Another case of "old is better than new"

I just spent the evening replacing a simple oil pressure sensor on Lisa's
2012 Charger R/T (5.7 hemi).
The equivalent job on our old rides is what, 5 minutes?
Well....on a 5.7 in a Charger, it's hours....and I mean hours.

It all started yesterday as we made our weekly rounds of shopping and errands.
The car suddenly displayed the check engine light, yet nothing seemed amiss in
operations - so I rolled through the message center and discovered it was suddenly
claiming the engine was seeing 99 PSI!
Yeah, uh, no....

So I do a little due dilligence online and discover that this is a fairly common issue
with not only this engine, this car, this MARQUE - but in most modern rides in general.
Quite the little cottage industry in selling $50 replacement sensors on the critters,
turns out.
Granted, the car has been perfect for 8 years and 80k miles now, but such a thing
still was a surprise...

Now, you'd think the thing would be located near the oil filter or on a primary oil
passage somewhere - and it is - but what you would NOT expect is how damn hard
they seemingly worked to HIDE the damn thing.
Up under the modular front accessory drive mount monster, shielded on one side by
the pulleys and water pump and such and crowded into invisibility by the alternator
on the other, if I hadn't done my research, I'd have never found the little rascal at all.
Unreal - and totally unnecessary.

Replacement becomes a topside AND downside affair subsequently - up top, to get
the belt out of the way and undo the top bolt on the alternator; underneath, the
requisite removal of all manner of belly pan and such to get at the lower two bolts
for same. BOTH bottom bolts nestled snugly up against frame rails and such to boot,
with no room for adult hands to access without shredding same into ribbons.
Once all that crap is finally undone - well, there that little bastard is.
I go ahead and snap off the plastic head of the thing with harness/connector still
attached, foregoing the usual wrasslin' match with red tabs and "hold yer jaw juuust
right" disconnect methods of THOSE little marvels of engineering...

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

You'd think a decent deep socket would extract the core sensor, but nooooo.....
it takes a SPECIAL socket just for oil pressure sensors, which will prove to be a
tool you'll never find another use for in your life again - but you'll mistakenly
grab it at least once a job in the future, guaranteed.
But I prattle...

Net result is it took about the same time to swap the $%&^$%^ sensor as it
would have for me to REMOVE the 440 from Fred the GTX....
all for a silly little Hecho en Mexico oil pressure sensor.

Wife was out there for the after-testing of my work and she said "well, YOUR
car has one of those, too you know" in mock offense.
I popped the hood on the GTX, handed her a pair of channelocks and pointed
to the sending unit on the back of the 440 and said "be sure to unplug it first.
5 minutes, tops."
Anways - job got done, I froze my *** off on the concrete floor, car is fixed and
we saved the $300 shop rate plus markup.

Oh....and the car didn't fall on me this time, either.

I replaced the same sensor on my 2012 ram and it was a five minute job. Only weird thing I found was that the new sensor DIDN'T require the sensor socket and did just use a deep drive. I have owned the sensor socket for years and have needed it a few times.

jimt1971rr said:

I replaced the same sensor on my 2012 ram and it was a five minute job. Only weird thing I found was that the new sensor DIDN'T require the sensor socket and did just use a deep drive. I have owned the sensor socket for years and have needed it a few times.

Click to expand...

Yep, on a Ram it's in the same place and it's a piece of cake....
Packaging, man. Makes all the difference. Feel me, dog?
There ain't so much as a camel hair of room under the Charger hood with that hemi in there.
It's like they molded the car around the damn thing...

Ironbuilt said:

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Nope, that wasn't happening this time. Too much probability of gnashing of teeth and cursing of inanimate
objects, you know....
Sho nuff, a lot of that did occur and I did discover my paltry little 110VAC space heaters can NOT keep up
with a chilly evening out there in that garage, either.
Just a quick pic of the typical 5.7 engine bay of a Charger, though - to show what I mean about 10 pounds
of shiyat in a 5 pound bag:

It's friggin wall to wall in there....but I do love the car itself. It's a hoot to drive,
has all the gadgets and is comfy for a man-sized adult.

moparedtn said:

Nope, that wasn't happening this time. Too much probability of gnashing of teeth and cursing of inanimate
objects, you know....
Sho nuff, a lot of that did occur and I did discover my paltry little 110VAC space heaters can NOT keep up
with a chilly evening out there in that garage, either.
Just a quick pic of the typical 5.7 engine bay of a Charger, though - to show what I mean about 10 pounds
of shiyat in a 5 pound bag:
View attachment 1066045
It's friggin wall to wall in there....but I do love the car itself. It's a hoot to drive,
has all the gadgets and is comfy for a man-sized adult.

Click to expand...

Is there an engine in there?

