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Hi all, this is my first post here, looks to be a helpful forum..
It looks like I need a new cat, after following Eric’s diagnostic video. My rear O2 sensor is switching voltages like my front O2 sensor. I will be selling my truck soon for a van, but still I don’t want to put in a horrible aftermarket part….because that’s a waste of money no matter how you look at it.
An OEM cat for my 1995 tacoma looks to be over $900 and an aftermarket is $250 for a California legal model.
Are there any brands to watch out for, or any way of evaluating long term reliability of these parts? what are other tests I should do to be sure it’s not my engine running condition that ruins my cat? I had a cracked exhaust manifold for quite awhile which I fixed first hoping that it would clear my P0420 code, well that needed to be fixed anyways.
Thanks
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The first couple of graphs look good. You want it to stay at high or low for a longer time. The last one seems to be switching constantly. That is not good. Can you check your I/M status now? If they have all gone to complete, the cleaning worked!
Well I THINK the I/M status is all ready, there’s 2 listings for the catalyst monitor
supp:not complete and stat:complete, Ive read online it’s a confusing bug with my type of scantool. I plugged it into some other vehicles and supp:not complete was always dispayed.
So I think I am good. Here in CA we have to smog check a vehicle before a sale so that will be the final testNow I want to know the *exact* detergent that you used and what was the proportion and how long did you soak it in detergent. Post the picture of the bottle!
OEM converters are stupidly expensive and aftermarket ones barely work for few months before throwing the same code again at you. If the cleaning works and even if it needs to be done every 6 months, you are way ahead of the game financially.
hahha, okay I used Tide with Febreeze. We stopped using it on our laundry because the smell was so strong. I used probably a full cap, which would be more a little more than you would use in one load. Started with warm water and soaked more than 24 hours, sloshing tha cat around in there a couple of times and turning it over. It did change the color of the water quite a bit as it sat. Then I had to rinse it several times because when I tried to blow it dry with compressed air it would bubble. Then rinse again and it would still blow bubbles…I guess that’s how all the honeycomb manages to grab the exhaust molecules, there’s a lot of fine material in there. Then I let it get waaaay dry overnight, wire brushed off the extra rust that formed and put it back on with some new gaskets and hardware 🙂 I could smell the febreeze for about 5 drives…..
thanks for your help with the graphs.Yep, that’s what I used. My cat is 12.5″ long and sticks out only a tiny bit from the top. But I flipped it a couple times just to be sure
Those are some nice results. I’ll have to try that the next time I run into a catalytic converter issue. Thanks for keeping us up to date.
Smog test-
I smite thee!!!!
I got great numbers and passed my smog today :blink: I am still surprised!
I told the smog guy about the detergent trick, he pointed out that the fact I changed my seals around the cat helped. But we all know it was the power of febreeze! hahahah
Just wanted to share the news, I hope it saves one of you $1000 too!Please do update this topic periodically to let us know if you are still free of catalytic converter CEL code.
ahhh sorry, I sold the truck 3 weeks ago 🙁 It will be missed. There were still no codes. I think passing SMOG was a pretty conclusive result. For a DIYer it should be good, even if it’s a cleaning every 6 mos it beats buying an aftermarket that only lasts a year or a $1000 OEM
You’ll see me around here trying to figure out how to change all fluids on my new Astro van!
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