I bought a used exhaust system from someone who was parting out a wrecked '85 GSL-SE. The car had only 50 or 70 thousand, and the cats look to be in about the same shape as the ones on my car. The connecting pipe (between the cats and the muffler) is basically brand-new, so it, alone, was worth the price. Here's the muffler from that car:
Looking at the second cat, it looks pretty good as well. I pulled off the lower heatshielding on both the first and second cats. It was disintegrating anyway, and I thought I'd get a better look. The cats all feel solid and don't seem to yield when being whacked with a screwdriver.
The main cat has one tiny spot that might be a hole. I can't tell yet. The lower heatshielding is destroyed, but I have a replacement for that.
Because the stud on the main cat is twisted off, I'm going to have to do something to get around it. I can try to drill it out, but I'm not sure how easy that will be. Since the cats that I got from the other car are in the same shape as the ones on the car right now (but with fewer miles, in theory), I'm thinking that I might be better off pulling the three cats off the car and putting the lower-miliage ones on the car. That would, of course, solve my stud problem. I managed to loose one of the bolts holding the first cat to the header, but the other is being a bit stubborn. After crushing my fingers when the breaker bar slipped, I gave up for the night.
- Pulled the lower shock absorber bolts, dropped the axle, pulled the springs, rasied the axle, and replaced the shock bolts.
- Pulled both rear calipers.
- Pulled the pre-monolith #1 from the header.
- Pulled the air tube from its flange at the monolith converter
- Sheared the bolts that connect the air tube to the converter. This isn't a problem, however, as all I need to make it all new again are a couple of new bolts and matching nuts.
Also took a bunch of pictures:
