I have a 1998 Ram 1500 4x4 with 5.2.

Two days ago it was running fine. Yesterday I was very low on gas (fuel light came on) so I stopped at Sunoco for gas. I don't usually use Sunoco. On the way there, I heard a slight noise that sounded like I was developing an exhaust leak and the truck was slightly sluggish. Today, the truck has no power, won't rev past 2000 RPM and the noise is louder. I've done some searching, but haven't found anything yet. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

 

Clogged cat.

Remove the front O2 sensor from the exhaust. See if it runs any better.

 

If you searched, how could you miss this??

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/2nd-gen...um-thread.html

 

HeyYou, you were absolutely right! I removed the O2 sensor and the truck ran well enough to drive home. I spent the morning removing the catalytic converter today. The new one arrives tomorrow, so I should be able to put it back together and have a usable truck again.

Thanks for your help.

 

You want to check your plenum, I bet it's blown. If all you do it change the cat, chances are good you are going to get to do it again in the not real distant future. Think I would check/repair that before installing the new one.

 

Plan on a denso o2 sensor too..A bad/blown plenum kills cats

 

Thanks again HeyYou. I went ahead and checked the plenum with a mirror per the link jkeaton supplied. I had already seen the post before I created my post, but I dismissed it as not applying because I had none of the other symptoms. I am not losing oil, the motor doesn't knock and I wasn't having problems going up hills. The truck was running great until Thursday. I'll bet the insides of the converter shifted, mostly blocking the exhaust flow. The sound that I heard Thursday was probably the exhaust being forced through the converter. I found no oil on the intake manifold, so I going to assume that the plenum is fine.

Patt: I went ahead and replaced the O2 sensors because getting them out of the old catalytic converter was not easy and they were pretty chewed up by the time I got them out.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

 

Wonder if someone else dealt with the plenum beforehand... but not the rest?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

Hensley my old rig never had any symptoms either( and I didnt have cats to clog lol), but one day i decided to check and there was about an 8th of an inch of oilly sludge in the bottom of my intake.