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At about the 14 minute mark for me the audio shuts off. Not sure if this is happening with other viewers.
Hi Eric, as a chemist, if i would try to clean a catalytic converter with soap and water i would use Alconox as soap and hot deionized (or distilled) water and soak it overnight. Also before the installation i would wash off the soap with deionized water and dry the substrate with brake cleaner (or acetone) and compressed air. Most of the commercial cleaning products leave some residues onto surfaces (i learned this the hard way) but Alxonox is a very powerful and residue free detergent. Finally the ideal situation for cleaning would be that the water – soap bath to be carried under ultrasounds (ultrasonic cleaning) but since most of the people dont have this kind of equipment i am mentioning this for educational purposes. By what i saw in that video when you reinstalled the converter it had still some soapy water inside and that way when this mixture would dry it would have left plenty of residues on the active surface of the catalitic converter. I would also like to mention that Palladium and Platinum are highly resistant to corrosive chemicals (as a matter of fact there is no household product that could dissolve or oxidise Platinum) and any other cleaning method would certainly not harm the catalyst substrate.
Sorry for the long post, keep up the good work and stay dirty
Dipping the catty in bleach (24hours) overnight and then rinsing it off with distilled water should work better. (you’ve got to try in your next video)
Make sure the catty is thoroughly dryed before installing.
Lots of folks are suggesting that I should have rinsed the converter after I finished with the soap. I will concede that this would have been a better way to go. However, I also believe that the coatings in the inside of the converter have flaked off and that is the true cause of my converter not coming back to life as I had hoped. As stated in the video, some converters aren’t going to respond to cleaning and I believe the one on my Acura Vigor is one of these converters. Your input is always appreciated.
[quote=”1999b20″ post=108024]At about the 14 minute mark for me the audio shuts off. Not sure if this is happening with other viewers.[/quote]
Flash has a new update out today. You might want to check to see if yours is up to date.
I’m not saying that a cat can’t be cleaned, but I would think that whatever method that was used would only be good at removing a specific type of contaminant.
A cat that’s dead, fused, or broken, ain’t coming back. Even if you soaked it in unicorn horn oil and angel tears. The only cat that could be recovered is one that had been “poisoned” by some form of removable contamination. You could soak a cat in soap and water for weeks, or pour gallons of paint thinner through it, and it will do nothing for lead or zinc poisoning.
Cases where a cat has been poisoned from excessive oil burning, can often be corrected by fixing the oil burning issue. A similar situation if found in coolant contaminated cats. I guess the take-away is that cleaning a cat can prove to be temporary at best, if the root cause of the poisoning isn’t eliminated.
[quote=”McWicked” post=108078]I’m not saying that a cat can’t be cleaned, but I would think that whatever method that was used would only be good at removing a specific type of contaminant.
A cat that’s dead, fused, or broken, ain’t coming back. Even if you soaked it in unicorn horn oil and angel tears. The only cat that could be recovered is one that had been “poisoned” by some form of removable contamination. You could soak a cat in soap and water for weeks, or pour gallons of paint thinner through it, and it will do nothing for lead or zinc poisoning.
Cases where a cat has been poisoned from excessive oil burning, can often be corrected by fixing the oil burning issue. A similar situation if found in coolant contaminated cats. I guess the take-away is that cleaning a cat can prove to be temporary at best, if the root cause of the poisoning isn’t eliminated.[/quote]
I agree, in fact I believe I said that very thing in the video. That said, this cat was not damaged by contamination. In fact, the engine runs flawlessly. I believe the issue is that it just got old and lost some of the coating. Without the coating, there is very little cleaning will do as you pointed out. However, on this very forum, there are people that have had success with cleaning catalytic converters. It’s not 100%, but it is possible. I just don’t seem to be able to demonstrate it in a video as yet. I’ll keep trying however.
Thanks for your input.
While I was in college for chemistry, there was a group that studies how chemicals interact with surfaces, including catalysts, and they typically cleaned their substrates with argon. Argon is inert (unreactive), but it has a large mass, and argon can remove adsorbed contaminants by basically knocking them off with brute force. I wonder if a catalytic converter can be cleaned by feeding argon into the exhaust stream, such as through the hole for the O2 sensor, while the engine is running.
[quote=”Hanneman” post=108097]While I was in college for chemistry, there was a group that studies how chemicals interact with surfaces, including catalysts, and they typically cleaned their substrates with argon. Argon is inert (unreactive), but it has a large mass, and argon can remove adsorbed contaminants by basically knocking them off with brute force. I wonder if a catalytic converter can be cleaned by feeding argon into the exhaust stream, such as through the hole for the O2 sensor, while the engine is running.[/quote]
We use argon as well to remove adsorbed materials during vacuum processes in my line of work. And you are correct, argon atoms are relatively heavy and act like wrecking balls on the molecular level. But I’m pretty sure that the various cat-fouling agents aren’t adhered to the substrate by adsorption. And since argon is quite inert, there would be no chance of it braking up the contaminates through some chemical process. But I like your line of thinking.
I would venture a guess there are heated gasses that you could purge a cat with, that would be reactive enough to strip out contams… but they probably would be highly toxic, explosive, or both. But I’m not a chemist, so I’d be talking out of my exhaust pipe at this point.
Nice try Eric. I really think the deal is B.S. but part of the problem was that while you were testing all of the exhaust heat was going into the converter. There is a temperature (I believe it’s bout 1500f) before the converter “lights off”. This is the point where your testing would be more accurate.
A good drive down the road would accomplish that. Bubbles out the tail pipe LMAO.
[quote=”apostolis” post=108026]Hi Eric, as a chemist, if i would try to clean a catalytic converter with soap and water i would use Alconox as soap and hot deionized (or distilled) water and soak it overnight.[/quote]
I don’t know about cleaning catalytic converters but I was working as a chemist in a lab when one of the plant employees wanted to wash the company truck. Well, no soap so over to the lab he came and I gave him some Alconox. Pretty soon he was back all smiles and said, “You gotta come see the truck.” It looked like it had just had a profession wax job.
After that I had to order more Alconox because it started disappearing fast.
I successfully cleaned my 200,000 mile CAT, which through a P0420 code, with brake cleaner and a strong grill degreaser followed by a heavy water rinse. The sub-strait was intact, and the code has not returned. Also, I switched to Shell gasoline instead of the cheap quick-mart brands. I read that 5% blocked CAT can through the P0420 code. Hope this helps someone.
OK. FYI I’ve shot a new video on this, one where I address many of the concerns that have been posted such as the lack of rinsing and also making sure the converter was heated up sufficiently. I also attempted to use the sodium hydroxide to clean it. Look for that video, and the results in a few weeks.
I took a look at the MSDS for a couple of off-the-shelf cat cleaners like “Cataclean” and they contain nothing but a witch’s brew of xylene, naphtha(white gas), rubbing alcohol, ethanol, and acetone. So basically the typical formula for breaking up carbon deposits. Which is all fine and dandy if your cat is running sickly due to carbon fouling, but it’d only be a temporary bandage.
I’m thinking of trying a different approach to cleaning a catalytic converter that is working at low efficiency due to carbonization caused by a rich-running engine. The rich-running condition has been fixed but the vehicle is now throwing a P0420 code.
I’m going to remove the upstream O2 sensor and use a shop vacuum cleaner to suck air through the converter by putting the hose from the vacuum cleaner into the tailpipe and sealing the connection with duct tape. Then when the vacuum is turned on it should establish continuous airflow through the entire exhaust system including the converter.
Once I have airflow through the converter I will introduce a cleaning solvent into the sensor hole. The cleaner should atomize and pass through the converter. Hopefully the liquid solvent will saturate the converter and break down the carbon inside the converter’s honeycomb structure.
I’m not sure what type of chemical to use to try to dissolve the carbon. I’ve thought of Sea Foam, or lacquer thinner or pure acetone. You want something to dissolve the carbon while remaining liquid that can be blown out of the converter by starting the engine after giving the solvent enough time to break down the carbon.
Any ideas??
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