Cat bashing ...

[Camry84]

In my quest to get the Camry back in shape I've purposely avoided one of the more common causes of "lack of power", a partially plugged or "poisoned" Catalytic Converter.

My reasoning is that if, by chance, the Cat is OK then I wanted to do everything else that needed doing first. The car has certainly needed everything cleaned out, re-adjusted or replaced as I've been doing so it's just a matter of priorities, I guess.

The only real way that I know to determine the condition of the Cat is to pull it off and look at how clogged/ or free of clogging it is.

I suspect that since my fuel injectors were not up to par before replacing that the excess, unburned fuel directed through the Cat didn't help it any.
The O2 sensor also wasn't performing well which only adds to the excess fuel problem.

Hopefully the PB blaster will do it's job and allow me to unbolt the Cat.
Then it's just a matter of brief inspection, busting out the guts and bolting it back on.

Getting back that lower RPM power would be nice, hopefully this will also make a difference.

[Camry84]

Pulled the Cat off and it actually looked pretty good.
PB Blaster and a 6 point socket got it right off, pleasantly surprised and no busted knuckles!
No major clogging and the color was uniform.

With that said, I know my engine has been running rich due to bad fuel injectors. I'm not sure what a "poisoned" Cat looks like but since I had it off I decided to perform some preventative maintenance anyway. Not sure that's the wisest decision but I need this thing to breathe and wanted to eliminate the possibility of any problem there.

(Caution wear a dust mask when doing this, that's some very, very fine, cancer causing dust that will cloud up if you do this)

Tried the car after and no major difference as far as I can tell so I probably got rid of a perfectly good cat ... oh well, at least now I know it will never be a problem.
It does sound slightly different so I know it must have some effect.

[oscaryu1]

Sucks, you can get a ~$100 for these old camry cats.

['88 All-Trac]

I save the insides, some of the cooler recycling shops will take just the internals. The best way to tell is what the center looks like. On the one Camry I own that still had a cat when I went to check it, the entire center was slagged out and plugging everything up really bad. There was admittedly some really bad plugging on the leading edge, but the center is what was really doing it.

My brother's '94 Celica had a good-looking cat when lightly inspected, but we don't have to worry about smogging our rigs up here so we went to gut it- sure enough, the center was slagged out. We reinstalled everything and he's now getting another 2-3mpg highway... Not so drastic an improvement as with mine (from 26 at best to being able to pull 38) but it was noticeable. And, being a Celica, it's geared to keep the engine spinning fast- it now does this far more easily. His first comment after finishing the rodding? "The speed limit just isn't quite high enough anymore."

[es250nut]

I took the core out of a cat and sent it to the recyclers with a friend to sell. The going price at the time for a whole cat is $15/lb. which for a ~10lb Camry cat would mean around $150. Usually when you separate your metals you get a higher return on them so I figured the "core" of the cat would actually be worth more than the whole. The cheap bastards at the recycling yard told my friend, they weren't even sure they could take the core, but were "nice" by paying him $17 for the slightly more than 1lb of cat core.

[Camry84]

The slight "tinny" sound takes a bit of getting used to, it's not bad, I only really notice it when the sound echos off of a car, wall or curb nearby. Can't hear it while on the road. If it ever bothers me I'll just put a piece of straight pipe inside the shell and I'm sure I wouldn't hear it any more.

When on the road it just sounds like it's breathing better as I'm sure it is.