Note: This issues pertains to Sportsters and certain exhaust systems that have manufacturer installed bungs that produce wideband O2 sensor clearance issues (in this case specifically - Vance & Hines Side Shots and perhaps Short Shots). This post was posted on another forum and is re-posted here in it's entirety for convenience.

Posting this just in case it might be helpful to someone.

So another fellow around here installed the wideband O2 sensors on his Sporty sportin' Vance & Hines Short Shots. It's probably well known that the angle of the front bung on these pipes creates a clearance issue with the wideband 02 sensor and the the mid stabilizer link mounting bracket. Anyway, I imagine this fellow had to remove the bracket to get the WB sensor installed (cause I did). He ran it without any other modification and pretty much destroyed the senor (motor movement hammered it into the bracket).

So I have Vance & Hines Side Shots. They also have (almost identical) clearance issues with widebands. To get around the clearance issue I was pondering the possibility of doing some surgery on the sensor itself, but was hesitant for obvious reasons. Well based on the above mentioned individuals' experience and sensor post mortem, it gave me enough information/motivation to pursue the surgery option with more interest.

So here is the Bosch drawing for the sensor:

https://www.boschautoparts.com/docum...3-b81804d09e4b

You can see - item #9 - that the final 1/4" of the sensor body just contains a PTFE sleeve and five wires.

So with this information surgery commenced:

Two rings of metal casing cut away and initial removal of PTFE sleeve:





Note the first ridge/ring up the casing body (between 8 & 9 in the Bosch drawing). Right beyond that ring is what appears to be wire splices held in place by the PTFE sleeve. So with this info I cut just below the ridge/ring and no more.

The rest of the PTFE removed:



I used a little bit of RTV to reseal the bottom and add a little bit of flexible strain relief:



Wrapped the wires in self vulcanizing tape for extra protection and pulled the cable sheathing back up and tied it off:





Based on how it looked to me, the sensor surgery would not totally get the job done. The bracket itself looked like it needed to loose some weight. So grind grind:



I ended up removing just a little more material than shown in that picture. But that shows most of the loss.

End product:





So, I've ridden with this mod a couple of times. No issues. Based on how everything turned out, I don't think there will be. But you never know. If anything goes haywire, I'll post an update.

 

So got a tip on the other forum that the O2 sensor actually breaths through the space in the PTFE sleeve holes and the wires the run through them.

Who knew? Apparently I didn't.

So the RTV is coming off. Figure I'll also remove the self vulcanizing tape to allow the wires to separate a little. I'll pull the sheathing back up in place and then wrap the outside bottom of the casing and the sheathing in aluminum tape to protect against the elements.

 

So Rev B...

RTV removed. If it was breathing before is should now be breathing again:



Wrapped in PTFE/Fiberglass Cloth tape. Safety wire clamp at top and self vulcanizing tape at bottom. There's a metal ring under the sheathing and self vulcanizing tape. The ring was the end of the original corrugated strain relief. I wrapped the self vulcanizing tape here so that it would not squeeze this area closed (to maintain a path for air down the length of the sheathing - as in the original configuration):



Installed: