Hey I need some help, I had my exhaust system worked on and they reported that my catalytic converters may be hollow or almost hollow as a lot of material came out. But since the check engine light didn't come on I would be ok.

Well that was in Seattle.. 65 degrees and it worked great. Now I am in Craig CO and its 98 degrees and my engine codes are firing off.

I have a reader and I see P1300, the mis-fire codes and the lean cylinder bank 1 code... I suspect the root issue is the O2 system forcing the system to lean out. I added some injector cleaner but that didn't work.

Can I pull the back O2 sensor and force the system to richen the mix?

Will it cause any issues?

Thanks!

Guy

 

It sounds like a good theory... I'm no rover guru, but if the rears are unplugged, I would think it would default to the fronts. I'm sure it will still throw codes, but most likely just for the rear o2's
Try it, if you're stuck the worst you can do is plug em back in

 

It is my understanding that the fronts are doing most of the reading and the backs are a redundancy.

I would be more worried that cat innards have come loose and clogged your exhaust. This can cause back pressure and blow your head gaskets. I don't want to be the harbinger of doom, but you should be aware that it can happen.

 

Just got home... and I need a drink. After driving up to Green River WY and staying the night, I decided "what's the worst that could go wrong"... its already messed up and I was going to rebuild it later this summer. If it breaks more I would just toss it on a car carrier and haul it home.

It's only 1000 miles back home and I could drive that in a day easy... so I did it. Man was it a hot one.. 108 in eastern Oregon and hills everywhere. With a fraction of the horsepower zero to 60 was about a 2 minute effort, hills were another story.. I probably had 6-8 mountain ranges to cross. I made it to the Cascades and knew I was home free!

I am so impressed with my discovery, I couldn't just leave it.

Now to figure out what I broke, it sure sounds funny.. but I think its a blown driver side head gasket and a clogged catalytic converter at this point.

 

drop the exhaust from the exhaust manifolds and see what it runs like

 

Update on this, I removed the exhaust and it was the cats... after cutting them open and gutting them it ran great.. a bit rich though. So just prior to my required emissions test this year I put in a new magnaflow cat for about $575. It was simple and painless to do, I ordered new exhaust nuts and gaskets which made it a clean job.

It runs a bit louder at speed than with the gutted cats, but the gutted cats were loud at an idle. Now I need to use premium all the time, I suspect the engine is running hotter with the additional back pressure. With the gutted cats I was able to use regular gas in the cooler times of the year.

But I have 190,000 miles on it and it still runs fine!

 

Were both sides plugged? Glad you figured it out and reported back your findings.

190000, have you done head gaskets yet?

Brian.