A hot cat usually means you are running rich or not firing in one cylinder.
Pull the plugs and look at each one for something abnormal.

But it could also be a plugged cat.

Tom

From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM] On Behalf Of
Paul
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2011 8:02 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Hot Cat

Volks,
Friday eve driving home everything was purrfect, Van running strong.
Saturday morning, after going down hill for about 5 miles I give it the gas
in 3rd gear and it's like there is some kinda miss in the engine. It will
get up to speed but not like it used to. After a while I pull over and I
notice that the cat is rather hot. More so than usual. I checked for loose
vacuum lines and loose wires but I didn't find anything out of order so I
proceed with my journey. The next hill I come to I had to down shift into
2nd, never had to do that before, and creep up the hill at about 30 mph. So
now I'm certain something is wrong but I had to go another 10 miles. Anyway
to make a long story short I made to where I had to go and back home. By the
time I make to home it's getting dark and I look at the cat and it's glowing
red. Next morning I replaced it with a spare and put new plugs in cleaned
the grounds at the engine block. Fire it up and seems good but upon driving
it, the same feeling it 3rd and 4th. It's like I'm dragging an anchor. I've
checked the archives but nothing has worked so I'm putting it out to you
guys because I'm at wits end. I'm going to try replacing the spark plug
wires today.
Any insight will be greatly appreciated, oh yea it's a digijet. 1.9L
waterboxer.
TIA,
Paul

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