds. I just read that and I haven't done it yet because I'm not too crazy about resetting everything on my radio, which has a LOT of settings. Oh well, I guess that's a pathetic reason. :) I'll do it and see what happens. I don't think it has OBD I. I believe that is the reason for the light.