1997 xlt extra cab 5spd 2wd 4.0 sluggish

[Rick W]

loud and kind of comical

Like me?

 

[sgtsandman]

Like me?

Loud, yes. Comical... well...

 

[Rick W]

Man, I just don’t understand something. All you guys are supposed to be the be-all end-all experts on this stuff. I don’t understand why nobody can give me a specific answer and action plan on a truck they’ve never seen, that’s 1000 miles away from you, that has 320,000 miles on it, that has also been highly modified. And I thought you guys were experts.



Seriously, though, I greatly appreciate all the comments and advice. I was considering pulling the top off the engine to change the injectors, and some other things, but I know just enough to know that that doesn’t feel right to me. I’m coming to the conclusion that it is the catalytic converter, and that’s a very easy thing to check and start with.

My rationale: when I noticed the drop in power, and then a significant drop in power, I noticed a ton of soot in the driver side exhaust stack, and I changed the plugs. One was loose in the threads, but very loose w/blow by from not being seated properly, and it was black with soot. That large amount of soot had me thinking the cat might be partially plugged.

Then I added the varnish remover/injector cleaner, and the situation immediately got much worse. Part of my thinking was I pushed crud into the injectors, but my current thinking is any crud that came loose further impacted the cat.

Side thought: A few of you have seen the truck, and when my exhaust guy put in the dual exhaust and stacks, he kind of did a half assed job of looping the driver side underneath the frame right behind the cat, which gives me another reason to mess with that area.

So here’s the action plan: I didn’t know you could buy a cat for like $80. The cats I’ve bought before were in the $500 and up range. I ordered a couple band clamps, and a short piece of 2 inch pipe to evaluate the problem. I’m going to cut the cat out and put the straight pipe in and see if that solves the problem. If it does solve the problem, I’ll buy the replacement cat and go to a better shop to put it in and do a better job running the pipe under the frame. What I went to dual exhaust and the stacks, the gas tank was in the way on the driver side, hence routing the pipe under the frame. I’m not worried about clearance, this truck will never see any significant off the pavement use.

If that doesn’t work, I’m going buy all the parts I can think of, and let my shade tree take the upper intake off, and maybe check some other things like the rockers and push rods.

The parts are supposed to be here in about a week.

 

[sgtsandman]

Part of the reason for the disparity in the cost of catalytic converters is what they are built to meet. California emissions models are going to be more expensive than the ones that meet federal standards.

Then add if they are OEM or aftermarket.

The OEM ones for my 2011 are 3x the price of the aftermarket one I put in my truck. The CEL stays out and it passes the OBD II check for emissions testing over several years now. So, good enough for me.

 

[Rick W]

Part of the reason for the disparity in the cost of catalytic converters is what they are built to meet. California emissions models are going to be more expensive than the ones that meet federal standards.

Then add if they are OEM or aftermarket.

The OEM ones for my 2011 are 3x the price of the aftermarket one I put in my truck. The CEL stays out and it passes the OBD II check for emissions testing over several years now. So, good enough for me.

Understood. When I bought the 97 Ranger, one of the door handles was really loose. I dreaded it until I found out you could buy one for like $15 or $20.

I had a Mercedes that I bought new, a 300SDL, where the door handle failed after 200,000 miles. The part was around $500. I ran it to 327,000 miles, and I’d still be driving it, except it got totaled.

I had a couple similar high-end cars that I had to replace the cats on, ouch, which is why I feared looking at the catalytic converter on this thing.

 

[sgtsandman]

Understood. When I bought the 97 Ranger, one of the door handles was really loose. I dreaded it until I found out you could buy one for like $15 or $20.

I had a Mercedes that I bought new, a 300SDL, where the door handle failed after 200,000 miles. The part was around $500. I ran it to 327,000 miles, and I’d still be driving it, except it got totaled.

I had a couple similar high-end cars that I had to replace the cats on, ouch, which is why I feared looking at the catalytic converter on this thing.

One for mine was about $200. Still an ouch but better than the $600 for the OEM one. @lil_Blue_Ford and I did have to do a repair on it either last year or the year before because the weld on the flange that attaches it to the pipe on the other cat had rusted out. So far, it's holding up fine. I did spray the repair with some high temp grill spray paint after the repair. So, that might have helped.

It has been on the truck for a few years now. So, it has been holding up pretty well all considering.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

My F-150 got a weld-on OEM cat many years ago, it was cheaper than the whole pipe assembly by a lot, but I don’t know that those are an option anymore.

My Choptop and green Ranger both have universal stainless high-flow aftermarket cats welded on. Way cheaper than OEM. Both were done by a local exhaust shop when I had them make me stainless exhaust all the way back. At some point I intend to have my own exhaust bender because Jr is running the local shop now and he’s not what his dad is…

 

[Shran]

Don't go hacking the exhaust apart and replacing stuff without knowing that you need to first. It may not even be a plugged up cat. Just trying to save you some unnecessary work.

 

[Uncle Gump]

Test it with a vacuum gauge...