[Closed] Car heat shield clips?

Ditch the heat shield. Seriously they're more trouble than they're worth and your rear silencer doesn't get that hot. The same thing happened to my old Ford Focus and after a load of research the overwhelming advice was to ditch it. And over the next 20 - 30k miles or so before I sold the car on I had no problems whatsoever, even when the silencer corroded, holed and was leaking exhaust gas under the car.

What he said.

Had numerous cars with the same issue, ripped shield from all of them and haven't set anything on fire yet!

Nissan service dept will sell them for a few pence if you actually want to fix it.

The fasteners they use on Fords are the work of satan tbh. What's wrong with actual nuts and bolts? Threw heatshield in bin.

Are they those round push on clips that just grip a peg sticking out of the underbody?

Dealers are a good place to get this stuff. My VW place has pretty much every plastic clippie and fixing, they gave me some interior trim clips for free.

Bigyinn,

Yes...those things indeed

Take it off, just don't park on long dry grass was the advice when mine fell off.

Nightmare things, the amount of cars we see per year for rattles that are nothing more than heat shields that have dropped, most rot the actual heatshield and then it's time for a big repair washer as most don't want the cost of a new heatshield. As long as it's at the rear of the car and not near the front, then ditching it in the main won't cause you any problems, the biggest problem you get is the front ones that protect cv joints or steering uj's as they then tend to fail prematurely.

As for fasteners the dealers is your best bet as they all use something different.

On the Focus it's not actually a problem with the clips, it's the shield itself. The shield corrodes around where it contacts the clips and you end up with a big hole around the clip - galvanic corrosion I assume. So you've nothing for a new clip to attach to. You could use a large diameter washer I guess or replace the shield. You can't use conventional nuts cause they'd seize on.

Not sure what it's like on a quashqui, but on the focus the shield was I between the silencer and the underbody so no issues parking on dry grass.

wobbliscott - Member

You can't use conventional nuts cause they'd seize on.

Normal nuts, bolts and studs seem to do fine for everything else under the car... I had the fun combo of some big holes in the shield, but also some terribly corroded stupid hexagonal fasteners to remove everywhere the shield hadn't holed.

Well normal nuts under cars are usually used in conjunction with bolts, so if they seize - and they often do - you can just cut through the bolt or use a nut splitter, or other various seized nut removal methods, to remove. Bolts that screw straight into the chassis are usually very large with very strong threads so you can apply adequate torque to undo a seized nut. Heat-shields are usually attached to studs welded to the underside of the car, so you're limited to the torque you can apply before shearing off the welded stud. All the cars i've owned the heat shields have never used conventional nuts, they've always been some form of clip.

Use a bit of ally sheet instead of a repair washer, the galvanic corrosion will take many car lifetimes to eat through 1mm of aluminium compared to the wafer thin heatshield.

+1 for main stealers for fixings .

And Ford owners use the correct size 6 sided socket to prevent mucho swearing.

@wobbliscott- no reason it has to bolt into the chassis though, a tab out of the chassis/floor with a hole through it could accomodate a bolt and wouldn't be any more invoved to fit than a stud (or in the case of ford, a manky selftapper thing).

Mind you just making better fasteners would be an improvement- big issue I have with the Ford ones is that they're so fragile, sockets have rarely worked, the flanges snap off as they're just skinny folded steel.

Just pull off the heat shielding. You don't need it in this country. Only the US and central Europe get hot enough in standing traffic to ever come close to needing them. The only reason an exhaust centre will ever fix it back on is if it is easier than removing the remaining bolts.

I had this recently and did the following;
Buy a tube of Tiger seal
Make a couple of big square washers from a bean tin, folded a couple of times and a small hole made with a nail. This then grips the stud.
Apply tiger seal to car body and exhaust shield, and push a 'washer' over the stud with a small amount of tiger seal.
stand back and admire handy work.