Well treated truck, but cel has been taken out?

Thank you. Felt really dramatic for a min there. It's a v6.

I didn't find any crack in the overflow tank, I filled it up and will monitor what happens.

I swapped the plugs and coil packs with the ones from the smashed truck (still not done with the insurance) last night, will monitor what happens. After a 15 min ride, I only have a p0420 pending. I'll see if the p0300 code comes back like it did last time.

I saw on some threads in here that p0300 misfire can be caused by a bad cat. Oddly enough, the truck cold starts just fine until that code pops (takes a day or 2, or maybe it's after the emission cycle), then it shakes for 10 seconds at cold start.

 

Well, I might have found the p0420's culprit. I was crouched under it looking and picking at stuff when I noticed a weld :

 

mmm I thought all 2001 + were CA spec vehicles with TWO cats.. It was either stolen, or more likely it was bad, and they straight piped it, and pulled the CEL.

 

Still have the exhaust from the other truck ?

 

Exactly. That kind of takes a load off my mind to be honest. It's really plausible and it's just not that big of a deal over here.

It's on there yes. Looks like I'll learn how to swap an whole exhaust system!


Searching on, I'm seeing engine misfire can be caused by a blocked primary cat. If that's the case, that might solve the misfire as well, no idea if the cats on the other truck are better. Same mileage and more idling time I bet. That truck had a o2 sensor code, not a cat code though

Hopefully the misfire didnt damage the engine. I have no idea how long this went on, I can only assume 3 people realized this after a month owning the truck and sold it

 

The exhaust swap shouldn't be terrible depending on where you choose to do the swap from. There should be a few locations along the exhaust where there are flanges and gaskets. I'd suggest getting new gaskets for each one. Given that it looks like the "new" frame has either been painted over (also a red flag) I'm going to assume that the exhaust studs are welded together, so get some new studs and nuts as well, and just cut (using a nut splitter or cut off wheel ) the old ones. It will save you so much time in the long run. I don't live in the rust belt and it took me a weekend of PB blaster, swearing, etc... just to get a few of them apart to change out some gaskets where I had a leak.

 

Saw somewhere misfire can be caused by a worn timing belt. I feel like it's a good thing I checked