I'm trying to remove my pre cat ive read the best way to go at it is from the bottom and I've got a socket on one bolt and it's loose but i feel like it's not going anywhere. Is there a bolt on the other side of the flange that i have to put something on?

In case you're wondering why I'm removing my pre-cat i snapped the flange off the pre-cat side trying to replace a shot gasket 🙃

You are going to have to remove the intake manifold.

I was afraid of that...i could have sworn I read somewhere that you don't have to but oh well.

You shouldn't have to.
If your set up is still factory you should have these.
See Post #5.

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f2/qui...recats-237445/

But if somebody has been in there before you might have replaced factory hardware with just nuts and bolts.
Or one or more of the spring clips busted.

Well I've had this for 8 out of it's 20 years of existence and I didn't touch anything there, and supposedly it turned into a spare car for the PO (not sure how true that is). To be honest I started spinning the first one i got the swivel on and i was like f this lol. I'll try and tackle the other ones later and see what happens. It's getting super windy here in NJ and I was getting pissed haha

With my luck i wouldn't be surprised if it's new hardware or the spring nuts are busted/evaporated in a cloud of rust. This has relatively little body rust considering the amount of time i lived in VT with it and it's been in the northeast it's whole life but hardware... that's a different story.

Man if i have to take the intake manifold off I may as well slap some banks headers on there to help out my borla cat back or am i just pissing away money here... I've read there's not really a performance change with the banks nor is it necessary to change in the '00-01 set up since there's less stress on the collectors since it's the dual pipe set up

The 2 cats on an 00 are part of the exhaust manifold...all above the downpipe connection...there are no cats under the body, that is a resonator. ...you might be able to get that segment/ connection flange re -welded instead of replacing the exh manifold


Sorry its upside down, and yes my flange connection is also broken off

My buddy was just telling me about the flanges that come in 2 or 3 parts designed as a replacement for situations like this. I'm tempted to just replace it all once the right way. Plus will those hold up in an offroad scenario?

Anyone have input here?

​​​​​If there are bolts holding it together how is ot considered one piece? If there's bolts it should come apart.

While you dont need to pull the intake to remove and replace the pre cats, it sure does make the job a lot easier. Those bolts are nearly impossible to get to, especially if you have big hands. Getting the bolts back in is the harder part. I ended up siliconing the nuts to the header, let it dry overnight and then go at it the next day. No way to hold the nut and put the bolt in by yourself.

Since the bolts that hold the exhaust manifold are the same ones that hold the intake, and they both ride on the same gasket...whats the extra work to remove the intake...the fuel rail comes off with 4 easy bolts. You probably cant pull off the exh with the intake still in place anyway...i have never taken one off without the other and since you will need a new gasket...they both have to come off

Exactly. I dont know why the F you would remove the intake manifold. This job is pretty easy but you should know the worst part about working on exhaust is the fasteners. The image you are showing is of the bottom of the down pipe flange. Those fasteners rust on every Cherokee. Just drill them out and use new bolts to clamp each flange. Now you have to reach up there with a wire brush and clean the exposed threads of the bolts for the mini cat flanges. Spray them down with your favorite penetrating lube, get a long extension up there and crack the bolts loose. Snap the heads off if you have to. You should be replacing all exhaust fasteners on 20+ year old vehicle anyway. I think those are M10 bolts so you need a 14mm socket right? 15mm?

Well i was able to get a socket on them from below bit the spring clips are all rusted away so they just spin and spin. So I'll have to take the intake manifold off.

I entertained replacing the headers since I'm already doing tbe work and i saw a guy on youtube with an 00-01 and he had banks header, magna flow cats and borla cat back and it sounded mean for a 4.0. i liked it a lot. Realized those magnaflow pre cats are like 600 and was like nah screw that haha. Thats so much money for a badass sound and minimal performance gain. If it was just the singular cat in the back i had to replace then id spring for the headers but I don't want to be disappointed lol