Pulled mine off today and it looked good so I put it back on. Its the original. No melting or cracks and no visible cloging. So how does one know if it is really good?

Ken

 

you need to measure the temp of the gas going in and the gas going out. i believe the gas exiting the cat should be 15% hotter.


edit:

if ur ghetto and dont have the tools just look through it. if its hard to see any light looking directly through it, its getting near its end. if its completly blocking all light, its prolly toast.

new ones let quite a bit of light through when pointed directly through the cat

 

Take it into a metal recycler and put the money towards a new one if you're worried about it.

 

That only quite works if the failure is due to the material inside exceeding its normal temperature and melting down (running extremely rich). But catalysts can still be killed and still shine light through just fine. Coating the substrate with certain materials will prevent it from operating correctly. This is probably one of the leading reasons for catalytic converter failure. Certain "toxic" materials can get into the fuel system and eventually ruin the catalytic converter. A fast way of doing this is to run leaded fuel for an extended amount of time. Pretty soon one's O2 sensor and cat will be toast from the lead coating them and preventing them from working correctly.

Janos

 

Maybe I'll just change the darn thing, cause it's almost 20 years old.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by gibsanez &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Take it into a metal recycler and put the money towards a new one if you're worried about it.</TD></TR></TABLE>