Rear heater PM and cat nuts (1 Viewer)

[AJP]

Armed with 2 x 10m 1.25 ($8.00 at the local Toyota dealer) I crawled under the '97 LX450 to replace the gasket between the 2 cats.

Damn there was a drop of red fluid on the exhaust pipe and a small damp spot on the driveway...I figured great, now the transmission is shot!

The fluid turned out to be coolant....looked up and the culprit was the rear heater hose! Wonderful news!! I figure the lines have rusted through (Canadian winters and salt - lots of it!) and the day is pretty much shot.

When I reached up to see where the leak was coming from (core or line) I touched the little "T" clamp.. and it came away in my fingers...BOTH of them. The clamps had dissolved - literally ...was able to replace both in a few minutes with stainless Tridons (at least they claim to be stainless) and the leak appears to have stopped. Line replacements or a bypass are on the books now.

The Cat gasket didn't get done. First because the nuts and bolts are rusted beyond recognition and both bolts appear to be pointed (?) .. I will cut them off... BUT they definitely look a LOT smaller than 10mm....the rest of the exhaust bolts look 10m BUT the 2 holding the cats together are a lot smaller OR they have behaved in a very peculiar fashion and have lost 1/2 their diameter to heat and corrosion.....has anyone else seem this???

As Dan pointed out before ... 10m is what the FSM calls for BUT it sure is weird and looks closer to 6 or maybe 8... is the '97 LX450 different? are the holes bigger than they appear? Am I just too old for this?

thanks
Adrian



(97 LX 450, 217k KM --- sprayed "inside and out" with Krown oil every year!)

 

[DaveyBoy]

Armed with 2 x 10m 1.25 ($8.00 at the local Toyota dealer) I crawled under the '97 LX450 to replace the gasket between the 2 cats.
First because the nuts and bolts are rusted beyond recognition and both bolts appear to be pointed (?) .. I will cut them off... BUT they definitely look a LOT smaller than 10mm....the rest of the exhaust bolts look 10m BUT the 2 holding the cats together are a lot smaller OR they have behaved in a very peculiar fashion and have lost 1/2 their diameter to heat and corrosion.....has anyone else seem this???

(97 LX 450, 217k KM --- sprayed "inside and out" with Krown oil every year!)

I just did this on Sunday. Cut off the old ones (pointy, rusted junk)
I ended up using 10mm x 1.50 from the hardware store (stainless)
and they fit fine.

Make sure you check the position of the exhaust where it goes up over
the rear axle. After I tightened down the to bolts and started it up, the
pipe was touching and it rattled at idle. Loosened them up again and
twisted it slightly, now all is good.

 

[AJP]

Thanks very much DavyBoy for the tip....I'll watch for that. Bought the "reinforced" cutoff wheels for my Dremel...Saturday morning I am going to do the deed!

 

[archie]

Mine just started to drip above the cat also. Do you have to remove the cat in order to replace line? Any suggestion/tips to getting the culprit section off?Can't seem to find the hose coming off the engine, Does it go through the firewall? Thanks alot for the info!