Hi guys,

 

After I pulled the EA-82 from my 1991 wagon I noticed the 2 exhaust down pipes had a large build-up of white, crusty stuff.

The engine had overheated in a bad way so this might be solidified coolant that was being pumped into the exhaust?

 

Can anyone offer some advice on how to clean out the exhaust please?

It has clogged up 1/3 of the diamter and I'm thinking I will probably have to seperate it into pieces?

The Cat might be clogged now as well...

 

Thanks,

David.

Hmm, that's a weird one. I would recommend trying to break it up into chunks as much as you can, then use a really stiff wire bottle brush to get the rest out. If that crap is in the exhaust it probably has collected in the cat as well. Take out the oxygen sensor and peer in there. You should be able to tell if it's plugged or not just by looking at the cat material. If it's plugged, then either get a new cat or if it's legal in your area to do so, get rid of the cat stuff entirely by breaking it up with a rod through the oxygen sensor hole and dumping it out.

Gosh Kelly, you're alful rough on those cats. Must be a dog person.

as you crush up the honeycomb ceramic inside, there will be brillo pad like steel padding that will come out, too.

Did you know that catalytic converters use platinum as part of the catalyst? That crud is more valuable than gold!!! Although it would need to be treated because of the toxic engine gases.

I dunno about cleaning out the cat, but the pipes can be cleaned with an old motorbike drive chain. It should beat up the crud and knock it off pretty well.

 

Oh, and pull off the pipe to do this, of course. Run the chain right through it.

 

Same technique is used to derust motorbike gas tanks.

Unfortunately my carby EA-82 doesn't have any sensors on the Cat so I'll need to just pull it all apart and try and look in one end I guess.

 

Here's a photo of both pipes:

The build-up isn't exactly clogging 1/3 of the diameter as mentioned, it's about 8mm thick. Some of it has broken away and probably gotten stuck further down the pipe.

 

 

I've got another sedan exhaust sitting around here (it has heat shields on the downpipes too! ) but it also seems to have a similar build-up clogging the down-pipes...