No smog or emissions testing here. I am trying now to interpret the fuel trim data from my new scanner. I think the cat may be OK and I have an exhaust leak somewhere. Need to do more reading to be sure.

Jimmy

 

I forgot a cat can die an early death from too much short city driving as the cat needs some long trips to get hot and keep it clean same with the engine

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question4822.htm

 

All of the tests I did and everything ese I have read and learned about this problem all point to a bad cat. A guy at the local Advance Auto Parts is also a mechanic at the Chevy dealer here in town, he only works part time at Advance. He told me that if the only code I am getting is the cat low effeciency code, then the cat is most likely bad but that should be all that is wrong if the truck still runs normally.

I called the guy at the exhaust shop today, his price on the universal cat has mysteriously gone up to $150.00 and the labor may be upwards of $200.00. For that price I will do just as well to order the cat/exhaust assembly from Rock Auto and do the job myself. I know I can get it done, the only thing that worries me is being able to remove the rusted nuts and bolts on the exhaust manifold flanges where it is joined to the short section of pipe leading to the mini-cats.

I will order the assembly a little later today. This should be a very interesting project.

Jimmy

 

I wouldn't worry about it not that hard to do soak soak soak all the nuts and bolts.

 

Well I ordered my new cat/exhaust pipe assembly this past Sunday, Fed Ex delivered it to me on Wednesday. I took a look at the exhaust again earlier this week and figured I could do the job..had to buy $80.00 worth of new tools from Harbor Freight - sawzall, blades, long wobble drive extensions, and a few others I thought might come in handy for the job. I had every intention of doing the work this weekend but I took a few hours off work today and took my truck to a good local independent garage near my house just to see what they might charge. His verbal estimate was "somewhere between $100.00 to $200.00, but no more than $200.00." He also said my new parts from Eastern Catalytic looked good, were well made and good quality. I thought about it and had the shop do the job for me. They charged me $191.00 and had it done in about 2 hours..money very well spent.

I watched the guy doing the work, he is an old timer named Dave, he has been turning wrenches for 30 years and he does a good job with the same level of care as I would take. While I watched him work I realized there would have been no way I could have done that job myself, flat on my back with only a foot or so of room to work. It took Dave and another guy 15 minutes working with a torch and 4 pound sledge just to get the end of the pipe from my old cat removed from the exhaust extension pipe. He had to use the torch in a few other places too and he welded all the seams where the new pipes joined. I could not have done that at home no matter how bad I might have wanted to. The exhaust flange nuts did come off pretty easy though.

A buddy of mine here at work knows a junk man/metal scrap guy. My buddy called the junk man for me, he came by the office a while ago and I sold my old cats to him for $40.00. That brought today's labor cost down to only $151.00 and I can return the tools I bought at HF. Dave cleared the code for me and I drove about 18 miles to work, so far the CEL has not come back on yet. The other night when I replaced the downstream O2's the CEL was back on again within just a few miles of driving. I sure hope I got this cat problem solved now...

If anyone here needs replacement cats, the Eastern Catalytic brand they sell at Rock Auto is what I bought. They are made here in the USA and great quality, the cat/exhaust assembly fit my truck perfectly and Dave said the welds and construction were very good. You can tell by looking at the parts they are welded by hand. It's hard to find that kind of quality nowadays.

Sometimes there are jobs where it just makes better sense to pay a shop. I sure hope I am done for a while though.

Jimmy

 

Thanks for the update '01. I'm glad you're up and running.