LOSS OF POWER WHEN EXHAUST IS PLUGGED

From Sunday night 7pm till this morning, Tuesday 5am ...mrs. Beans and I covered about 1600 miles and talked to many people and accomplished many things.

The first stop on our journey was Cedar Rapids Iowa and it took us a couple extra hours due to engine trouble. By the time we got to hilly Iowa ("hilly" NOT "mountainy") the engine was bogging down so bad we were dropping from 70mph to 53 mph by the time we cleared the gophers head. Then the temp light would come on.

Well I knew it had plenty of coolant and the hoses were good and the fan belt wasn't slipping and the fan was working and the water pump seemed to be doing its job without weeping, and the thermostat seemed to be opening so WHAT would be causing the temp light to come on!! And furthermore...what in tarnation was going on with this loss of power? (one might think from the shared onset time..that they were related...thereby giving 2 clues to the single problem...but all the things I could think of were coming up as multiple problems. )

Even though it was over 100 degrees outside, I turned the a/c off and put it on Heater at its Hottest setting with the fan on high, (this will provide a momentary cooling effect for a slightly overheated engine) and backed off the accelerator until the temp light went off..which was usually within 10 seconds. When it went off I would gently increase speed again and flip the heater back to ac and the temp would be fine for another 5-15 miles. Weird. But I couldn't get ANY trick to work on restoring power and I'm sure alot of the people I had passed earlier that were now passing me right back...were wondering if i was on the cell phone or just not paying attention. I can hear them now "they oughta make cruise controls mandatory"...(I can hear them because I've said that myself on occasion). Problem was I had cruise control. And it was ON.

So as soon as we finished our first appointment, we headed to Cedar Rapids Transmission shop on 8th ave. A top notch good reputation place. The manager first thought it was engine trouble..ie bad spark plugs or wires or coil or air filter...since it was now running real rough even at idle. But he took it and me for a spin, and mashed down on the pedal...which scared me in town, since usually THIS engine would have shot like a rocket...the rpm went up..the speed did not. Then the temp light came on. He circled me past the muffler shop and said...THAT is where I needed to go. And he didn't even charge us a dime. Wow.

The muffler shop quickly found that the catalytic converter was completely destroyed, worn out, and plugged. When the exhaust can't get out...the transmission can't know to shift, and the engine gets hot quick. (I think ex-lax sales are based on that principle too). Boom, $200 and a quick replacement later we're back to ZIPPING along.

A very short time later my slowing down old brain "remembered" OH YEAH!! I remember years ago I had a car that couldn't pull a hill, and I thought it was the tranny but it was a clogged converter. Sheesh I should have remembered that more readily!! Especially since I did remember that when that happened the first time I purposely established a mental note to add this to my troubleshooting files. You know when you tell yourself "I'm going to have to remember this". Well, I did. After I learned it all over again. (That seems to be happening more often than I'd like...and I'm not sure the fish oil is going to solve that one!).

But we finished as many of the things we could and made it to our stop in Omaha later yesterday than we originally intended. Got to spend some HIGH quality visiting time with 2 of my nephews ...more time than I'd ever had a chance to spend with them...And we loved every minute of it. Then about 500 miles later we finished our journey. And at this moment I really should be in bed, and will be before too long...but I had to get this down before sleep took over.

Which is kind of one of the metaphorical lessons I should be learning...when you stop the exhaustion from passing on thru (ie..via sleep)...there is a significant loss of power. And once again...I think I've already learned that lesson at least once, must have misfiled it.