How do I go about finding the MAF? I assume I remove the air filter....is it then in plain view? Is the MAF very small? Like a quarter inch long? What do I spray on it to clean it? Will cleaning it damage it? Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Ed

 

On my 98 4.6 I opened up the air filter box and looked down the end that goes to the engine. There's what looks like an offset (to one side) carburetor barrel with a little sqiggly wire inside it. I carefully gave it a quick (1/2 second) little shot of brake cleaner. Then a minute later an extra shot so it looked like bright shinny metal wire. Worked for me. I heard of some people taking the sensor out and cleaning it with a q-tip and iso alcohol but I'm chicken I'll break the wire, heh

I had a check engine light on so I reset the computer by disconnecting the negative battery cable for 20 minutes. Some say to turn on your lights switch to drain out all the electrical energy when you do this and it cuts your time down to 5-10 minutes.

 

Take off the air filter housing and the MAF unit.

Alcohol and Q-tips are all I used to swab down the two MAF wires. I had worries about breaking them, but they're sturdier than I thought.

I saw a fair amount of gunk come off each sensor wire. Didn't seem to make much difference in performance according to the "Butt-O-Meter", but at least they're clean.

Good luck...Scott

 

When you open the air filter housing, it will be within about 4 to 5 inches of the opening. (There is another sensor a few inches behind it that measures air temperature I belive.) You can use a q-tip to clean it while it is still in place (don't have to uninstall it) or else just use electrical spray/windex/carb/brake cleaner to spray it clean. Personally I had a hard time trying to take the MAF unit out like Rotties mentioned. (perhaps it's easier than I thought and I was just afraid to break it.)

 

Somebody told me starter fluid spray will also work to spray clean the wires, heh

I cleaned my MAF wires with brake cleaner this week and my pinging problem went away and I was even running premium. Now I'm back to 87 octane. I think my K&N filter gummed the wire up from the oil in it as I noticed the pinging problem came on slowly as I used the K&N. I'm using paper now but as soon as it's time to change it I'm going to clean my K&N and use it again knowing that I will have to spray clean my maf wires every so often. It's still worth it to use the K&N IMO.

 

thanks for your replies....

Ed

 

According to an engineer at FoMoCo, this wire gets very hot and could ignite the Brakleen that he told me to spray on the MAF.