Rattling Cat box

[Chad Clark <chadc@holly.ColoState.EDU>]

  Hello people in Q-land,
   
          Just wanted to share a brief story with all about my rattling 
catalytic conv. box. I went into a muffler/brake shop today because I've 
had this annoying rattle coming from under the car for about 3 months 
now. Guy puts it up on the rack and immediately says 'yep. converter's gone!'
 I knew what the problem was all along and said, 'no I think it's just 
the box that encases the cat' I had been underneath there earlier and knew 
this. He insisted that it was my cat. conv. and said it'll run me about 
$500-700 for a factory replacement!!!!!!!!! I said 'Why don't we try to 
weld just the ends back to the pipe itself' as it had obviously just 
broken loose the original welds. He said ok, and I'll be damned if that 
didn't cure the whole problem!  He was so embarrased that he didn't even 
charge me! So to anyone out there with this same rattle, try the obvious 
and the simple before digging deep. After all, he had torch in hand and 
would have removed that entire Cat. before I could have said anything if 
I had not insisted on trying this. 

Actually should have let him do this and then had a straight pipe put on 
for a couple more horses eh? Don't think he would have though!           
 BE HAPPY, IT'S FRIDAY!
                 Chad ('87 5tq)