NEED HELP! Replacing '02 Front Cats

[RangerDangerNorth]

Hi everyone. Just got this '02 Ranger XLT 4x4 Off-Road and it came with an exhaust leak. After diagnosis I've pinned it down to one of the front cats and the muffler. Muffler is an easy fix, just going to replace the entire cat-back exhaust with a new system. As for the front cat that's leaking, that's a different story. I can order an OEM front cat, but the old one's bolts that connect it to the back cats through a tri-screw flange, don't even look like bolts anymore (pictures below). Has anybody replaced their front cats ever and can recommend a solution? Or if anybody has seen bolts look like the ones I have and managed to get them off without damaging the connection (because I'm keeping the back-cats, therefore need the connection intact) I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[gw33gp]

That looks really bad. You may have to replace the entire catalytic converter system. You might see if a muffler shop can weld on a new flange to connect to, but I think that is unlikely.

 

[Uncle Gump]

I would personally just take it to a reputable exhaust shop and have them do it. They do this stuff all day every day. Sometimes it's just money well spent...

 

[gw204]

I bet it comes apart fairly easily if you hack off the bolt heads and nuts with a cutoff wheel on a grinder/dremel.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

The difficult part is that without getting the entire exhaust down out to get access, only one of the bolts is accessible to grind on. I took a long sawzall blade and with care cut all the way through where the flanges meet once. It worked, after a fashion, but I’m not sure I’d try that again if I could get the exhaust down.

Of course, if that part looks like that, then the exhaust bolts connecting the down pipe to the exhaust manifolds are probably rust globs too. If they are and you have a torch, this is where you get to work. With care you can get in through the wheel opening to heat the flange the bolts go through.

 

[Danger_Ranger.308]

I'm not a rust belt tech but a blue wrench does wonders! If your really careful you can just burn the head of the bolts off, get the cat out of the way, burn the stud red hot and use a extractor to remove them. I have also used smaller diameter nuts and bolts if the studs damage the threads to bad. Of course you could probably just re tap them for studs if you wanted too but either way I'm glad we dont deal with rust like that very often