Date: Sat, 29 May 2004 15:15:24 EDT
Reply-To: Oxroad@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jeff Oxroad <Oxroad@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Install of catalytic converter on 90 multivan
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
In a message dated 5/29/2004 8:06:53 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
clark10006@COX.NET writes:
> . It doesn't seem that it should be
> complicated.
I changed my catalitic converter about a year ago on my 83.5 watercooled.
Penetrating oil like you mentioned is a good idea. And if it works, great. I
ended up cutting through the cat bolts with a hacksaw. And while this is a little
time consuming it's not difficult. Wear goggles to protect your eyes from all
the shavings. I think the advice would be if you have to cut cut the bolts
through on the side of the cat so as not to damage the muffler flange or the
exhaust pipe flange. This just allows the bolts to seat better.
Penetrating oil definately helps in a few installments over a few day on
removing the 02 sensor.
If your aftermarket Cat looks like the one I installed it has an extra heat
sheild on sone side. Listees decided that heat sheild should go toward the
water pump and keep at least some heat away from the water pump. The aftermarket
CAt I installed had adjustable flange mounts that allowed it to be mounted in
many application and you could basically mount it on the bus in any of a 360
degree rotation dictating the position of the heat sheild. (I think the genuine
VWOA Cat was $300 or $400 or maybe even $500--I just remember it being
absurdly high even with the discount from Rennie then at Torrance VW now at Pacific
VW)
I also needed washers on each end of the mounting bolts for the cat to keep
the bolt head and nuts from wanting to slip into the slightly large mounting
holes in the Cat flanges. I used stainless steel washers to adjust the hole to a
smaller size. The I used bolts, lockwashers, and nuts. In my opinion bolts,
lockwashers, and nuts should NOT be stainless steele. I like the idea of
stainless steele bolts, but my experience (and probably anyone's who knows better)
is that on the exhaust system stainless steele bolts tend to eventually loosen
up from the vibration. I guess the softer steel or amalgamated or whatever
they're made of kind of benefit from their softer qualities that allow them to
bond to the nuts or rust to the nuts or themselves or whatever...That stainless
is hard enough to work itself loose.
Another tip is since you'll undoubtedly move the muffler a bit-- and again
those flanges on the Cat don;t dictate exactly where in the rotation to mount
the muffler-- I think a good rule of thumb is to have the tail pipe itself
slighty--ever so slightly -- tipped toward the ground to allow moisture from rain
and condensation to find its way out of the tailpipe rather than collecting
in it promoting rust.
Speaking of rust does anyone sell ceramic coated tailpipes as my experience
is any new tailpipe gets an outer couting of rust in about a week and continues
to last forever looking like crap. I think the solution I'm speaking of is
ceramic coated, but whatever it is it kind of takes a shiney hammered gray
pinted look. I'm going to post this last question again under a separate subject
line as well.
Best
Jeff
83.5 Westfalia
LA,CA
