Night from hell with my B2!!

[jkufen]

Last night was just a tragic night for the B2. I drove the B2 to work and back (20 miles) and on my way home my buddy says they are going on a midnight mudding session and i should come. Well of course i was going. So i went home changed clothes loaded up my water boots and the wife and cranked up the bronco. It spit and sputter and jerked and had no power. I thought it was just bad gas that i just put in it. So i started down the road spitting and sputtering just tapping the gas and trying to burn through the bad gas. Bad idea! My wife looks out the passenger side and says something is glowing under your truck. So immediately i stop and cut the truck off and look. Both of my cats are cherry red and they are so hot that molten metal is dripping out of the rust hole in my muffler! I immediately assume my cats are clogged so take a hammer and beat the cats. It ran just long enough to get me to the local Kmart before it died. I called AAA and got a tow to my buddies shop. When i got to his shop i told him i needed to cut the exhaust out in front of cats. So he takes the saw zaw. While i am working in something else and begans cutting. Cuts through the first pipe then my transmission pan ! So all the gear oil starts pouring out. Well he finally cuts exhaust off and then i pull transmission pan and clean it up. He welds it shut and i bought more gear oil. We put it all back in and she runs fine! She is just as loud as sin with a very short exhaust. It was after 6am before i got to bed and we started at 10 pm. The only good thing was his fridge was full of beer ! I will post a few pictures shortly.

 

[wildbill23c]

Goes to show that these catalytic converters are nothing but trouble. Funny you simply remove them and the rig runs better.

Glad you figured out what the problem was before it caused any engine damage.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Goes to show that these catalytic converters are nothing but trouble. Funny you simply remove them and the rig runs better.

Hardly, they lasted 27 years.

Something could be wrong with the tune of the truck making them overheat, too much fuel and they melt down.

The only thing I do not like about cats is they can light off dry grass, otherwise they are a very good thing all the way around to have on a truck.

 

[jkufen]

yeah these cats were 27 years old I mean I believe they held up well for never being replaced. I am putting the new exhaust on tonight and tomorrow and it will not have cats on it only because I don't have the extra money to get them. I believe they serve a viable purpose but it's not something I can't live without.

 

[jkufen]

Here are some pics from last night!

This is a pic of looking down what I believe is the first cat.

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This is the spot where the saw zaw nicked the transmission pan. I would have never believed how thin this was if I didn't see this. My buddy could have bent the pan in half, but he is a big boy!

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This is the inside of the pan.

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This was our first solution... JB Weld. The JB Weld didn't cure very well so we scraped it off and welded it. It took us 2 hours of standing around and drinking beer to figure out we could have welded it from the beginning but we did drink some beer so it's all good

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In hine sight it really wasn't that bad of a night. I got to stand around with some good friends drink beer and work on my truck so it wasn't all that bad

 

[jkufen]

Lastly I forgot to post the new muffler going on

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[adsm08]

You should figure out why they melted themselves down. Age alone will not cause that to happen 90% of the time. The most common cause is the engine running too rich or some other source of incomplete combustion allowing raw fuel down the exhaust.

The glowing that you see is the catalyst matrix super-heating because fuel is burning inside the shell.


My advice for the moment, remove the shell and punch out the damage/melted stuff, put it back in and run it while you find your root cause, then replace the empty shell with a direct fit unit.


If you understand the purpose of the converters, how they do not hamper performance and reliability when everything else is operating properly (Bill, get out of the 70's and learn how things work these days or stop making asinine and uninformed comments about how the systems work when things aren't broken), you would not have that same attitude about running with no cats full time.

 

[Andy D]

Just for grins , swap in a known good coil. A weak coil can cause cat failure in short order.

 

[jkufen]

Yeah as soon as I get some money I am going to give the B2 the tune up it needs. The previous owner has those $2/ plug autolites in it and they are garbage. I will soon hopefully swap them out and get motorcraft plugs back in it. Do you think there is the possibility that because the plugs are warn and cheap that they might be the root cause for raw fuel getting into the exhaust?

 

[jkufen]

The cats are destroyed on the shell where I took a hammer and tried to pierce the side of the cat to relieve some pressure so they can't go back on.

 

[adsm08]

Weak spark (a symptom of worn out/crappy spark plugs) is a #1 cause of fuel getting into the exhaust.

 

[jkufen]

You should figure out why they melted themselves down. Age alone will not cause that to happen 90% of the time. The most common cause is the engine running too rich or some other source of incomplete combustion allowing raw fuel down the exhaust.

The glowing that you see is the catalyst matrix super-heating because fuel is burning inside the shell.


My advice for the moment, remove the shell and punch out the damage/melted stuff, put it back in and run it while you find your root cause, then replace the empty shell with a direct fit unit.


If you understand the purpose of the converters, how they do not hamper performance and reliability when everything else is operating properly (Bill, get out of the 70's and learn how things work these days or stop making asinine and uninformed comments about how the systems work when things aren't broken), you would not have that same attitude about running with no cats full time.

That makes a lot of sense to me now. When my wife jumped out and looked underneath she said there was a small steady flame coming out of a hole in my muffler. It makes sense now that because the engine wasn't burning all the fuel it ignited in the cats and created the small flame my wife saw. I am going to work on getting the B2 tuned up and hopefully that will eliminate my issue. Might even improve my gas mileage

 

[jkufen]

Weak spark (a symptom of worn out/crappy spark plugs) is a #1 cause of fuel getting into the exhaust.

ok I am going to have the get the cheaper motorcraft plugs until I am able to afford some better ones but they are new so hopefully they'll solve my issue. I know I have just repeated that same line like in the last 4 post. Sorry for the redundancy

 

[LIMA BEAN]

That makes a lot of sense to me now. When my wife jumped out and looked underneath she said there was a small steady flame coming out of a hole in my muffler. It makes sense now that because the engine wasn't burning all the fuel it ignited in the cats and created the small flame my wife saw. I am going to work on getting the B2 tuned up and hopefully that will eliminate my issue. Might even improve my gas mileage

Check your fuel regulator too, besides mass fuel in the engine it will fill your brake booster and kill it also.

 

[adsm08]

The Motorcraft plugs are the best ones you can buy for this engine. Don't go screwing around with fancy multi-prong or anything like that.

I just bought a set of MCs for my truck, $14.50 for the set. Those are all I have used for years, and I have never had an issue from them.