what's wrong with your truck? you know you could put a junkyard engine in that puppy probably for under 2 gs and sell that truck for 6-7Gs

 

She has been misfiring since 96k miles. The last time she shutdown the catalytic converter was glowing bright red...how could I see this so easily because it was 0430 when I was coming home from work. Not a nice way to end a day of work.

I tried a few cheap ways to get this running. but she cranks but won't turn over. There is a sufficient air coming out of the exhaust so the cat is not completely clogged. I banged on it a little to try and breakup the material (could hear some stuff inside rattle a little).

 

so what are you going to junk a vehicle because of the faulty cat converter?spend $200, take the thing to a dealer and have them diagnose the problem. Look at the local classifieds, work trucks are always in demand.

 

Wow, I guess I've had good luck with junkyards in the past. In 94, I sold a totaled 89 crx to a junkyard for $600. In 02, I sold an 89 accord with a blown motor for $400, and two weeks ago I sold a totaled 94 integra w/175k for $500 to a salvage yard. All cars were also towed/picked up at no charge.

 

Ah but it is not the faulty cat but the engine that caused the cat to die. You see I have all ready dumped $2k in trying to fix this truck. A rebuilt motor (Jasper) was going to cost me $4k. The vehicle is only worth $6k. Time to get rid of the beast. The $4k didn't include anything else they might find wrong. There were too many iffs...you see...

 

There's also eBay.

I've done some car shopping on eBay and frequently run into ads that list cars as "not running" or "good parts car".

Take some photos and list the car with a complete and accurate description of its condition and include comments that car is "as-is, where-is" and that buyer is responsible for picking up or arranging shipping.

Set a realistic opening bid price or reserve, but be prepared to accept that you might get just barely your bid price and a deal is a deal. Worst is you pay a few bucks for the listing and it doesn't sell.

 

the glowing cat, misfires and no-start are character ignition problem symptoms...start looking there(ie- bad distributor, igniter, coil(s), etc.)

 

Jred...Thanks for the idea...i just might do that...

 

i sold my '88 maxima junker to a salvage yard after i completely trashed it out in the desert and the motor finally seized. they came and picked up the car and the tow truck driver just handed me $100. i was pretty happy with the transaction, since there was pretty much nothing usable on the car by the time they got it, so i guess it went straight to the crusher

here it is before it got trashed

 

the bold part above was probably unnecessary.