Well I know that the rattle coming from my truck is the exhaust shields, on two of them the steel band attaching them to the pipe is broken. I see where the previous owner had tack welded one of the shields to the pipe. My question is whether its worth spending the time to weld them in place or is it fine to just remove the shields? Is there any real technical purpose for the shields other than to protect the pipe?

 

I used a cut off tool (air whizzer) and removed one on my 04 about two years ago and I just removed the other one last week. I see no usefull purpose for them.

 

I would just cut the shields off and done. I don't have any shields on my exhaust because its all aftermarket from heads to exhaust tip. If installing an ebay or stans y-pipe you have to cut the y-pipe shields off. to do the install. Have been running with no shields for years.

 

I would just order a Gibson Exhaust and call it good. THe heat shields are really useless anyhow... probably some federal regulation BS.

 

Thanks for the responses. Im just gonna cut them off this weekend. that rattling sound makes my truck sound like a huge POS lol

 

The only thing they could possibly do is prevent fires when you're in very tall grass - that's the reason for the shield on the catalytic converter, anyway.

I removed the ones on my V10 when one of the welds broke - no fires