RedneckWhiskey

Passenger side you can see the flange and bolt, sorry it was the best picture I could get.

Passenger side and you can barley see the O2 sensor a top/center of the image.

Passenger side in attempt to change upper O2, if you look closely you can see where the welded it back together.

Drivers side and how easy it is to reach.


Here is a diagram I put together to help understand what I'm explaining.
Hi,

This is a cluster smuck of craziness, so this will be a long write up, I apologize in advance. I broke a part of the muffler above the catalytic converter on the passenger side after hitting a awful pothole. Right away it got ten times louder and the smell of fumes was crazy, also the CEL came on and I got the car home as quickly as I could. I would expect the CEL to come on after that but prior the CEL never was on. After carefully looking it over I thought I could just put a "Walker" clamp or "C" clamp if you will and just throw some sealer on it and be done. Well I am trying to take care of this car and my better senses talked me out of the Jerry rigging. So after all that I decided to let a locally owned garage/tire shop with a Nation wide brand name fix it for me. The garage has been in business for over 30 years and my fiances family swear by this place. Well by the time I had it towed to the shop several months had passed by because of work, kids, life ya know. I tried days prior to start it but it would not stay running longer than 5 seconds or so. Me and my neighbor decided it had to be the fuel filter so when the car arrived I gave very specific instructions on what I'd like to have done. 1. Put some type of clamp on it if you can, 2. Figure out why it won't start. It was on a Friday mid-day when it got there and the owner said "Give me a call tomorrow and we will have a chance to look at it", Saturday came and gone with no answer at the shop or a call back. Which I understood would likely happen because they are only open until noon on Saturday's and closed Sunday. I call on Monday and the owner said "We will get to it tomorrow because we are backed up" & "Give me a call tomorrow", OK! No problem there, it's a busy shop and I've had a few things done there. I know the business they get keeps them steady, I call on Tuesday and the owner stated "Go ahead and give me a call tomorrow and we will figure it out for you" , please be advised that on each call I made to them I reminded them on what I think should be done and given the fact, I don't have expectations it will go down like the way I'd hope is a possibility. Nevertheless this garage ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS calls you to make you aware and approve the repairs their about to do by you. Well Wednesday rolls around and I call around noon to be informed to call back in a few hours and they will know which way they recommend to go. I waited and waited, they didn't call so I called back and they said "It's ready to pick it up", I was floored and amazed it was done hopefully the way I hoped. Not a chance in hell guys, the owner gave me the total and it was over $1,200! I said what the hell is going on! I said why didn't you call and all he could say was "That's my fault" & "We try to treat you right" and on and on with this B.S., after a couple hours of me hanging up on them and cursing them out, they lowered the price down very slowly but to a final resting spot of $636. Which I'm still pissed about, they replaced my fuel pump with a new one also they stated and hired some outside guy to come in and weld back together my pipe, now here is my on-going issue the CEL and smell of fuel that only I smell but my fiance can't? I got the car back and within 10 miles the CEL came on and I had the codes ran at Auto Zone and it was P1131 O2 sensor switch indicates lean bank 1 & P1285 Cylinder head temperature sensor over temperature condition. Mind you this car has never over heated, so I went and bought a upper O2 sensor and be damned if I can't even get to it! A couple days later I stopped by Advance auto parts and they ran the codes and only P1131 showed up so I went back to Auto Zone and had them run it again and it showed the same, only P1131. So this is where I'm at, the garage that did this work wants me to take it to another shop and get a second look. They have stated they will fix whatever is wrong with it, no charge. Is it possible that when this guy welded back my mid-pipe if you will that maybe he turned it wrong or something? Also on the smell of gas here and there does that have something to do with this chaos, I'm lost and can only speculate, I know after reading this forum they are some experts on mustangs here and I felt this was the best forum to write this story about. Here is some additional information about my mustang, it has 131,610 miles, no mods for the motor and everything runs fine except for what I mentioned and this weird hesitation after 3rd or 4th gear I'm guessing. I switched out the TPS sensor afetr reading that was the possible cause for the hesitation. Anyways I appreciate who reads this and I apologize for it being so long, I felt you needed to here the whole thing to get a grasp of what could be the problem. I have attached a few photos of when I got under it to change the O2 sensor, so any help of ideas will be greatly appreciated.

RedneckWhiskey

* I apologize for the subject line, it's a 3.8.