Ever since i bought my car there has been a rattle in the exhaust that happens in the low rpm's but i can easily tell its in the cat area because when i look under the car and shake the exhaust it makes a rattle noise like something is loose inside and i was wondering how to go about looking at it because the exhaust bolts could break from being heated and cooled so often. what is the best way to check it out?

 

You sure it isn't an exhaust heat sheild? They are known to rattle after awhile. I am assuming you have a stock cat?

 

Well the car has a fart can on it from when i bought it and it looks its just the muffler and im sure its on the inside, you can feel it. and i have checked the heat shield over and over because that is most logical

 

So i looked some more and i know for sure it is not a heat shield at all and i have found the part of the exhaust its coming from and its a horrible rattle


and to show you where that is with respect to the car



Any ideas?

 

Sometimes parts can come loose inside the muffler/resonator/catalytic converter. This will cause the rattle that you can only here at low rpms.

 

my only rattle was the heat shield. Not the cat shield, but the shield that sits above it. Only happened in low rpms, took that sucker off and no rattle.

 

Ill take one last look but when i hold onto that part in the picture you can really feel something in there

 

if it rattles in the resonator id just replace it. its probably busted on the inside or MAYBE some of the cat busted out and stuck in there... simply crawl under the car and jerk up and down alittle on the piping and listen for the rattling. i had my old 96jimmy truck that had half of the cat break loose. i just cut it open and removed the busted section and welded it back up.
one thing is to remove the exhaust mid pipe from the cat to the rear axle back muffler section.

if your lucky the busted chunk can just slide out the end with some jiggling and you can slap it back on and be alright.

or just buy a new cheapie cat back system and replace it all
or can always just cut out the resonator and either delete it OR replace it with one from a junk yard if you can find one cheap. my local junk yards usually cut off the cat flanges. but if you delete the resonator your exhaust tone will most likely sound worse

just depends how you wanna do it....

 

well the final plan of course is getting a new exhaust after i paint and lower the car. If it takes a lot of work i guess ill bite my tongue until then its just an annoying thing that bothers OCD drivers like myself

 

i had a "high flow cat" that had the honeycomb inside it break off and rattle around inside there. It sounded exactly like a heat shield but all i had to do was remove the "high flow cat" and weld a pipe in it's place.