cat question...

[scrap487]

well, I started up my car, ran pretty much like a beast, but my catalytic converter I'm sure is toasted. was glowing bright orange, almost white, after i drove it up to the parts store and back today, its also the low point in my exaust because the shop I took it to tucked as much of it as they could near the body. When I took my intake manifold off to clean it up, I didnt drain the coolant first so a good amount of it ended up in the cylinders and I'm sure most of that made it in to the cat, and I figured it'd just all blow/burn out after a couple minutes of running and thought nothing off it. My question is, is it likely my cat was done for before that, or would a bunch of coolant in it destroy it?

 

oh and another thing(unrelated), I ended up with a intake manifold gasket leaking on the passenger side, it drips a little bit which eventually makes it to the ground and it burns just a tiny amount but not a whole lot, how high up on the list of things to do should I put this?

[idosubaru]

i doubt the coolant directly caused the converter issues unless a ton of it just blasted the honeycomb internally. but normally coolant doesn't ruin a converter. i've done a number of headgasket jobs that had coolant all in the exhaust on subaru's and other makes and never had one have any cat issues.

 

on the intake gasket, sucking coolant in the combustion chamber certainly isn't a good thing. i'd look to replace that immediately. it isn't too bad of a job really, the entire intake assembly unbolts and lifts off of the engine block. the most annoying part is getting the old gasket material off. be sure to cover the intake runners with rags so the debris from the old gaskets doesn't fall down in there. and drain the coolant before hand so it doesn't spill all over the engine when you lift it off. other than that, unbolt intake, lift it up and have a 2x4 to hold it up and out of the way, install new gaskets and bolt it back down. 6 bolts in all, 3 on each side. might need to swing away or remove the p/s pump and/or alternator as well.

[ausubaru92]

I know that cats get very hot, they are the hottest part of a car, and i think it is normal for them to glow a little after you give the car a complete thrashing.

 

But glowing white (did you notice this at night?) Maybe it is bad, but usually you will feel it, the car wont wanna rev very much.

 

Ive had a blocked cat, the car wouldnt rev over 2k eventually, and that was when i got the grinder out and cut it off.

 

 

Gannon