So my wife went to leave for work this morning and her engines been running a little rough lately because I think she needs a new o2 sensor and been waiting for payday to get it. Well this morning she said she couldn't get it over 10 mph then there was a mild "explosive force" at the back end and she saw something glowing red hot behind her car as she limped it back home. I went out to look at the car and it was really hot directly above the tailpipe at the hatchback. It's still really dark and I coudldn't find a light but I didn't see anything missing from the exhaust system. My thoughts would be someone shoved something in the tailpipe or the cat clogged up and exploded. It's a Honda Accord wagon 1992. Any suggestions at all very helpful or if anyone has been through a similar experience and thinks I'm on the right track. Thanks in advance.
This is a guess and only a guess.. Either a good size vacuum leak or clogged fuel filter or even maybe the O2 sensor. The cat melted internally and blew a chunk out the back.
Maybe the catalytic converter is breaking up inside and the hot pieces are coming out. When the car miss fires ( rough running ) the fuel that normally produces power just goes on into the converter and gets burned in it, causing it to overheat! This can actually get hot enough to set the car afire, so by all means get the car to a mechanic for a look over! This may not be what's happening, but having red hot parts falling to the ground is not a good thing!
Now the issue is the converter has likely plugged the muffler or resonator downstream of the cat. Gets expensive fast. If you think the exhaust is plugged,we usually pull the O2 sensor and see if it fires up. The hole is big enough the engine will start and run with the exhaust plugged downstream of it. Dont drive it like that obviously. Just lets you know if the exhaust is plugged or not.
Thanks guys that really helps a LOT. Would you think my wife did much damage to the engine? She didnt drive it more than a block or 2.
Oh man I got into it with the Honda yesterday. Wound up with a decent head wound a mild condition and a car that runs as good as new (for a 200k+ mileage car anyway ) Turns out the Distributor had decided to eat itself a bit. The rotor had come off balance and was free spinning on the shaft a bit and had chewed up pretty much ALL of the cap, and that kinda messed up most of the other stuff in the distributor. Luckily Honda sucks at making distributors so my brother-in-law already had like 4 of them laying around in his shed. We rebuilt it, did a total ignition overhaul and some other minor maintenance stuff while we were in there, especially since there was like half a quart of oil floating on top of the spark plugs. but 8 hours of wrenchin and head scratchin and we got the wagon back on the road. I probably still have to replace the cat before it can pass DEQ again but I got a year or so to do that. I'll start saving up for a muffler shop. Thanks for the advice guys, just turns out I had been sniffing up the wrong trail.
Wow! A self destruction distributor! Who would have guessed! Glad it was easy and you had the parts available to you!
