cat question

my exhaust pulled apart and fell off at winterfest. exhaust and tail pipe went in the trash, and as for the cat, i put it back on yesterday. when i put it back on, it was right up against the floor boards. is it supposed to be this tight to the underside, or has it been bent up some? if it is supposed to be this tight, is there a heat shield from autozone, etc. or something that i could make to help dissipate more heat away from the floor board?

thx

look at the inlet side of the cat, the little stub of piping is supposed to be straight on with the cat, if its not then its bent. just put a slightly bigger piece of piping over it and hit it back with your good old hammer. and yes there is supposed to be a heat shield there.

eric

if you leave it tight to the floor it will most likely catch your rug on fire. not sure how far away it should be but i would think a couple of inches is good

eric91xj said:

look at the inlet side of the cat, the little stub of piping is supposed to be straight on with the cat, if its not then its bent. just put a slightly bigger piece of piping over it and hit it back with your good old hammer. and yes there is supposed to be a heat shield there.

eric

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i'm not sure what you mean little stub. i didn't look at it too carefully, but i did put the stub on the down pipe in one of the notches on the cat if that is what you mean. there were two notches on the cat. when i lined up the stub on the down pipe to one of the two notches, one orientation was easier to get the cat on than the other. is that normal?

From my experience, it would not have had a heat shield on it if it was an older XJ. My brothers 99 does have one, but I'm not sure when they started to put them on (it may also have been put on by the previous owner). I've been under my 95 and a bunch of other XJ's from 92 up to a 96, and none of them had heat shields. I've been told by a guy that does bodywork that no 96 or older XJ's had them, which is why they have a tendency to rust out on the passengers side floorpan (which I've had to deal with firsthand) People with newer XJ's could chime in and let us know if they have them.

I do know that the cats I've seen have all been at least 1 in. from the floorpan, except for one that had been badly bashed up on a stump......

HTH!