85' Z28....305 four barrel..car just recently started idling rougher and real loss of power on road. could the catalytic converter be plugged up? are these symptoms what you would expect? i believe this is the original converter on the car (120k mi on car)

is there an easy way to determine if this is my problem? can't these cats be punched out and gutted? how do you go about doing that? Rick

 

pretty sure u can tap on your cat and if you hear rattling inside its bad

 

I believe a cat problem wouldn't come on suddenly, especially with a carbed car. Sounds more like a vacuum line came off or some other carburetor problem.

 

i agree, it acts just like a vacuum line problem, that is the first thing i looked for, then checked all the plug wires....idles rough, poor performance. dunno. we're gonna check the cat, maybe go ahead and punch it out, and then check carb. carb was recently professionally rebuilt, and ran great, but maybe we got into some real bad gas?

 

It's not scientific but put your hand over the exhaust and if it feels like it's pushing gas out well it's probably not the cat. Especially if get someone to rev the engine and the exhaust flows well.

 

That's sounds scientific enough for me. My computer-controlled Qjet has run perfectly for 8 years after my brother rebuilt it, even the choke. It's only messed up twice, both times because dirt got in the intake: once when the carb to air cleaner gasket dried out and broke and again when we put headers on the car, leaving it without the air cleaner on for about two weeks.
Both times it ran rough, throttle stuck partially open then it would suddenly die. I sprayed the heck out of it about three times with carb cleaner, all around the throttle shafts and whatever air bleeds there are in the primaries, and it finally settled down without having to take the carb apart. All I can think is that it's sensitive to dirt, runs great for years but acts up bad when it eats some dirt--probably the same for bad gas.