I wasent quite sure where to put this. so I put it here. my moms car is a 85 olds cutlas ceira brougham 3.0. and I have a couple questions. one is how hard is it to replace the O2 sensor? in the book it says its in the front exhaust but it is actualy in the back *of course*. in the book it basicly says to warm it up, spray it with lube and wait a little and screw it out. but as we all know it rarely goes as easy as the book says. lol

and problem two is:the battery. in all the batterys I have taken out and seen taken out I have never come across a battery that sparks more then this one with the ground on. my question is, is this normal? because correct me if I am wrong but shouldent a grounded battery not spark much? because lately Ive been having problems with the connection and sence its geting darker later now when ever I have to go out and fiddle with it I get quite a show. and there really isent a way to avoid it too. I am not geting shocked but I dont want it to damnage anything. any help would be great, thanks guys. matt:help:

I'm gonna move this to the "electrical" board. I'll try to help, first, though. With the Ox sensor, use a proper socket, and a long armed breaker bar. Use Blaster, or some other good pennetrating oil, and try to allow it to soak in.
after having done all that, try just wrenching it oput, but have a torch handy (to heat up the bung), just in case.
As for this "sparking", I'm confused. Do you mean it "sparks" if you drop a wrench across the terminals? Or does it just sit there and spark? Hope I've helped.

I'm gonna move this to the "electrical" board. I'll try to help, first, though. With the Ox sensor, use a proper socket, and a long armed breaker bar. Use Blaster, or some other good pennetrating oil, and try to allow it to soak in.
after having done all that, try just wrenching it oput, but have a torch handy (to heat up the bung), just in case.
As for this "sparking", I'm confused. Do you mean it "sparks" if you drop a wrench across the terminals? Or does it just sit there and spark? Hope I've helped.
no, I mean when I am tightening up the terminal. I can get kinda close to anything metle and sparks, other times not. I am mostly wondering if my ground could be not working very well. and thats why its sparking so much.

and what type of socket? could I just cut off the wire and use a spark plug socket? oh and thanks for your reply and moving it to the right fourm :D matt

The socket needs to be one specifically for an ox sensor. Parts houses sell em.
If you are getting sparks when you are only close to metal, something is not kosher. If the battery is a good one, and you are only trying to install it, and it "sparks", try removing the negative cable. Make installing the batterys negative cable the very last thing you do. See if that proceedure soesn't stop this sparking.

well, the PO said it was a new battery. the stupid battery is side posted and ever sence I dissconected it to clear the computer *other problems trying to see if it fixed it* it would start and run and then kinda out of the blue I would go to start it and nothing. so I get out and play with the + termanal *cause thats the only one I touched. the - side it in a Very hard place to get to* and for the most part it works till the next time. its just gets my goose every time it sparks. and its not like little sparks lol. and its also great timing that all of the car problems have been happening when its geting colder and darker and were geting alot of rain here LOL. always seems to happen like that.

the problem with the car is when I go to excelerate it seems like its boged down and when I let off the gas, Then it excelerate like it should. its Very anoying when your going up hills and the more I press on the gas the slower it goes unless I floor it and drops down a gear and then it moves a little faster, but the motor is revin pretty high *so it seems* the last couple fill ups Ive been geting about 11 city. yesterday I put on new cap/rotor/wires and a couple weeks ago I did plugs. and the muffler falling off helped a bit. after the muffler we were geting 15 city but now its been 11 or about. it doesent seem like its runing really rich. the exhaust is kinda has a sweet smell. I dont get a code for the o2. but I had in the past. but when I did I dident have the MAP sensor hooked up. can that problem be a bad O2 sensor? thanks for your help, matt

doesnt sound like a o2 sensor problem.
is this vehicle fuel injected or carburated?
my guess would be fuel filter or fuel pressure problem could even be a carb problem if carburated.
may also have an exhuast restriction such as the catylitic convertor getting plugged.
if you touch metal when you have a wrench on the positive cable it will spark as it is shorting to ground if you disconnect the negative first then you can tighten the positive cable without worrying about it shorting to ground when you accidently touch something metal, there is a metal support that runs directly over the battery on alot of gm models that can be removed for better access to the cables. probably just needs the positive cable cleaned and tightened up.

doesnt sound like a o2 sensor problem.
is this vehicle fuel injected or carburated?
my guess would be fuel filter or fuel pressure problem could even be a carb problem if carburated.
may also have an exhuast restriction such as the catylitic convertor getting plugged..
well we did take the car to our machanic and he said it was the fuel pump so we had him replace it. but even after that it wasent compleatly gone. the last thing I want to hear is that its the fuel pump:whine: lol it is a carb car, and as the theam of all cars after 1985 the pump is in a rather hard place for someone to do in there parking lot lol. the stupid thing is in the tank. is it posable to buy a in line pump and just bi-pass that pump? thanks for your help

the pump may not be bad there can be other causes there should be a paper filter in the carb inlet if you havent had it changed you could start there kind of a hard one to change they didnt give you much room. if you take it to a machanic call around first find someone that knows carbs very well and is capable of doing a carb rebuild instead of just replacement with a remanufactured unit from the parts store.
unfortuanately most vehicles mechanics work on now is all fuel injected so finding someone with alot of experience with carbs is sometimes hard to find.
there really isn't any way to bypass the fuel pump that would be easier than just replacing the in tank one if it was bad.