P0410 Secondary Air Injection System Cylinders 1 – 3
 

I need to share this with the forum, someday when you get to 255,000 miles on your motor you might have to deal with this.

This P0410 alarm has been haunting me off and on for the last year; it became constant these past few weeks so it was time to fix it. I found it interesting that I did not get the P1411 at this time like I did when I had a broken vacuum line. I thought maybe the O2 sensor in front of the catalytic converter bank 1 was bad but I checked that and swapped sensors but no change.

Here is what Durametric showed during cold start-up with the SAI Pump running P0410 alarm (O2 Sensor Voltage Ahead of Cat):

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Bank 1 voltage should have been very low like Bank 2.

I inspected the SAI system but did not find anything bad, all components checked-out (I love removing the alternator).

Then I decided to inspect the air ports in the heads going into the manifold so I dropped the manifold/catalytic converters and found this:


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OK, cut me some slack, the motor has 255,000 miles on it and bank 1 is original catalytic converter and has never been removed.

As most of you know carbon is a pain to clean but there are a couple of products that seem to do a good job at breaking it down. Sea Foam is one product that I have used in the past, so here is what I did… I purchased a pump/syphon and some 3/8” tubing. I shoved the 3/8” tubing into the SAI port on bank 1 and put the other end into an empty container. Then I shoved the pump into the SAI port on bank 2 and pumped/circulated Sea Foam from one side to the other. Let the Sea Foam set for a few minutes and did it again.


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Then I cleaned all the orifices with a piece of copper wire and the rail with a nylon brush soaked in Sea Foam.

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Then I used the “Turbo Snake” to clean the main orifices. On bank 1 I had to chip away some of the carbon with a screwdriver before I could get the snake into the main orifice. The snake did a good job reaching in and scraping inside the head. Then I flushed with more Sea Foam and used my air compressor (thanks JFP for that advice) to blow the air injection tube and heads clean.

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Now the heads are much cleaner and openings back to normal.

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I put things back together and started the motor with the SAI pump running and this is what the Durametric shows now:

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0.02 – 0.00 volts is much better than the .1 to .8 volts (sine wave) I was getting before. Now it looks like the exhaust manifold/catalytic converter is supplemented with the proper O2 levels at startup. I suspect this fixed my P0410 alarm.

Just adding a couple more before cleaning pictures:

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Need to invest in a Durametric.

A must have if you are going to work on your P-Car.

That is awesome!
I want to be a 250k'er one day. :)

Well done and thanks for the little walkthrough. Every little bit makes me a tad more confident in my own abilities.

Just a follow-up... No CEL since this operation @ 255k miles. The Jägermobile now has 263k miles.

I have an 98 Triton F150 that is known for carbon fouling some air passages. The use of that turbo snake was genius. I will probably use one the next time the Triton needs cleaning.

Thank You
 

Hey guys,

I posted a thread about the same code, P0410. I saw and followed Jager's thread about cleaning the passages on the exhaust side. I didn't take any pictures, but my bank 1 looked just like his pictures. One cylinder was actually clogged and isolated. I cleaned them the best I could, but I couldn't reach far enough to clean the upstream of the passages. It took about an hour to do the actually job, and about $30 in gaskets. I just want to say thank you to Jager for posting this thread, and hopefully the code will not come back anytime soon!

I'm glad this thread helped... Did you clean both sides?

It sure did. I cleaned both sides. However, I didn't pump Seafoam in and scrub it like you did. I sprayed carb cleaner, and tried to scrub it, but my brush couldn't reach that far. Now that I think about it, I could have done an even better cleaning job, although this is already much better than before it got cleaned. Anyway, we'll see if the code comes back again, and how long it will stay unclogged. Thanks again!

Jager- I thought the O2 voltage before the cat was supposed to be a sine wave and the voltage behind the cat was close to a straight line.

When the Secondary Air Injection pump is running the O2 sensor voltage in front of the cats should be flat (low voltage). After the SAI pump shuts off you will see the sine wave.

I'll answer because this helpful Thread is linked in an another Active SAI problem solving Thread.
Yes , the O2 V ahead of the Cats should be a sine wave but only after the SAI Pump has stopped (90 seconds max on a cold start)

The effect of a correctly functioning SAI system is to pump in so much extra air(O2) before the Cat ,that the excess HC is burned off. This temporarily smooths the sine wave.
The problem is to see this on Durametric. You need a fast laptop on 110v power to be fast enough to connect and see the graphs for both banks simultaneously - look for Voltage ahead of Cat.
If the diagnostic tool is active before the cold start, you will see the sine wave momentarily before the air from the SAI pump reaches the exhaust. I can't figure out how to do this with Durametric but it would be a useful diagnostic technique if someone else can explain how to do it.
I am not an expert on this so please correct if necessary for accuracy.