Re: Cat converter for a 200q

[steveb@falcon.kla.com (Steven Buchholz)]

> Down in Hotlanta (Atlanta) for the holiday and figured I would have my 
> rattle from under the beast looked at.  Dealer says bad cat.  Took it 
> by MIDAS for free inspection (what the heck, couldn't hurt) and they 
> say its a bad double wall exhaust pipe, not the cat.  Go back to dealer 
> and the mechanic says he has seen one bad pipe in 13 years and its 
> definately  the cat.  So I am going home on Sunday and plan to take it 
> by my friendly exhause store who knows me better.
> 
> However, if it is the cat, who are some vendors who sell aftermarket  
> cats, not performance?  I'll check with Linda@Carlson and see what she 
> has and I have seen a number of ads in european car for performance 
> exhause systems.  
> 
I can tell you that on the newer cars the cat has an integral heat shield
that is held in place by a couple of wimpy welds ... when those welds break 
the heat shield rattles against the cat ... especially when the engine is 
idling.  I fixed this problem on my '88 5kQ by finding an appropriately sized
hose clamp that would fit around the front neck of the cat (behind the mount-
ing flange) that was wide enough to force the heat shield against the front 
of the cat housing.  This has worked wonderfully on that car for the past 
couple of years.  It just so happens that I did the same fix on my brother-
in-law's '88 on Friday.

HTH!
Steve Buchholz
s_buchho@kla.com
San Jose, CA (USA)