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The Black '89 that 2seaters son now drives had a bad convertor. I took it off and with a long pry bar busted up the broken pieces and then shook the convertor until they dropped out. His car now looks like a convertor but is really a straight pipe. I've had two failed convertors in my life. One was on a Dodge "k" car and the '89 Black. Car will just not breathe and will not accelerate. Best test I found is any highway on ramp. Put your foot in it and if it just lags going up the ramp it is bad.

I picked up the scope and they wouldn’t take any money for it since they couldn’t improve it. At the same time I noticed this vintage Celestron C8 telescope in the front with window, for a good price. Would be a substantial upgrade from the small monocular🤔

Never had an actuator go bad on any of my Reattas. The arm on top of the actuator is a known to fail item.

8 degrees? It my garage it is almost 30 with no wind. Easier in my unheated garage then being out in the elements at Gibsons. Trick is to run the car and then replace when it is still warm. I have 4 replacements in the parts bin and as luck would have it my machinist friend Bob stopped by and picked out the replacement. as we know the EGR is on top and I have an extra gasket so should be pretty straight forward.

Which year is yours? The '91 is slightly different than the other years. It's not too bad of a job as intake gaskets go. Just make sure you clean the gasket surfaces real good. I suggest using a straight edge razor blade to carefully scrape old gasket naterial off. I like using Permatex right stuff instead of regular RTV, and I put a thin layer around the coolant ports because i had a decent bit of pitting from corrosion. Also felpro kit is what I would recommend.

My Felpro intake gasket set came with the valley gaskets too (along with EGR gaskets, injector orings, etc). Instructions stated to put a dab of silicone RTV at each corner where the valley seal and intake gasket seal meet to prevent leaks. My engine was also seeping at the valley seals, so my recent intake gasket job will hopefully fix that too.

I have never had it either. I thought of it because I think somewhere in this thread it was mentioned that this car has always gotten worse gas mileage for some reason. Maybe 200k miles of running rich could be the cause of a bad converter? I've never heard of bucking from a bad converter either, but I am also not super familiar with what symptoms it can cause to be honest. It's not something I've ever had to deal with.