Look at the bright side hotz, that job at the dealer is well into 4 figures. My 98 chevy pickups pump (same as your Yukon) died and left me stranded at work. You’ve got to drop the fuel tank to get that pump out and it looks way too messy to do in a parking lot.
Due to all the practice, I can probably do the job in a half hour now! I did not replace the rock shield, that is a pita and was rusted all to heck. The rig has 220000 miles on it, last weekend I drilled out the cats to let it breath, runs much better. Guess I’m not driving to CA any time soon?
The rig has 220000 miles on it, last weekend I drilled out the cats to let it breath
What do you mean drilled out the cats??
As memory serves there are two cats on there and they also have 4 O2 sensors and provided all the electronics are working properly your down stream O2s will now read rich on fuel and then would lean out the engine fuel requirments which could cause engine damage. GM uses pretty wide parameters before setting a check engine light so it is possible to burn valves etc if you did actually drill the cats out.
Have you noticed it getting better fuel mileage since this?
At 220,000 miles the engine could run another 80K plus if cared for but I kind of doubt it if it is running lean all the time.
I am not real big on being a tree hugger but the false sense that no cats are better than cats is very 1972 mind set.
It was coding the cats for the last 6-8 months, running sluggish and stinky. I planned to take the cats off period, but it was a pain to do so piping in the driveway. I ended up punching a few 1/2” holes through the cats and remounting them. It runs much better, not sure on the gas mileage because I can’t afford to fill it up! So you think it may cause problems? I read up on it quite a bit, from what I could tell at that mileage it is not a big deal? Feel free to inform me otherwise, I still don’t plan to spend hundreds or more to replace with new at this point (the tranny will go the minute I do).
There are two cats on these trucks and 4 O2 sensors. The downstream O2 sensors do nothing except to verify proper cat operation. Nothing that you do to the cats or to those downstream sensors will affect the fuel ratio. The ratios are dialed in by the front O2 sensors. If you can only afford to replace 2 of the 80$ sensors then do the fronts.
I cooked my cats about a year ago towing a vintage station wagon on a trailer and had to replace them. The cats and the entire exhaust system downstream were glowing red from a bad misfire. By the way, a flashing SES light is bad. I used magnaflow high flow cats and they seem to work fine. 168000 on my truck.
Our trucks do a weird test sequence where the fuel system either runs lean or rich for a few seconds and the computer looks for a change from the rear o2 sensors. Outright cat removal might cause this test to fail and a gore light to come on.
Highbeam, so it should be ok? The O2’s seem to be working fine, none of the codes were O2 specific (at least primarily), the codes I was getting were cat comments (due to the 02 readings?). The engine light was solid, I know blinky is bad. The light did come back on post repair (?), it stayed off for a couple of days then came back on. Before the drilling, if I reset the codes the light would be back on in hours. I plan to get the codes read again this week, the local auto parts store does it for no charge. They also did not feel there was a risk to doing this, just said don’t drive in CA. They were more concerned about not doing anything because the engine was starting to have some perfromance isssues. Sorry to highjack the thread everyone, wasn’t my intent!
Well you didn’t really remove the cats but instead just made them less effective. So you are now working within the sensor’s range of tolerance on when it calls foul. Worse case is the gore light will come on and stay on, the code will be a defective cat.
You can drive all you want in CA but just don’t move there or submit to an emissions test.
I chose to replace them. Can you maybe source a set at the junkyard? The whole Y-pipe assembly is bolt-in. The GM cat system is pretty decent on these trucks.
I think I’ll coast for a while and just check the codes now and then to be sure I’m not missing anything. My original intent was to unbolt at the backet right before the muff, liquid wench, heat, and my air hammer had issue with that idea. I ended up making three cuts, was able to remove one cat totally and the other one side so that I was able to get at it. The biggest problem was getting parts, the shops kept saying 2”, I kept saying 1 7/8”, they didn’t believe me until I walked in with a piece of pipe. Like I said before, it is running noticabily better, my wife even said something without even knowing what I’d done. I’m going to get another 100K out of her if it kills me!
Well, I got a prebent section of fuel line from the dealer and went to work. The rear comes off simply by pressing in two tabs, but the front was a quick-release fitting, that isn’t unless you have the right tool. $20 later I had the correct tool and in about thirty minutes I had the old line off and the new one installed. It feels great to save a bunch of money and to have the ability to do-it-yourself, it’s even better when my do-it-yourself work doesn’t cost me four times extra because I create other problems to fix!
I did find something odd with the old fuel line though. Where it was leaking had been, at one time, wrapped with some type of tape. My guess is that while it was under warranty the dealership saw the leak and did a quickie fix to it. Anyone heard of this before?
Well, I got a prebent section of fuel line from the dealer and went to work. The rear comes off simply by pressing in two tabs, but the front was a quick-release fitting, that isn’t unless you have the right tool. $20 later I had the correct tool and in about thirty minutes I had the old line off and the new one installed. It feels great to save a bunch of money and to have the ability to do-it-yourself, it’s even better when my do-it-yourself work doesn’t cost me four times extra because I create other problems to fix!
I did find something odd with the old fuel line though. Where it was leaking had been, at one time, wrapped with some type of tape. My guess is that while it was under warranty the dealership saw the leak and did a quickie fix to it. Anyone heard of this before?
Thanks for all the advice.
Methinks the tape might be the cause of the corrosion, not the other way around. I doubt an mechanic in his right mind would try to tape a fuel line.
Are you telling me they sold you a piece of preformed metal fuel line for 20 bucks? From a dealer no less. I bet the tool was 20 right? Hey you are way better off than me. I have both the front and back bumpers and all the goodies ripped off. The trailer hitch managed to hold enough nasty wet sand and salt to eat up the frame underneath it . That will take 10 lbs of real steel and some serious welding to get back into shape again. Another 800 for the low mileage used engine and a lot of paint undercoat and hassle and the pig will be ready for another 4 or 5 years in the tundra.
You are right about the tape. Tape, folds crevices or any other place that holds the sand and road grime in place will greatly accelerate rusting. Clean them up with a piece of sandpaper steel wool or scotchbrite pad, a dremel tool is handy too. Spray or paint some primer on there and finally paint and it with any sort of metal paint and you are done.I usually use rustolium as its fairly good paint for that purpose and priced right. While the engine is out of mine I am gonna touch up al the small rust spots prime paint and undercoat the entire engine compartment while its easy to get at. Maintenance is better than payments.......................
Yeah, the tool was $20, the stainless, prebent line was $70 so I figure I saved at least $100 on the repair and that’s far less than a monthly payment! The jeep may not be great on gas, but it’s certainly easy to work on.
