1997 Toyota Camry V6 forward Oxygen (O2) Sensors Remove & Replace

So, today I'm gonna replace the forward oxygen sensors on my 1997 Toyota Camry. I looked all over the web and couldn't find a video that does this so I thought I'd make one myself. So, wish me luck! The first order of business is to locate the oxygen sensors. There are two forward oxygen sensors. There’s one on the front manifold which is right there… very easy to find. That’s the oxygen sensor. And the other one we’ll have to go underneath the car to find. So, to find the rear O2 sensor ([rear] forward O2 sensor) Start at the front of the car. That's the bumper underneath. There’s the splashguard. Going back here’s the exhaust manifold coming down from the front and then there's a ‘Y’ where the rear exhaust manifold joins it. then you can see this is the rear exhaust manifold it goes up to the engine and uh... you’ll see something coupled there. That is not it. But if you get around and look in there right above that… whatever that thing is… you can see the back of the oxygen sensor right there. Let’s see if I can get a better shot of it. So there's the rear of the two forward oxygen sensors. It's not a very easy place to get to but there's a little room up in there to turn a wrench so I’m gonna see if I can get a wrench on it. But the first order of business is to uh... go ahead and spray some PB Blast on there to try to break it loose and let it sit for a minute. So this is a product that was recommended online called PB blaster. I’ve never used it before but I’m gonna give it a try now. So just spray that around the threads of the oxygen sensors – both the forward and the backward and let it sit for a while. That ought to do it. And I’ll spray the rear one. It turns out you can see the rear oxygen sensor from the top of the car if you come from the driver's side and just get down in here between the firewall and the engine. Let's see if we can find it again. It's down in there you can just see it in… There it is. So you can see it from the top. I don’t know if you’ll be able to reach it but we’ll try it if we have trouble reaching it. See if I can get a closer shot for you. So there it is. It’s easier to see than it is to reach. So the next order of business is to verify that the connector on the replacement O2 sensor matches the one on the car. So we’re just gonna take off the connector on the front sensor and make sure that it matches. So, following our cable up from the O2 sensor - it comes up behind the radiator hose, and goes up to the connector bracket right there. That's the gray connector right there. So that's the one… That's the uh... car side of the bracket. We're gonna disconnect the other side of that connector and verify that our new replacement goes to it. So there's the connector. I've taken it loose from the bracket so it’ll be easier to work with and there's a …uh… a tab here that you’ve got to squeeze because it's uh... locked on. Then just kind of gently pull it apart. You can see the little nib there that the tab was holding on to. We’ll get our replacement connector and hold it up next to that. It looks identical… so that's very encouraging. And if we wanted to we could plug it in just to verify but it looks pretty close. So there it is - the new one plugged in. We won’t plug it [in permanently] until we’ve replaced it. Okay. So, before I get too far into this job I should mention that I went by Autozone on the way home and they have a free tool loaning program and you can borrow an O2 sensor wrench kit from them. So this is the kit. There’s a sliced open socket that you can just put over the cable and… and then you can put your three-eighths wrench in there and break it loose. Um, I assume this one's…oh…This one’s a little deeper. Then this one is even deeper. So um... So you have three choices in this kit. You can just use a… an open end combo wrench but I have a feeling these are gonna grab it a lot better. And so I’m going to use these to remove the sensor. Okay, so with the sensor detached - the cable is detached. Okay, so it's free. Um... I’m gonna try the deep socket first and see how that goes. So I just slide it on there, get the cable in the slot - but this one’s not slotted all the way up so the cable will bend over just a little bit but it fits right on there nice and snug. And then this one's a three-eighths inch drive. I’m not sure why it’s not half-inch since this may take a breaker bar. I put my socket on the… my ratchet on the socket. Let me just see how hard it is to turn these things. Okay so it's not going without a fight. So, I’ll get a little help here… from a pipe. Okay those of you that were paying attention noticed that I was turning it the wrong way. So, set your wrench to remove it. Okay? That’s very important. [I’m] just checking to see if you're paying attention. Okay, so lefty loose-y, here it goes. There may be blood. Okay, so it's not going without a fight even in the right direction. Put the pipe on there… and something broke. Hopefully the threads broke loose. Okay, and it went a little ways and stopped. Put the pipe back on there. Okay, I’d heard that this might happen. So I’m gonna spray a little more penetrating oil on this and let it sit a little while longer I’ll go underneath and see what I can do with the back sensor. So when I got the wrench off of this front sensor and tried it with my fingers I realized it was loose. The wrench was just binding. So I can just go ahead and take it off the rest of the way with my fingers. And there's what an old sensor looks like. I don't know how many miles this one has on it. I would assume probably over a hundred thousand. So we’ll get the new one. And the new one's got all this packaging stuff so make sure you get all that off. It would not smell good [if it got hot] Get the rubber band off of there. And then it's got a plastic cover. Make sure you take that off. And…uh…be careful not to lose your little compression ring here. Keep that on there. And we're just gonna screw that back in right where we just took out the old sensor. Make sure you get it threaded right. Just take your time and it should thread very easily right up to the end. Let the cable just swing free and then make sure it's not twisted whenever you go to route it. Okay, so I’ve got it finger tight and I’m just gonna put a wrench on there now, tighten it up to get the compression rings compressed. …or the washer… whatever you call it. I’m gonna carefully put the socket on there. Once again sliding the cable into the slot and bending the cable over and all the way down on it. Okay. And I’ve switched my ratchet wrench over to tighten. I know some of you were worried about that. Then we tighten it. I don't have a torque wrench and I don't know what the torch should be so I’m just gonna tighten it down hand tight until I feel like those rings are compressed… like that compression washer, or whatever it is, is compressed. Alright, let’s take the wrench off it. Okay, you can see there that's compressed it's in there good and hand tight uh... with the wrench. Now I’m gonna route the cable up behind the radiator hose and connect it with the car. I’m gonna connect the cable from the new sensor to the car harness. So you have this little squeeze tab here and you have this little nib on your connector. Those go together. There's also a little… there’s guides so you can’t screw it up. It's slotted and clocked so you can’t put it in the wrong way unless you’re a gorilla. Okay, so I’m gonna push this in until I hear the connector snap or see it go down which...I did both. And I’m gonna pop the connector back into its bracket here right behind the transmission fill tube. And the front one is complete. I’m just gonna verify that the cable is not going to get caught into any machinery there. And it looks like it's clear. So that's how you replace the front one. Now the fun begins. So here I am under the bowels of the car and looking at the connector for the rear oxygen sensor. And to give you an idea of where it is - that's the connector. I’m backing out now. You can see where the exhaust manifold is. So it's right above where the sensor is and you can reach it by reaching over this uh... cross member from the back. So, I don’t know if you can see that from the back I’m going to reach around this cross member right here Of course, you want to do this with the muffler nice and cool. And you can see I’m wiggling the cable and uh... if your hand is skinny enough you might even be able to reach it and disconnect it. So, from behind the cross member and to the passenger’s side of the muffler pipe I was able to cram my hand up in there to where the connector is and the uh... little tab is on the driver's side of the connector. So I’m just squeezing the tab and trying to work the connector out with my right hand There’s not a lot of room to work Alright, so now you can see the disconnected car side of the sensor and uh... the technique I used, basically, was to… to uh... use my left hand to gently tug on the cable while my right hand uh... squeezed the tab and disengaged the little nib there on the side. and uh... it popped right out so I’ve gotten it loose now from the cable now I’m going to see if I can get a wrench on the actual sensor now. Okay, and there's the wrench. I’ve gotten it onto the sensor by reaching behind this cross member here again. So between the firewall and the cross member here you can put your both hands up there and kind of hand the wrench up to yourself with your free hand and then with the hand that's jammed in there you can get the wrench on the sensor, as you can see here. With the wrench on there I can just reach up between the firewall and the uh... cross member and all these hoses with my hand and uh... just grab it and pull down. Let’s see if I can break it. Okay, it’s gonna need the pipe again so I need to go get my pipe and see if I can get it on there. Okay, you can see here I’ve slipped the pipe over the uh... handle of the wrench. It turns out that it was easy to do - well, easy is not a good word - it was possible to do from the top so I did that. I just reached in from the top with the pipe and was able to slip it over the wrench handle. So now I’ll reach back up in there and see if I can break it loose. It's good to make sure that it's on there good before you go torquing on it. So, I’m gonna adjust that a little and then I’ll give it a good pull. Just a little side note: When you're under your car in this particular position - this is the drain hose for the air conditioner condensate and it just drips right on your forehead at a kind of an irregular interval sort of - there’s gotta be some kind of torture - either water boarding or Chinese water torture that this is comparable to. So, if you don't have to run your air before you do this job It might be a good idea not to. Just a little note. So I’m not sure if you can see this but I’m putting my left arm in front of the cross beam and my right arm behind the cross beam and my hands are just looping over the top of the pipe for the wrench handle and I just pulled down and it popped loose. So that's one technique you can try if you get your hands up in there. My hands are fairly large so if I can do it can probably do it. So I got the uh... the rear sensor out from the front two sensors and uh... to put the other one [new one] back in I had to use a technique where I reached up with one hand and tried to - and threaded it in and with the other hand I twirled the cable because it's so loose in there that if you if you turn it and you let go the cable will just unthread it. Make sure you do that. Turn the cable to the right as you’re threading the thing in. Once you get it threaded in then just put the wrench back up on it and you’ll be pushing the wrench up. Make sure you have it locked in the on position. You’ll be pushing the wrench up with both hands using that same technique - reaching around the cross beam from the front and the back. Just push it up. Once you get it snug then you…the connectors gonna go up into that into the car side of the connector and you'll be able to see this little tab here. If you have a light, you can see that tab and you need to make sure that that's engaged - this little nib is engaged with the tab. So if you can still see this that means it’s not engaged. You need to push it up until it does. You can't really reach it very well so what I did was I reached up and put my hand over the top connector and then I got a very long screwdriver and just pushed on the connector until I heard it snap into place. So that's just some tips for installing it. Once you do that you’re pretty much finished. Thank you for watching.