You always tell a great story Ed and I enjoy every word! I have had one of those oil sender sockets for more than 30 years, only needed it once! You just reminded me of the fact that my snow thrower impeller stopped during last weeks almost 2 feet of snow and I must freeze my butt off laying on the ground to fix it! Well, at least the beer will stay cold on the ground next to me whilst I toil!

a plastic cover covering the engine is a joke.

moparedtn said:

I just spent the evening replacing a simple oil pressure sensor on Lisa's
2012 Charger R/T (5.7 hemi).

Click to expand...

Ha ha...AS told by you in your unique and entertaining manner.
Well done, Sir.

I did the oil sender on my daughter 05 Neon...around back of the motor, tucked in and under a bunch of stuff....remove a bunch of stuff off the top of the motor so I could fit my arms down behind the motor, then still took me an hour or more to swap with mirrors and lamps so actually be able to "see" the sensor and the oil passage it screws into, and I too had to buy a special socket just to use it this once.

Ironbuilt said:

Is there an engine in there?

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Yeah, there's a cute little 345 cube V8 under all that plastic.

multimopes said:

You always tell a great story Ed and I enjoy every word! I have had one of those oil sender sockets for more than 30 years, only needed it once! You just reminded me of the fact that my snow thrower impeller stopped during last weeks almost 2 feet of snow and I must freeze my butt off laying on the ground to fix it! Well, at least the beer will stay cold on the ground next to me whilst I toil!

Click to expand...

You're too kind my friend, thank you. I figured my venom might bleed through on that one a tad bit, eh?
I mean really - those engineers, if they weren't downright malicious with the design, they certainly were
knotheaded about it...

*sympathy shivers*
Whew, my days of that type of shenanigans is well past. Drag that dang thing indoors, can ya?

67charger383 said:

a plastic cover covering the engine is a joke.

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I totally agree and they ALL do it! It's a trend I never understood.
Is it because of a notion that all the plumbing/wiring/injectors and such are somehow ugly to folks?
I think it's just a way for designers not to have to tidy up their underhood layouts....

Kern Dog said:

Ha ha...AS told by you in your unique and entertaining manner.
Well done, Sir.

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Oh thanks Greg, but I think you got the class of all "workin' on this" threads going right now, my friend...
on which (and I'd never say this on it!) I was thinking the other day on the transmission not seating
fully...
In olden times, we've all known guys on an A833 who would simply cut the end off the input shaft to make
it go in the bell all the way, right?
All I'm sayin'.
(Yes, I'm kidding)

Now you know WHY it would cost 300 at a good shop. Imagine doing jobs like that all day long on many different cars. Its not an easy profession my friend, if it was anyone could do it. And now you know why.

I got one of those torpedo heaters in my garage - something like 150,000 BTU and its a multifuel. Kerosene, diesel, JP8 (as if we all have jet fuel just sitting around in cans...). Heats my 40x40 from below freezing to "I gotta get this damn jacket off!" in about ten minutes. Indispensible.

Another reason why my newest car is over 14 years old.So far so good.
I really dread when I may have to buy anything new.

yella71 said:

Now you know WHY it would cost 300 at a good shop. Imagine doing jobs like that all day long on many different cars. Its not an easy profession my friend, if it was anyone could do it. And now you know why.

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How about "I'm pushing 60 and ALWAYS knew "why""?
I had the opportunity when quite young to enter into an apprenticeship at a dealer in NOVA
and since I'd been spinning wrenches with my dad since I could actually remember, it seemed
attractive once college money had run dry....

I found out after a couple months that the job simply was not for me - not because I couldn't
hack it, but because of the way dealerships drive their mechanics like pack mules and turned a blind
eye to what went out the door oftentimes.
If the book said 3 hours, that was all you got - it went out after that, regardless of whatever was cobbled
up and your *** was assigned the next in line.
Top that off with a service manager that deflected customers directly on to the mechanic (!) when they had
issues and that just killed it for me...

I did wind up working in an independent shop a couple years when I went back to college in order to pay
for things and that was a much better experience. Ran by a wise old fella that called you "Tiger" when he
was pleased with you (and some choice Jewish curse words when he wasn't), I learned a ton more there
faster than I ever would have at the dealer.
Wound up driving one of the "cradle snatcher" tow rigs in winter, too, since most of the guys couldn't
without running in to things or burning the clutches out of the rigs.
It was a lot of fun and I was sad to leave when I moved on to my first "real" architecture gig.

67charger383 said:

a plastic cover covering the engine is a joke.

Click to expand...

It may seem like a joke and I get it, pull along side of this and see what happens.

Triplegreen500 said:

I got one of those torpedo heaters in my garage - something like 150,000 BTU and its a multifuel. Kerosene, diesel, JP8 (as if we all have jet fuel just sitting around in cans...). Heats my 40x40 from below freezing to "I gotta get this damn jacket off!" in about ten minutes. Indispensible.

Click to expand...

Yep, that has been considered but...
I've breathed many a fume from those things on jobsites over the years and to be honest, if I never smell that
again, I'll be one happy camper for sure.