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Car Forum / Volkswagen / Water Cooled Volkswagen Cars / September 2008Anyone gutted a CAT?
Wondering about cleaning the innards out of an old one and puttin it back in. nf > Wondering about cleaning the innards out of an old one and puttin it back > in. > > nf In the US, that would make you subject to a $10,000 fine. In any state with a smog-check or state inspection, you would get nailed. And if a garage passes you on inspection with the cat removed - they too can get the fine. Most won't. Does reduce the back-pressure, however. Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA In the US, that would make you subject to a $10,000 fine. Yikes! Funny thing, though, that the original CAT went well over 200K miles with really low CO and HC numbers on the smog checks. Another funny thing is that I'm willing to bet that this Scirocco puts out a lot less pollutants per year than than the ear-shattering leaf blower my next-door neighbor's illegal-immigrant lawn crew uses every week. nf .. > Another funny thing is that I'm willing to bet that this Scirocco puts out a > lot less pollutants per year than than the ear-shattering leaf blower my > next-door neighbor's illegal-immigrant lawn crew uses every week. > > nf Well maybe not per year, unless he runs it every day, but certainly per hour. In any case the laws are changing, get ready for converters on the leaf blowers. (Mine is exempt, it's electric). > Wondering about cleaning the innards out of an old one and puttin it back > in. Back in the "old days" (1976) it was officially permissible to replace the cat with a straight through pipe. The Bentley manual for my 1976 Rabbit even provides instructions for doing this. I haven't had a cat on my Rabbit for many years, and though my car is now too old to have to run through emission tests anymore, my last tests passed easily without the cat. Of course, the permissible levels are a lot lower with newer cars, and as another poster mentioned it's illegal to gut or otherwise remove the cat on emission controlled vehicles. My wife has a 1986 Jetta GLI, and a couple of years ago the cat on her car gutted itself. Her car always passed emission tests easily, then it suddenly failed miserably. After looking into a few things, I finally discovered the cat was bad. When I removed the cat it was completely empty inside. The guts had broken up and blown out the tailpipe (or lodged in the muffler). New cat, passed emission testing with no problems. From what I've read, newer cats flow better than the old ones did, and most cars are designed to work better with that back pressure anyway. Anthony > I haven't had a cat on my > Rabbit for many years, and though my car is now too old to have to run > through emission tests anymore... Don't move to Calif. where 'rolling exemptions' have ended. '76 and newer must pass tests forever, and - if some folks get their way - cars > 15 yrs will have to be tested every year. (Might be more effective to test leaf blowers, but lawmakers won't do anything to raise lawn care cost.) My '81 got its first new cat in '98, the next in '04. Wonder if it'll now be bi-yearly. Thanks for the reply. >> I haven't had a cat on my Rabbit for many years, and though my car >> is now too old to have to run through emission tests anymore... > Don't move to Calif. where 'rolling exemptions' have ended. '76 and > newer must pass tests forever I don't enjoy emission testing, but to maintain clean air it's something I'm willing to endure. I'm actually surprised testing ends at a certain age here. Most of the worst polluting vehicles are the oldest on the road (my wife's clean running 1986 Jetta fails an emission test, while a 1972 pickup drives by belching clouds of smoke. :) ) My 1976 Rabbit was still passing emission tests easily when I took it in last, but I'm guessing California standards are stricter and it would probably fail there. Thankfully, I have no plans to move to California. :) My daughter has a 1996 Ford Taurus and emission testing consisted of driving in and plugging in the computer for a few minutes. Her car monitors and adjusts emissions continually, so testing seemed kind of silly. :) , and - if some folks get their way - > cars > 15 yrs will have to be tested every year. (Might be more > effective to test leaf blowers, but lawmakers won't do anything to [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Thanks for the reply. >>> I haven't had a cat on my Rabbit for many years, and though my car >>> is now too old to have to run through emission tests anymore... [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > monitors > and adjusts emissions continually, so testing seemed kind of silly. :) Our county government decided anything newer than 74 has to be tested. Two or three years ago, they decided to remove the exemption for diesels and bump the weight exemption up so that one-ton trucks have to be tested. Testing diesels is kinda stupid, and I said so at the time. Several people who knew me seemed to be of the opinion that it was about time that I had to stop polluting and go through the same hassles that they did (I had been driving a VW diesel for years). My VW diesel was totaled shortly before I would have had to take it in for it's first emissions test, so my first trip to the testing center with a diesel was last year. I waited in line for about 20 minutes, and finally got up to the testing machine. The guy running the machine took my paperwork, my $10, and asked me what the odometer reading was. I had to repeat the odometer reading a couple of times, since he seemed to have trouble grasping the concept of a diesel having 350,000+ miles on it and still be running (on the original injectors, if the previous owner can be believed). He hooked up the probes, said "Aw HELL no!", then dragged the probes over from the machine in the next lane and ran the test for a second time. After consulting with somebody, he gave my paperwork back to me with a printout showing that a diesel emissions test had been completed, and each space that was supposed to show the measured amount of emissions had a "0" in it. This was with a 1985 diesel, and it kinda proved my point that it was stupid to be testing diesels. A coworker has a 2001 that was occasionally having the check engine light come on due to a bad probe. His tags were due for renewal while he was trying to find the problem, and a 'check engine' code in the computer is what fails the 1996 and newer cars at the emissions test. So he plugged his code reader in, cleared the codes, then went to the emissions test. The check engine light didn't come back on until he was on his way home, so he passed the emissions test with no problem. I will assume you mean a catalytic converter! <g> There were some instructions on "rebuilding" some of the VW catalytic converters with those pellets in the Bentleys. I was even informed that some companies can rebuild some of the cats on the 1.8t engines too. But gutting them might make the exhaust spit out more pollutants while possibly providing a little more power to your early WC VW. :-( > Wondering about cleaning the innards out of an old one and puttin it back > in. > > nf > Wondering about cleaning the innards out of an old one and puttin it back > in. > > nf You are aware that there is some rather nasty stuff in there, You should have industrial protection when doing that. Why not just a straight pipe? If you are afraid of being caught, gutting is not going to be much better. |
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