Postive Thoughts Needed!

[Bill K 111]

Failed the MOT yesterday on emissions. Suspected Lambda sensor. Am about to crawl under the car and try and change it. Very much praying that the old one practically unwinds itself with just a sniff of the WD40.

Any last minute suggestions from the 'been there done that' brigade before I start would be mucho appreciated. Otherwise, all positive 'it will come undone...it will come undone' thoughts gratefully received.

Bill K

[Lotus Lewis]

this might be of some use

http://wiki.seloc.org/a/Lambda_sensor

[Bill K 111]

Thanks for that. Although I saw that before and realised then that it wasn't going to be a bag of laughs

[TonyHetherington]

Spray WD40 on it now, then leave it for half hour, and spray it again

[Bill K 111]

I couldn't believe it - the whole positive thoughts thing worked! (a bit)

Tried to pull the heat shroud back from the lambda sensor lead to get a look at the sensor itself and most of it came away in my hand. Looks like it hadn't been connected for several years...that'll be why it's never liked the MOT man then! (interesting how well the car has run without a lambda sensor for years.) I can now get a socket on the bit that's screwed into the manifold.

Socket + breaker bar + foot and it unscrewed no problem. Was feeling amazed by the postive thoughts thing until I tried to screw the new sensor in. The thread in the manifold clearly didn't want to be left behind and was also sitting on the garage floor.

So now what to do?

Whatever happens, the manifold has to come off now. Is it worth getting a helicoil insert put in just to put an old manifold back up. Also the rich mixture has probably knackered the cat by now so I may as well put a new one up and should I really be bolting it all onto the rusty silencer that's on it's last legs. Hmmm....