Unclogging Catalyst Converter

Has anyone unclogged their Cats themselves??

 

Pretty sure the reason they clog is because the honeycomb material inside falls apart causing blockage. I doubt there's anyway to actually unclog them other then to gut them out, which would pretty much render them useless.

 

I ‘cleaned’ the CAT on my first car (77 Nova) with a hammer and a long screwdriver.. worked really good.

I’ve seen CAT cleaner advertised but don’t know if it works. Seafoam drawn through a vacuum line might do the trick.

 

Look up “Italian tune up”

 

When I get peeved with the check engine light mine gets an Italian tune up and then I'll clear the codes and she'll run for several hundred miles with no CEL. With the cost and lack of availability of OEM's for mine I probably will live with doing that for the foreseeable future. As Tilly said it's probably the internals breaking up, especially on a 16 year old vehicle, mine's only ten years old but with it coming up on 260k I have probably had my miles worth out of them.

Edit: Luckily I live in a kitten killing state and don't have an emissions test to worry about.

 

I changed out my engine (rebuilt) and I still get check engine light, throw on the computer and it stated a misfire on ALL cylinders. I researched what else it could be and it led me to clogged cats. I’ve seen you can clean them your self but I haven’t came across a tundra owner to do so..

 

What codes is it throwing?
There are plenty of video's on the net on using chemicals, etc, which might well work if your old engine dumped a load of oil in them and gunked them up but for most of us with no previous engine issues a cat throwing codes is usually beyond chemical snake oil treatments.