i think i've narrowed down a mild irritation and i need help for a quick, but reliable, fix (is this an oxymoron???) anyway, i've had a flutter/rattle/something annoying as hell coming from under the car when i'm carrying a load. i've found the heat shield ??? (the thing that coves the exhaust tube below the manifold whaere all the pipes connect into one) to be loose and it rattled upon a slight touch with my trusty hammer. last night i positioned it so that it was stuck into place and i didn't hear it rattle this morning. now that i may have found my ills, what can i do fix it for good?? i need something that a typical moron can do (ok, ok settle down , i don't need comments from the peanut gallery. i was thinking of getting something like jb weld and putting a few dabs arounf it. what do you think??????

Rip it off. The heat sheilds trap moisture and rust the pipe from the outside in. By the way, new pipes from Volve now come without the sheilds.

I took a hose clamp and put it around mine. In the front and the back of it, I had to cut in on the large spot welded flange so the clamp would fit nicey-nice, it would slide itself off otherwise. I figured if nothing else, I would keep it on to keep some of the road debis and salt in the winter time from hitting that bent section of exhaust pipe.

Yank it off of there. It's just a waste of time - it feeds preheated air to the intake for cold start - which you probably don't have too much of in GA.

I ripped all of my heat shields off over a period of five years. Annoying as hell! Some of them are tought to get off but persistence and a large screwdriver helps.

Rene

thanks for the posts but, i'm a bit apprehensive in taking something off that was put there for a reason. case in point - i had a '73 superbeelte and took some of the air flow metal off and pretty soon all but cooked a brand new engine. i now have apprehension in doing this. is there/could there be something else that this thing is good for and therefore i should not remove it?? sorry for my doubt but, thanks for the help.

Tear the stupid things off and toss 'em. Long ago I cut them off my '86 245 and off my '91 740 (from both the pipes and the converters), and the Heat Shield Gods remain happy with me.

"...was put there for a reason..."

Probably 'cause some Northern Idaho regulation demands heat shields to protect the endangered 3-winged wood weed weevil from extinction.

Screw the weevil! Cut those suckers off your car! Think of it this way: By lightening your car you're conserving fuel and reducing emissions. So you'd be helping the environment. Ralph Nader would be proud of you.

Don Foster (near Cape Cod, MA)

You could have it all tacked on at a muffler shop or if you have a welder available. If it's really bugging you, just find some nice big rusty nails and bang them in temporarily.

Rene

Take it off. You can try the hose clamp trick, but eventually the shield will loosen up again. And again. Shieldectomy is permanent.

I agree with the others who say rip it off.

It's a Rube Goldberg design anyway. In GA I can't imagine you needing preheated intake air during any season.

In a worse case scenario, your thermostat activated intake gate in the airbox is stuck in the open position allowing preheated air into the intake at all times. It will eventually fry your Air Mass Meter. A good chunk of change when you have to replace it.

he's right, that happend to me.

on (my now ex's) 245 I plugged that damn thing back in...

three weeks later my air mass meter was a $500 hunk of toast.

if you do fix it, then by all means, get a new airbox thermostat too!

Wow! Mine have annoyed me for 2 years. I once wedged a bent jigsaw blade in there to shut it up. Mine come off this weekend.

In my county in the State of Virginia my brick would not pass the emissions test with a missing heat collector. "Modified or missing thermactor system parts". I ground the old rusted-in bolts off even with the manifold, then drilled smaller holes and tapped them to put in studs instead of bolts. It's easier to remove nuts from studs than bolts from an exhaust manifold!