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So I've just completed replacing the knock sensor without removing the air intake, throttle body, and fuel injectors. I thought I'd share my experience with the forum. There are definite pros and cons to this method.
You'll need to remove your power steering pump, your wiring harness, and several brackets from the engine. This photo shows the bracket which is not initially obvious to remove. One 12mm bolt is hidden behind, shown by arrows.
Valley
I spent about 3 hours on the job as the access is very tight, and I had to improvise a bit on the tooling. If you don't like working in confined spaces, don't try this. In hindsight I could've saved an hour if I had a 24mm crows foot wrench to remove and install the sensor. My deep well 24mm socket was too tall to use with any ratchet in the engine valley, and my normal 24mm was too shallow to fit over the top of the knock sensor. I ended up turning the deep well socket with a pick via the retention hole in the socket.
The big win was not removing the intake and various gaskets. Also my injector seals didn't get pulled. I had great access to the engine valley so I was able to clean out a lot of debris. My old mouseproof wiring harness was completely toasted. The old sensor also disintegrated the second I touched it.
