Bad Knock Sensor?

[1BADVAN]

Can a knock sensor go bad?? Other than just stop working? It seems like the knock sensor in our vans are over-active, like one goes off at any throttle with boost less that 5 psi and stock timing and such.

I am assuming they do go bad, my question really is how can i test for it, or do i just have to swap it?

Also if i bought a replacement one is there something to look for to get one that will work better than others?

Thanks!

[Turboomni]

Although not scientific at all I thought I had a hyper active knock sensor that would pull timing and set off the powerloss light on my custom cal. I had always collected extra knock sensor and other thing at the junkyard so I had a few to test. I hooked them up one at a time to a digital voltmeter on AC as this is what it produces. I would tap on each one as close to the same way as possible and found the one in my car was putting out much more voltage than the other six I tested. I repeated the tests and it came out the same way. So out of the six I picked the one in the middle or average output and the problem was gone.
In the old days guys would wrap teflon tape on the threads and install it to make it less sensitive. I never have and don't know if this is a good thing to do.
Can a knock sensor GO bad ?? I guess so ,in my case the sensor I used was a used one I had lying around after the build of my motor so I never used it before.

[1BADVAN]

Thanks for the info i might have to compare different ones on my otc scanner

[bakes]

If you have a noisy valve train it can set a false knock signals . I just had this happen on my last car i bought turned out to be defective valves / valve spring retainers.