PIA to remove the catalytic converter

[BryanG]

Ok, so my cat is plugged and the muffler is shot so today my 2 teenage boys and I decided to remove everything to be ready for new. Muffle came off easy as could be. Time to hit the cat. There are 3 bolts that hold the cat to the Y pipe. This has to be the stupidest engineering design I have ever seen. Bottom bolt very easy to just cut off with a cutoff wheel. 2nd or middle bolt snapped off no problem. Now for the top bolt. Took us over 2 hours to get this off. First of all who in their right mind thought it would make sense to put a bolt in line with the Y pipe? We tried everything with no luck. So tight you can only get a wrench on it or just the socket. We tried every type of extension combo known to man with no luck. Snapped one of the extensions in half but then realized it said "Made in Taiwan" so that explained that one. So, I finally removed the oil filter to be able to lay the cutoff wheel in the frame. Couldn't pull the trigger since it was so tight up there. Has to tape the trigger to run all the time. My boys then kinked the air hose to shut it off. I was able lay under the Bronco and with my left hand only run the cutoff wheel. Used my right hand to give my boys the thumbs up thumbs down sign to shut it off and on. We finally were able to get that damn bolt off. Man this was a poor design on Ford's part.

Anyhow the exhaust is gone from the Y pipe back and I just ordered all new system including a new O2 sensor from Rock Auto. Total parts will be $240 after the $50 rebate on the cat. It was a huge PIA but beats the $500 quote I got from the shop. I'm whipped but we didn't get whipped by a bad Ford design today. Plus the boys learned a few things. (Dad cusses a lot)

 

[morrisrh1]

Fwiw...

I am doing mine while I do the transmission swap - it's never going to be easier than when the tranny's out.

If you're swapping a transmission and there's any chance you'll be doing the exhaust soon, do them at the same time!