Dented Catalytic Converter

Hey I was installing a lift on my truck yesterday and when i was lowering the jack so my truck would be resting on the jack stands, the jack stand on the driver side wasn't positioned correctly, it then tilted and wedged between the ground and the catalytic converter(luckily my tires were still on at this point). I went to turn on my truck after finishing the lift(forgetting about the dent), it struggled to turn over and was spewing exhaust out of the exhaust pipe.

My question is....Can the dent be hammered out to fix the issue or is the catalytic converter going to need to be replaced?

 

Is it just the heat shield or is the cat dented? Is there other damage, e.g., O2 sensor.

 

If you bang on it and don't hear any rattling, I'd say you're fine.

 

As far as i can tell its just that outer section where the jack was resting, I'm going to take it off in the morning and inspect it.
You'll have to forgive my ignorance, im super new to truck/car maintenance outside of the basics.
Does what i'm explaining sound like it would cause this issue?

 

Haha its spewing exhaust and not turning over!

 

Can you elaborate on this? An exhaust is supposed to spew exhaust - that's literally what it's purpose is (moving exhaust from the engine out to the environment after quieting and cleaning).

If the truck struggled to start and you were spewing something OTHER than exhaust out or exhaust was spewing out of the damaged area then those would be concerns. Sounds like you got the truck running though, yes? How does it run? Does it seem sluggish? Is it running rough? Anything out of the ordinary?

My concern here is that even if the cat isn't punctured that you damaged the inside of the cat. If the material inside cracks/falls apart or is squished together then exhaust flow will be restricted and you could run into problems. Unfortunately, due to the design of the Tacoma cat it's gonna be hard to check for this kind of damage without cutting the cat open.

 

Oh shoot… well I guess we gotta straight pipe that bitch

 

Just looks like it damaged the shield. Get in there and inspect it closer.

 

Before you spend any major money, take it to an old school dedicated muffler shop and see if they can inspect the cat with a borescope. They'll drill a small hole upstream or downstream of the cat and then look at the honeycomb for any damage. Afterwards they'll weld up the holes like new. Shouldn't cost too much for their time.

 

Just let someone steal it and you can get a new one

 

that little dent in the heat shield isn't causing your truck to struggle to turn over, check your battery.

As has been mentioned, looks like the heat shield mostly took the brunt of the dent. Probably very little damage to the actual cat.

 

You could take a simple approach.

Remove the heat shield. Then you can directly look at the CAT. While the heat shield is off, you could persuade the dent to match the rest of the shield. Afterwards, reinstall.