Date:         Tue, 27 Feb 2007 14:45:41 -0500
Reply-To:     Sam Walters <sam.cooks@VERIZON.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Sam Walters <sam.cooks@VERIZON.NET>
Subject:      Re: Thread pitch / hole size for 1.9 WBX O2 / oxygen sensor -
              solution for stripped threads
In-Reply-To:  <45D7398A.5070000@verizon.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

About a week or 10 days ago I posted about a problem I had when I found
damaged or stripped threads in the O2 sensor hole on the 1.9l exhaust
collector.  I couldn't get a new O2 sensor or an old one to thread in
and had slightly damaged the threads of these trying.  (I had enough
sense to stop before I trashed them.)

Following Eric Zeno's helpful suggestion, I bought a spark plug hole tap
tool for $7 at Advanced Auto.   One end taps a 14mm spark plug hole -
Vanagon size, and the other end taps an 18mm spark plug hole - old Fords
I have seen posted and who knows what else.   A big fat hex section -
about 13/16th" is in the middle for turning the tap.  Since it taps the
O2 sensor hole on all WBX's, it is a very handy thing to have around.
Two useful tools for $7.

Anyway, using oil to assist the tapping, I cleaned out the sensor hole
in the collector.  It took some substantial effort (hard pressure on the
wrench) and repeated start, stop, back out the tool, go in about a 1/4
to 1/2 turn more, but I re-tapped and cleaned the threads until I could
put the whole tool in and out by hand.

But I had not found a tool to clean the slightly damaged threads of the
sensor.  I had an old one that had gotten damaged about the same amount
as I tried it earlier also.  I slowly screwed it in and out and quickly
the clean fresh threads of the pipe's hole clean up the sensor's
threads.  I did the same with the new sensor.  When I was done, I could
screw the sensor almost completely in just by hand.

I then put a small dose of anti-seize that is safe for O2 sensors on it
and tightened it back in.

I chose to remove the whole collector through muffler tip assembly
rather than try to do it with the pipe on the van.   I probably could
have done it but I couldn't get the van up off the floor in the GF's
garage due to the garage door assembly.  I knew the nuts and bolts
connecting the collector to the headers, and the support brackets to the
muffler and cat were all freshly replaced and would come apart easily,
whereas the nuts and bolts from the collector cat connection and on
through the tailpipe have moderate miles and rust on them and would be
more difficult.

So, there is a cheap tool that can solve this problem.  If you find bad
threads in your sensor hole, just go to a FLAPS and get this tool and
don't even try much to get the sensor in there.   This was an easy fix
after I learned about and bought the proper tool.

Thanks again to Eric for telling me about this and to the several people
who told me that the very different O2 sensors on the two types of
WBX's have the same thread pattern.

--
Sam Walters

Baltimore, MD