[V8] O2 Sensor replacement update

[Unka Bart]

Ah, there may be no joy in Mudville, but bretheren, Pensacola is 
positively brimming with the stuff!

I thought I'd pass along one or two helpful tidbits for those who have 
not yet had to do the job.

1.  The O2 sensor that everyone recommends is Bosch 15716 and fits the 
93 Ford F150 V8.  I got mine at my local NAPA for $46.88 plus tax.  On 
the bottom of the box, it says 15716 in large numerals, and 
0258005716009 in smaller numerals, and under that, "1 piece/1 pieza" (I 
know you don't care, I just thought I'd add that while I look to see if 
anal retentive requires a hyphen...)

2.  This (ford) sensor, as already noted, is a 4 wire sensor attached 
to a short pigtail with a dandy plastic connector.  The wires are in a 
square pattern, or 2 rows if you will, entering the back of the 
connector.  They are gray and black on the top row, and white and white 
on the bottom.

3.  Conventional wisdom is to go to a bone-yard and pull the female 
connector and splice that into the Audi harness.  Pensacola being the 
thriving hub of not very much, bone-yards around here are sparse and 
distant, I checked with NAPA and found the matching connector and 
pigtail (Napa part number EC97) for splicing into the Audi harness for 
a measly  $13.39 (plus the governor's cut).  Note that the pigtail on 
the Ford female connector has wires that are entirely different in 
color from the O2 sensor wires, but all you need to do is match them by 
position in the connector (see above) and add a wire to the wire from 
the female pigtail corresponding to the gray wire from the sensor and 
ground that wire to the engine block.  Audi grounds the sensor through 
it's body to the exhaust pipe where it mounts which is why Audi didn't 
have a 4th (gray) wire.  I ran mine up to the outside acorn nut at the 
dizzy.  I used a ring terminal under the nut which is easy to access 
once the left intake horn has been removed.

The hardest and most time consuming part of this job (not counting time 
spent looking up the wisdom from others of you who have done this 
before) was getting the old sensor out.  I had to give up and take it 
to an independent muffler shop.  That sucker was in so tightly that 
getting it out stripped the threads in the hole (and on the sensor, but 
who cares about that).  Fortunately, because this happens a lot, they 
had the correct threading die and re-threaded the hole without problem. 
  They also put the car on a lift so it was infinitely easier to work on 
than jacked up and on Jack-stands in my driveway.  It was also easy to 
pull the harness down to measure where to cut off the old sensor so 
that the new spliced sensor assembly (connectors included) would be the 
same length as the old.  Also easy to run the new extended gray wire up 
to a point where, when we lowered the car, it was easy to reach and 
bring to the new grounding point on the block.

Imagine my joy when I inserted the key and it started immediately.  And 
all the way home as the beastie was noticeably more eager and smooth.  
Yea, lord, verily; I am a happy camper, especially since I am driving 
to the Jupiter/West Palm beach area this Friday and the idea of 18 
MP(very expensive)g did not thrill me.

Well, enough.  Hope this is useful for someone.

Bart and the newly invigorated Gentleman's Express
(still curious as to why the engine wouldn't start with the black wire 
- definitely from the O2 sensor - disconnected..)