Mass air flow sensors

[drobertson]

Just throwing this out there, has anyone bought one ? replacing the existing failed one, and did you have to buy the whole assembly for 250 bucks, or has anyone bought the direct fit sensor only, for 50 to a hundred bucks?  been looking and found some but coming up with mixed searches. I only need the sensor not the whole housing,, thanks.

[Savannahdan]

David:  Did you look on RockAuto.com? 

[drobertson]

David:  Did you look on RockAuto.com?

no, and thanks will do,, appreciate it,,

[Ox]

I do this crap all the time.  Just get the sensor.  Find out the part number for it and plug it in to google - you'll quickly get the cheapest price.  I've saved thousands of dollars using this method for all sorts of different parts.  Yes, it takes a little time but it's really worth it.

I've been successful in cleaning and fixing most air flow sensors.  Don't believe all the hype about needing special cleaners.  I have real world experience with this.  Get a good squirt bottle with acetone in it.  You should see sensor wires and some kind of a glass thing in the sensor.  Squirt the hell out of all of that with the most powerful stream of acetone you can manage.  Then give it a burst of compressed air to flush out the crap.  Do this a second time.  Don't touch anything in there.  This usually gets a thrown code for that sensor to go away.  If it's easier and cheaper for you to get the special cleaner, it's all good.  It's just that I've always had a squirter with acetone in it for gasket surface cleaning and whatever else.

Good luck and let us know if any of my garbage work, OK?

[drobertson]

will do, again, thanks,, ox..

[btulloh]

The hard part is finding a squirt bottle that won't dissolve in the acetone.  At least that was my experience.

[Ox]

I use a Pro Spray bottle with the acetone.  Red lettering on a mostly clear bottle and red and whitish spray head.  Guess it's lucky it can handle it cause it's been in there a few years.  On the other hand, the big Zep bottles don't even handle bleach for long.

I bet if you used any plastic spray bottle it'll be okay as long as you rinse the acetone out immediately after using it.  These bottles when they melt don't happen instantly, at least not for me.

[Ox]

I forgot to mention, you might have to reset your PCM in the vehicle to get the cleaned sensor to register properly.  It can be done simply by disconnecting the negative battery cable and let it set for around 1/2 hour.  This resets everything and the PCM will relearn everything from scratch again, including the clean sensor.  Might be just the ticket for ya.

[jwilly3879]

Did it throw a code for the sensor? Mine came up bank 1 lean which is sometimes caused by the MAF. Could also be a vacuum leak somewhere, mine was the pcv stuck open, cleaned it, reset the ecm and it's been good for quite awhile.

[drobertson]

yes the code came up, and its been awhile I've been driving it,, short trips to the shed and town, but it got bad yesterday, I did a massive spray job with the 8 buck can of MAFL cleaner,  the last trip around the field was better but still a stutter on the get go when pedal to the medal.  I will disconnect the battery just to see, a twenty year old truck, I'm thinking it may be bad, just hate to spend more than needed.  Side note, not related, I just had some killer stir fry fresh from the garden,, so it's not so bad, sun is going down as is the heat, I will for sure keep you guys posted as to the fix, and thanks again for the inputs, more the better, part suppliers can be hard to find, and or navigate their web sites..  david

[jwade]

auto parts warehouse .com is also pretty reasonable