Catalytic converters glowing red

[Shawn&Katie]

Ahhh, so you're going through coolant but it's not leaking? That seems to suggest you are burning the coolant, which could be a cracked head or a bad head gasket.

Would that cause the manifold to glow before the cooling system even heated up. Not just glow but you could almost read a book by the light lol

 

[Chris]

Would that cause the manifold to glow before the cooling system even heated up. Not just glow but you could almost read a book by the light lol

It could, yes. I think the biggest indicator that something is wrong here is that your burning a large amount of coolant you said, right? Well, if it's not leaking from the Jeep, that means it's going out the exhaust, which means you should have white smoke coming out your exhaust most likely, and it also means you're blowing it through the exhaust headers / cats, which could be causing them to glow.

My guess is a bad head gasket or cracked head is the culprit here.

 

[Shawn&Katie]

It could, yes. I think the biggest indicator that something is wrong here is that your burning a large amount of coolant you said, right? Well, if it's not leaking from the Jeep, that means it's going out the exhaust, which means you should have white smoke coming out your exhaust most likely, and it also means you're blowing it through the exhaust headers / cats, which could be causing them to glow.

My guess is a bad head gasket or cracked head is the culprit here.

Makes sense, haven’t seen any white smoke but it’s dark when she leaves and it was dark when I got through working on it last night.
A compression test should prove your theory correct?

 

[Chris]

Makes sense, haven’t seen any white smoke but it’s dark when she leaves and it was dark when I got through working on it last night.
A compression test should prove your theory correct?

Yep, definitely do a compression test.

 

[xxdabroxx]

A lean condition on a motorcycle can cause a glowing headpipe. I'd think the same would be true for a multi-cylinder engine.

When you pulled the plugs did any of them look steam cleaned? If one was cleaner than the other that would indicate a coolant leak into that cylinder.

 

[Leinhit]

That’s the plan of action for now. No check engine light and running so great is just mind boggling to me. Wouldn’t the check engine light come on if there were any codes?

Are you so sure your check engine light works? Just saying.. double check it when u turn the key to on position.

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

[weldedcambolt]

Are you so sure your check engine light works? Just saying.. double check it when u turn the key to on position.

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

sometimes the lights burn out on the dash, so you dont know there are any codes, normally when running with one on, like people do with an emisions code, etc. for a long time

 

[94c2500]

It could, yes. I think the biggest indicator that something is wrong here is that your burning a large amount of coolant you said, right? Well, if it's not leaking from the Jeep, that means it's going out the exhaust, which means you should have white smoke coming out your exhaust most likely, and it also means you're blowing it through the exhaust headers / cats, which could be causing them to glow.

My guess is a bad head gasket or cracked head is the culprit here.

Burning coolant can confuse the O2 Sensing, and result in an unnecessary rich condition & torching inside the catalytic converters.