glowing cat!

[TVR450s]

Driving home this morning, steady cruise on M way I noticed slight hesitation, heading through town became a little more lumpy until the engine cut out at some lights and refused to start unless full throttle was applied. At the road side I noticed a glowing from the exhaust Y piece. The car was drivable once cooled, but only for V short distance

Any ideas??

In the image the engine was off and had been for a couple of minutes.

[andym1603]

Could this be the start of the cat collapsing and blocking the flow of the gases through it?
Knew someone that had this problem on a Rover. A new cat solved the problem.

[Chuffmeister]

Sounds like the cat could be blocked, which is why it is getting so hot. Time for a new Y-piece? I'm not sure there is any other alternative. A good excuse to decat the current one.

[NZ fan]

This can happen if un-burnt fuel enters the exhaust causing burning in the cat. Cat overheat produces some nasty gasses from the exhaust so for this reason a lot of modern cars will shut off the injector on a misfiring cylinder. I would check the ignition system, condition of plugs, leads, coil, cap, rotor, igniter etc. Not saying your cat isn,t blocked but i have seen blocked cats on cars and they usually won't run for long at all. Just my thoughts, hope it helps. (Also possibly over fueling may be able to cause the same results)

Edited by NZ fan on Saturday 23 November 10:11

[portzi]

As NZ Fan says check all connections first. Why l say this is because l had a glowing manifold myself 3 years ago. It was a simple fix a spark plug lead had come loose on the same side as the glowing manifold !!!. Hope you get an easy fix like that.

Mark

[TVR450s]

Thank you all, after some reading today, it appears cat's don't generally fail unless there abused with unburnt fuel. I'm pretty sure mine's fxxxD now. I did check all the plug leads while it was cooling and all appeared ok. hope its just coincidence, but whilst driving the previous day i had a spectacular clutch slip moment and the revs went 7000+ momentarily.

If i remember ill post my inspection results


Any one got a spare Y piece????

Rgds

[Richard 858]

Time for a Clive F special perhaps ?

[TV8]

TVR450s said:

Thank you all, after some reading today, it appears cat's don't generally fail unless there abused with unburnt fuel. I'm pretty sure mine's fxxxD now. I did check all the plug leads while it was cooling and all appeared ok. hope its just coincidence, but whilst driving the previous day i had a spectacular clutch slip moment and the revs went 7000+ momentarily.

If i remember ill post my inspection results


Any one got a spare Y piece????

Rgds

I have my old one somewhere and there is another one on the current car coming off soon. Drop me a line if you are interested.

[s p a c e m a n]

Meow

[Sardonicus]

NZ fan said:

This can happen if un-burnt fuel enters the exhaust causing burning in the cat. Cat overheat produces some nasty gasses from the exhaust so for this reason a lot of modern cars will shut off the injector on a misfiring cylinder. I would check the ignition system, condition of plugs, leads, coil, cap, rotor, igniter etc. Not saying your cat isn,t blocked but i have seen blocked cats on cars and they usually won't run for long at all. Just my thoughts, hope it helps. (Also possibly over fueling may be able to cause the same results)

Edited by NZ fan on Saturday 23 November 10:11

This ^ just because the cat as been glowing don't necessarily mean its Donald Ducked I have not seen a failed main cat yet on an RV8 TVR yet but plenty of pre cat failures though

[ChimpOnGas]

TVR450s said:

Driving home this morning, steady cruise on M way I noticed slight hesitation, heading through town became a little more lumpy until the engine cut out at some lights and refused to start unless full throttle was applied. At the road side I noticed a glowing from the exhaust Y piece. The car was drivable once cooled, but only for V short distance

Any ideas??

In the image the engine was off and had been for a couple of minutes.

My old boss taught me how to make a proper old school workshop heater that used to look like that.

2" thick steel plate, heat it up to cherry in the morning with the oxy acetylene gear.

Two tanks made from old metal Castrol GTX cans, one with waste engine oil in it, and one with water.

A soldered brake pipe running of each tank, flattened at their ends to create a drip every 15 seconds.

The trick is to get the water drop and the oil drop to both hit the cherry red pre-heated 2" steel plate at exactly the same time & at the same point on the plate.

The oil burns instantly as it emulsifies with the water on contact with with the cherry red pre-heated 2" steel plate.

Its tricky to get it running dead right, but when you do the 2" plate will stay cherry red all day and give off a huge amount of radiant heat, but virtually no smoke.

When you're doing oil changes all day every day the fuel is free, and workshops are cold places.

Not sure what the health & safety executive would have to say about our deadly dripper heater these days, but I have to say it was amazingly effective.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is your cat is acting in a very similar way as our heater.

The engine heats the cat like we heated that 2" plate in the morning, then the the un-burnt fuel gets the cat glowing nicely all day, so its almost certainly an ignition fault.

While you're waiting to find the fault, I bet during these cold days your engine bay is a really nice toasty place to be, just like it was when we gathered around my deadly workshop heater

[TVR450s]

Panic over. The coil/rotor arm lead was completely off at the dizzy, Missed it at the road side. Many cylinders of unburnt fuel sure warms the cat up.

[Sardonicus]

TVR450s said:

Panic over. The coil/rotor arm lead was completely off at the dizzy, Missed it at the road side. Many cylinders of unburnt fuel sure warms the cat up.

Certainly does nice easy fix for ya