[Mk2] [Turbo] How difficult is changing the Turbo Elbow/Cat/fitting Decat/Downpipe??

[Danbob]

I've bought a new downpipe/Decat for the car as my Cat has collapsed and the honeycomb is now loose and sitting on the sensor at the bottom.

I can't find any info anywhere on how difficult it is to change Turbo elbow/Cat. Somebody said you have to take apart the whole oil cooler assembly in order to remove the elbow, is this necessary?

Can anyone give me an idea of how long the job takes, I have only recently had the aftermarket B pipe off so will be no problems getting that off again. Trying to judge whether it's a job I can be bothered to do now or whether to just wait until the car comes off the road for winter.

Cheers

Dan

[darkwolf]

when i did mine i spent the best part of a day to release all the seized bolts off the cat supports and i managed to remove mine with out removing the oil cooler but it was a very tight fit

[Paul vd Plas]

took me 5 hours to do it. I removed the oilcooler, because i could not get the nuts off with the oilcooler mounted.

I have a Berk dp and needed to cut some thread off, because they hit the dp.

It was my first time i did this to a mr2 and would not do it again with the enige in the car. Had acces to all the tools and a lift.

sorry for my bad language, im dutch.

[JeffD]

Here you go :-)

http://www.imoc.co.uk/forums/viewtopic. ... ight=decat

If youve got the right tools then go for it, otherwise take it somewhere like Lukes in Flamestead M1 J9 which is not too far from you.

[Danbob]

Cheers, Someone should sticky that!

Sounds like it'll be a bit of a pain, might leave it until the cars off the road so I can take my time, I'll see what the weekend brings!

Cheers!

[bolton]

Crap job imho! Cat support bolts are not nice either! Oil cooler can b moved easy! Just be careful bolting it back down! Lol

[karlz0r]

It was a 4 hour job with me and a good friend the support bolts and rusted,
I took the downpipe off in 2 bits and ditatched the bellhouse mouth from the cat itself.

[psummers]

Luke at Pacific Works only charges £80 to do this. It's not an easy job to do as the bolts aren't that easy to get to and will put up a fight. If you fancy a challenge though, go for it

[bolton]

For £80 it isnt worth lifting a spanner!!

[danielmotegi]

almost impossible to remove without either rounding off the heads on the cat supports or snapping them,took me 4 hours and i have restored a good few cars so no most of the tricks with cars from the 60s where bolts are at one with each other.

best thing to do is soak absolutely everything with wd40 and make sure that you have a set of imperial sockets too to hammer onto rusty bolts for a tight fit so you dont round them off.

[bigmarky5185]

ive just removed my cat and standard exhaust off my rev 2 turbo. my car was an unmolested car so unfortunatley for me that ment alot of rusted bolts etc.... as above use alot of wd40 before touching anything.

the job took me about 5 hours to do and i had to grind one of the support bracket bolts off as it was so rusty. If you can get it done for £80 save your self a few grey hairs and let a garage do it.

[Danbob]

£80 does sound very tempting!

But the car is coming off the road for winter next week now, So I'm going to crack on with it over winter when I change the intercooler etc.

Cheers for the advice

[toxo]

I'm doing one on an ST205 GT4 Monday night (and probably Tuesday night lol) next week if you want to pop over and see. I'm at MK18.

[Danbob]

Cheers for the offer mate, but I wont be about n Monday night. I've got all winter to do it now though so it shouldnt be a problem, let me know how you get on though,
cheers