My 1984 1.9L Westy (Canadian model, bought in Germany by a fly boy at the height of the clod war) also has an empty cat.  I had always assumed it had been tampered with, but there is no sign of it. The way they are made would make that a simple job, just remove and hammer away with a chisel or steel rod of sorts. I think that the fact it is empty makes it noisier, it sort of rings. Bently shows the ceramic insert??? Was ist dass?
 
I suppose the question for the list members would be:  Does anyone have a cat with the insert intact?  Any difference between Canadian, American federal and California? 

JGS
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Gary Stearns 
  To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM 
  Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 8:46 AM
  Subject: Empty Cat. Converter

  I noticed in a post today asking about Stebro exhausts a mention of a catalytic converter that came from the factory "empty".  I bought our '88 used in '93.  It too had an empty catalyst.  I remember thinking that this was strange as I bought the Vanagon from a VW dealer (they shouldn't let go of it with a tampered emissions system right?), but the converter showed no evidence of having been forcefully reamed out.  Since then I have seen several other posts referring to empty cat. cons.  Do Vanagons mysteriously tempt tampering or did VW actually sell them this way.  Why?  Was an empty converter just a place to hang an O2 sensor?  Was it empty because our Vanagons are seen by the feds as light trucks, not having to meet the same standards as passenger cars? 

  Gary

[text/html]