Legit Reviews

Right after I treated the truck to new headliner for $225 my wife driving the truck home all of sudden was on the side of the road due to lost of power. A full-blown tune-up was done to this beast back in November. Truck will start up but cannot accelerate. I'm suspecting the catalytic converter since the truck has around 135,000 miles on it. What ya think it might be? This is a 3/4 ton vehicle with the good ole never a mechinal problem 350 engine.

ummm, im am no professional, but have worked on vehicles before (i have owned 2 IH scout II's in my short life) I dont think that it is a catalytic converter. does it sputter at all or just no acceleration? i would check the carb. to make sure nothing is blocked or maybe the fuel lines for kinks or something. I would check fuel related stuff rather than exhaust related things. A bad cat. could hinder power, but i dont think it would prevent acceleration. Just some thoughts.

it won't rev or anything? Does it cut off when she tries to press the gas pedal? I had a problem with my Suburban not being able to accelerate, and my tranny died at a red light, it would rev all it wanted to, but not go anywhere hardly. Check your wires and plugs again, along with the rotor button on the distributor (or coil if it has one)....recheck everything to make sure it looks alright. on the wires, make sure you haven't pulled the actual conductor and wire out of the boot if you took one of the wires off for some reason during installation. Re-gap the plugs if you have to, also make sure your carb is adjusted right (if you have one of em instead of the throttle body)......at worst, there could have been spark knock and the engine is blown somewhere.....check everything, but start with what you replaced: plugs and wires.

I've been in a truck and had a sound like a vaccum and it turned out to be the catalytic converter... My jeep also melted the original one and it failed to speed up when gas was given. Worth a shot to check it out.

I'm no expert, but we do own a suburban and dodge ram.

The Ram's converter collapsed on itself but it was still driveable I would look to other parts of the car...but I could be wrong.

Our new suburban just lost power on the left side of the car for no apparent reason. It went threw 3 sets of fuses at the dealer before it decided to quit.

I really don't know what the problem is from the lack of explanation. If the car starts and revs but doesn't really accelerate I would worry about the tranny. At 150,000 miles last 1.5 years ago, our 1997 Suburban lost its second tranny and could only accelerate to low speeds.

Good luck man.

mine made it to 187K before I had to replace the tranny, and that was because I tried to "launch" it from a red light (yeah, stupid junk, lol).......those 700R4's, though awesome for their separate overdrive cog, had the propensity for going, not to mention the annoying "3-4 shuffle" because of the TV valve.....of course, replacing it with an aftermarket one fixes the problem well.......it downshifts to 3rd at 3/4 throttle instead of 1/2 with the faultly OE and OEM ones.

I asked for the facts from the wife:
1) The truck was losing power and had the smell of burnt rubber. She was able to get the truck to an intersection before it 'died.'
2) Her dad (was closer to the truck them me at the time) started up the truck and it started right up. He was able to move the truck a very short distance with it sputtering and then it gave up again. Wife said black smoke was coming out of the 'back' and backfiring was occurring. Her dad said he noticed the burnt smell but could not define it.
3) By the time I got there her dad and her towed the truck to his house. I checked the tailpipe and it had the usual black powder, not any oil. Carb was soaked in gas. I could not find any leaks under the body of the truck. I could not locate any smells lingering near the engine.

My association with the catalytic converter being a possible lead. A long time ago I had a miserable 305 in an old 1977 Malibu. Took a 350 engine (hot-rodded) and plopped it in the Malibu and was driving the car down the highway when it lost power; however, I was able to drive it back home with the gas pedel floored to make it move. I did something well, er...not quite the proper way to 'repair' a catalytic converter and engine was back to being a lean mean sleeper.

Once I mentioned the catalytic converter her dad remembers that smell from when his catalytic converter died on his Jeep. He also mentioned that the truck seems starved for air.

Does that help with the description of the problem?

I think you just diagnosed your problem man......now to go grab that catalytic converter, or a hammer and chisel and tap out the inners of the converter, unless it's required where you live....then I would replace it. yeah, exhaust restriction will cause an almost complete loss of performance. happy "modding", lol

Thanks killswitch83, no emissions testing in my part of Oregon but the threat of testing is coming closer each year. I have to admit that I'm hoping that I'm correct on the problem because I already told my wife that if there is any mechanical problem with the engine or tranny then I would get rid of the beast. I have shelled out $2,400 in repairs and maintenance on it since June of 05. However, the engine and tranny have as of yet not been a problem. This old truck does not even have any leaks. And the truck hardly gets driven - it's get an oil change long before it's time. :p Whereas my poor old 87 VW Cabriolet (yes, a convertable in rainy Oregon - yes, I'm crazy ) gets driven every day and it has only $200 of repairs on it in the past 8 months and it needs a new blower fan but I cannot replace it due to the truck that is hardly driven requiring the money that was going to be spent on the VW. I'm startin' to get paranoid that the truck does not like the little guy. I'm mostly paranoid when I start to think how nice it would be to have defrosted windows in the rain or heat actually getting blown on me. Oh well, the beauty is getting even, due to the weather and no blower fan the beauty has taken the beast's parking space at home.

Apoptosis wrote:I've been in a truck and had a sound like a vaccum and it turned out to be the catalytic converter... My jeep also melted the original one and it failed to speed up when gas was given. Worth a shot to check it out.

that's funny... i had a vacuum that had a sound like a truck and it turned out the vacuum was a piece of crap

I had an '83 SB when the cat craped out in it, it had done very simmalr things, I cut it off and slaped a cherry bomb glass pack on it just to get by. you could hear me before you could see me.

man I miss that thing.. would hate to have to fill up on todays gas prices though..

oh, when I got rid of her. 340K on the truck 170k on the rebuilt 350, one tranny rebuild (same time as engine) and 27 alternaters. there was a slight electrical prob at the end, got to where the guy at the parts store saw me come into the lot he had my altenator on the counter. I could change one in 7 mins.

even with that hard-to-work-with serpentine belt??? Or did yours have v-belts? I know it would be rather difficult to change a lot of things on a serpentine setup (maybe not as much as on a RWD car, but I know on a FWD it's hell, lol). Good ol' trucks, that's all I can say

it was still the old v-belt setup, I prefer the vbelts in some ways. aleast when you lost a belt you could (depending on the belt) limp somewhere to get it fixed. lose a serpent, you not going any where.

but yah, the serpents are a snap to work with. each of my cars have a long breaker bar that fits the tensioner and a spare belt.

And the solution was:
Ignition coil wire. $43 for repairs. $75 for towing. My insurance pays for the towing fortunately. Appears my wife's nose was correct about the burnt rubber smell.

what was it doing? grounding out or something?

I'm not sure. Will ask when I go pick up the truck. I have a very honest mechanic.

probably got burned on the top of the exhaust manifold........either that or on the intake.....yeah the smell of burning wire is great, rofl

glad to hear you figured it out man

ya, the smell of wire is great. I had a wire from somewhere on the engine (i forget where) going to the key switch under the dash on my scout rest on my header...had fusable link wire under the dash, the wire fried and smoke came pouring into the cab. scared teh crap out of me.

The boot on the wire was burned away on one side. Interestingly, the previous mechanic I had was the one that did the tune-up and that part was one of the items replaced. Glad I switched mechanics.

I switched mechanics because I caught them overcharging me. The heater core went bad and I was quoted $75 over the "highest" price I could find online. He lowered the price.