For those of you that removed the heat shields from your cats - How did you get the top part out? Did you just hack and cut away at it with a cut-off wheel until it was small enough to fit between the top of the cat and the bottom of the car? The bottom piece literally fell apart in my hands once I started pulling on it but I was not able to just pull out the top half with my hands.

 

When I replaced the passenger cat on my coupe I looked at it to see if I could just replace the shield. I didn't think it was possible.

Why are you removing them? Just curious? Hopefully I get some test pipes soon.

 

They are already half off from rusting away to nothing. They rattle and make noise so I just want them off, I am not looking into replacing them at all.

 

I just removed mine this weekend after suffering all kinds of embarrassing buzzing when the engine is loaded (not when revving in neutral) for several months. Mine were almost completely rusted away as well. After much prying with screwdrivers and rust in my mouth and eyes, I used a pair of tin snips to cut them (axially or long-wise) and then roll the pieces around one side and out.

It turns out my rattle was from the heat shields on the y-pipe..... do people take those off too?

 

How do you know it is the Y-pipe? Are the heat shields also loose on your y-pipe?

Also did the tin snips cut right through like butter or was it a pain in the *** for the snips to get through?

 

It was still buzzing after I removed the cat shields and I could get it to rattle a little while under the car by pushing and prying on the y-pipe. I stuffed some short pieces of fuel line into the opening between the top and bottom sections of the y-pipe heat shield to act like dampers to see if the buzz would go away. That's solved most of it. If I spin the engine up pretty good on the road I still get a little buzz but it's 100X better than it was. The y-pipe shields don't seem nearly as rusted and deteriorated as the cat shields so I may just leave it like this unless it gets worse.

The tin snips I have (don't remember how big they are, probably 10-12 inches long light-ish duty) went through it pretty easily down at the body of the cat but as you get up towards the manifold, it got more difficult mostly because of the limited access to get both hands on the tool while your head is in a position to see what you're doing. Took me about 10 minutes a side.

 

Good deal. I will take a good look at the Y-pipe while I am under there.

 

I need to do the same this weekend - I cut off what I could easily reach a while back, but the noise is worse than ever. The rattles are driving me crazy!

 

Great advice. I ended up making a late night home depot run and picked up a pair of WISS bulldog aviation snips, basically pretty burly tin snips. They cut right through what was left of the cat shield no problem. Like yourself I also ended up throwing a couple big metal screws between the heat shield and the piping on the Y-pipe to stop the shield from moving around too much, it is shot as well. If it acts up again I will just replace the Y-pipe as its days are numbered at this point.

I got this done last night, what a difference! I was having so many rattles and noises, it was so annoying. I also had this high pitched squeak that kind of sounded like a serpentine belt slipping at around 3000 RPM and I knew it was something vibrating under the car.

On another note both my cats and Y-pipe are in pretty bad shape. I can only imagine what replacing that is going to be like. Every bolt is rusted solid and some barely even look like bolts anymore. Every bolt is going to have to be cut out, definitely dropping it off for that. I think there is one stud on manifold and that worries me, it is going to have to get cut off and drilled out.

 

I need to get under there and do mine as well.


Previously, I just used snips to cut off what I could, and then used large hose clamps to tighten everything up.

Now the heit shield on my Y-pipe is buzzing too. Kinda embarrassing when sitting in traffic and your car rattles like a tin can.

 

So I still have some buzzing that I can't seem to get rid of. I swear it sounds like a heat shield but can't figure out which piece. It only happens when I'm accelerating or loading the engine to some degree. I was under the car this weekend and found some kind of bracket for the steel lines that run along the passenger side (brakes? fuel?). The brackets have these barbs that engage some threaded studs to hold the brackets in place (push on, can't back off). There are several of them along the passenger side. One of mine doesn't secure the bracket well and the whole set of lines and bracket can move about 1/4 inch up/down. When moving down, the lines seem to contact something like the body tub or the fuel tank around a bend where I can't see. I'm hoping this $3 part will fix the last of my rattles. Curious if everyone else that was getting rid of their heat shields cured their problems or are still buzzing like me.

 

I ripped out my cat shields a while ago, but not the Y-pipe shield is buzzing away. Need to get under the car and yank that off too now

 

it wasn't the clip for the steel lines. replaced that and now it's nice and tight but still have the buzzing. back to ripping off the y-pipe shields or clamping them down.

 

Before you rip them off try clamping them down and also stuff a couple large self tapping screws between the shield and the pipe to tighten up the shield. That worked for me.

 

You're far better off taking your G to a muffler shop and have the cat shields welded on, they do serve a purpose!
Test pipes? How do you plan on passing your registration renewal when the time comes? Living in Ca. you won't pass with test pipes or even high flow cats! Keep your OE cats, if the heat shields fail have them welded on...Gary