Rattle When Accelerating: catalytic converter

cirsurvive711

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So for a few months now I had this rattle coming from under my car when I would accelerate, usually around ~1600rpms but go away immediately. It'd be a quick "GRUNT" sound. It would also sometimes rattle at idle.

So I had to get my car inspected and my mechanic told me the rattle was the loose guts of my catalytic converter. He told me to ignore it until the thing craps out but I'm not sure I want to do that lol. Its pretty annoying. Anyone have any similar problems or solutions?
 

RedRyder

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My first thought was a loose heat shield. I'd get under the car, take a look and bang around.
 

RedRyder

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Doesn't look like he posted what he found in the end. I would check your heat shield, and if it's not that I'd just hit the cat with your hand and see if you hear metal rattling inside. If it's the latter, it should be replaced. But my guess is one of those two.
 

cirsurvive711

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Yeah the rattling is coming from the cat itself. my buddy and i sometime next week are gonna take it off, get some of the loose crap out of it and see what that does. He knows alot more about this stuff than I do lol
 

fastflyinaccord

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I had that problem too. It was the honeycomb insert inside the cat. The problem with leaving it rattle is that the piece may come loose and get lodged in the exhaust pipe. You can run it until you throw a code
 

swollen_cu

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RedRyder said:
Doesn't look like he posted what he found in the end. I would check your heat shield, and if it's not that I'd just hit the cat with your hand and see if you hear metal rattling inside. If it's the latter, it should be replaced. But my guess is one of those two.

It was my cat that was the problem. I gutted it out and ran like that for a while until I saved enough for a magnaflow replacement cat.

If it's not rocks in your heatshield, it's your cat.
 
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