Aussie O2 cleaning trick?

Okie Dokie....I have a cousin in Cairns Australia up in Queensland and we talk on the phone about every 3 weeks.....he's a car dealer and offroader (aren't they all?) so I'm bitcin bout my freakin O2's on my 96 and how i can seem to get them to live very long and the freakin prices. He goes "mate you just take em out and emery cloth em to clean em, that all we do and they work great...u yanks don't really think straight do ya?" He swears it's truth.
So have any of you guys or "Sheilas" ever done or heard of that?
He's usually straight w/ me so......:gee:

BobDog

That would clean the outside, but how about inside those little slits?

Yeah I don't know 'bout that.

my buddy cleaned his with a wire wheel and ran them for another 50k. Works fine if it is bad because it is dirty, if it is flat out failed then no

We cleaned them with a propane torch. Get them good and hot and it burns off all of the junk. If it is failed electrically then no joy, but otherwise it works.

5.0 Junkie said:

We cleaned them with a propane torch. Get them good and hot and it burns off all of the junk. If it is failed electrically then no joy, but otherwise it works.

Click to expand...

I've heard of using a torch before, but never tried it myself. It sounds like it would work better than just cleaning the outside.

Well thanks guys.....I'm going for the ole torch trick....I'll let ya know
:firedevil

Emry cloth should help.

My wife's camry had a check engine light I couldn't fix. I put a bunch of money in parts into it - the last thing i did was check the thermocouple on the EGR system. (becuase it was $$) I pulled it out and tested it - seemed fine, but it had a bunch of carbon build up. I hit it with emry cloth and shined it up good. Put it back in and the code cleared. It might be the carbon was insulating it and keeping it from responding to temp changes in the right time.

What about a good spray of electrical contact cleaner or brake cleaner, or even a soaking? To clean the inside and such...