D2 Smells like Hell - Catalytic Converters?

[BJ64]

Hi everybody. My wife pulled into the gas station and everybody was looking at her like the reincarnation of Aleister Crowley. The rotten egg smell was enough to choke people and the car was cutting out badly.
Here is the car. 2003 D2, 75k miles, Petro, Auto.
The car just started cutting out so I changed spark plugs (standard Autolites since the store didn’t have the Champions). It ran OK for about 70 miles. Then it started cutting out badly on the highway and began smelling like Beelzelbub took a dump on the manifolds. :fart: :ack:

1. Can the Catalytic Converters go bad that fast or is something else happening to them? :kyle:

2. Is there fix cheaper than getting new catalytic Y pipes? In an old thread somebody mentioned getting catalytic converters from Summit Racing and welding them in. Has somebody done that?

:cheers:

 

[gardrover]

How is your coolant level

 

[az_max]

Hi everybody. My wife pulled into the gas station and everybody was looking at her like the reincarnation of Aleister Crowley. The rotten egg smell was enough to choke people and the car was cutting out badly.
Here is the car. 2003 D2, 75k miles, Petro, Auto.
The car just started cutting out so I changed spark plugs (standard Autolites since the store didn?t have the Champions). It ran OK for about 70 miles. Then it started cutting out badly on the highway and began smelling like Beelzelbub took a dump on the manifolds. :fart: :ack:

1. Can the Catalytic Converters go bad that fast or is something else happening to them? :kyle:

2. Is there fix cheaper than getting new catalytic Y pipes? In an old thread somebody mentioned getting catalytic converters from Summit Racing and welding them in. Has somebody done that?

:cheers:

can't say for sure the cats are bad, but the rotten egg smell is a good indicator. Check out the rest of the system before you replace them. No sense screwing up the new parts. Also see if the cats are covered under warranty. See some of the other cat posts in the disco section for pics of my replacement.

www.user-error.com/other/prout.mpa

 

[BJ64]

Coolant level is low.

 

[BJ64]

Ok here is a new development. Deb said that onthe way home the check engine light was blinking while it was cutting out real bad.

 

[WillTN]

1. Is it smoking at all? Any light white smoke in the exhaust?

2. Is it running rough or acting like its miss firing, maybe when going up hill?

3. Does it feel like its lacking power, maybe a little sluggish?

That's more then your cats. But it for cats are bad also they are still under warranty for 5 thousand more miles...

 

[BJ64]

No noticable smoke from the exhaust.

It is running rough like a miss fire and was doing before causing me to change the sparkplugs. The rough running happens at an idle, pulling away and currently running down the highway.

Just after I changed the plugs it seemed to have normal power and responce.

Thanks for the info on the Warranty. Those cats are a little pricey.

 

[WillTN]

hm... how do your head gaskets look?

Have you had a valve job in the last 40K?

 

[BJ64]

Hmm..head gaskets. When I was changing the plugs they looked good, meaning that I did not see any miss placed oil or water. For the most part the block was clean.

The car had 30K miles on it when we bought it, so if it did have a valve job I would not know about it. The car came form a car rental company out of Houston according to Carfax.

 

[bazzle]

Coolant level is low.

So where do you think it went?

Bazzle

 

[BJ64]

At the moment I'm thinking the coolent went via blown head gasket. I'm at work now but I'll look into that possibility and report back tomorrow.

 

[BJ64]

AM Update:

Coolant level looks to be due to neglect on my part . Head gaskets seem OK on the outside, no water in the oil and tail pipe was carbon black. The car was miss firing a great deal the last few miles.



The spark plugs that MAY be and cause of this are the Autolite 3924. The stock spark plugs were Champion RCIIPYPB4.

With the car running like crap, I can't take it to town to see what the codes are. I will have to wait on the OBD II reader that I ordered then I'll report the code info.

 

[S Marks]

Two other potential causes for two of your issues:

Truck running like crap/smelly:
-plug wires as the stock ones may be fried; you could try the mist water in the dark with it running to see if sparks jumping

Missing coolant:
-the throttle body heater exchange might be where the coolant is leaking; this is a common spot for a leak. I just cut off the band on the hose and placed a regular hose clamp and it fixed my problem