Heat Shield

SportT4R

SportT4R

New member
So I heard some rattling under my truck today and crawled underneath to find that the heat shield located above the exhaust system had come undone, so I removed it.

Question.......Should I replace it? Will I be doing any damage if I don't?

Thanks.
 
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It's very common for heat shields to rust loose and you won't hurt anything by removing it. In fact that's all a mechanic will do. The shield on my '03 rusted around the bolts until it came loose. I just put some large washers on and reinstalled it.
 
Don't Worry About It

Mine loosenend up and wa creating a racket last year after a camping trip. The holes were too extended to bolt back on and the dealer even said it wasn't worth replacing. Off it came and no issues since.
 
SportT4R said:
So I heard some rattling under my truck today and crawled underneath to find that the heat shield located above the exhaust system had come undone, so I removed it.

Question.......Should I replace it? Will I be doing any damage if I don't?

Thanks.
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It's there to keep the passenger side floor from heating up... I would go with Jetboy's fix.
 
I agree with Jetboy. Fixed mine a few days ago. My heat shield above the muffler and the long one about the pipe before the muffler come loose. I put fender washers on it and reinstalled. The two nuts on the heat shield above the muffler facing towards the engine rusted and snapped off so I have wire holding it up until the summer time.

I did not want to remove the heat shield because there seem to be some lines that ran to the gas tank that the heat shield covered up. It does get hot here in the summers and I drive mostly city so it did not seem right to remove it.
 
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my 2004 just had the same heat shield issue.

I'm going with this solution. Took mine off today. If I never report back, you'll know I blew up! :)

Gromulus said:
Mine loosenend up and wa creating a racket last year after a camping trip. The holes were too extended to bolt back on and the dealer even said it wasn't worth replacing. Off it came and no issues since.
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Heat Shield ON 07 4RUNNER

Had the same rattle after going through a serious puddle and 1/2 the shield snapped off the crappy fasteners. Of course they were the worst ones to get at. I took to dealer and they quoted me $1028.48 to remove muffler, and informed me the flanges were rusted from being up North in Vermont for 5 years. Nothing wrong with muffler itself. Anyway, I got under there and found hole in frame I used to put a 1/8" molly Bolt in, drilled matching hole in shield, and used a fender washer to pull it back up. Double nutted the bolt and NO NOISE "Total cost less than $1.50. "
 
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I would also replace it. I posted a few days ago that I noticed the passenger side floor got extremely hot on a long trip. Someone here suggested that I check if the heat shield was still under there ( the long one). Sure enough, it wasn't. I got a new one from the dealer, no more hot feet.

I am a firm believer that if they put it there, there must be a reason....
 
had this problem last year and bent the shield (bending it changed the resonance of the metal). Sounds was significantly reduced, but it's back. URghhh FML. Makes my truck sound like a pile of crap. Anyway, hope this isn't a huge deal to replace. Not comfortable just removing it (it's there for a reason), replacing it seems to be the best thing to do. I'll take pics when I can........
 
CookieRoe said:
had this problem last year and bent the shield (bending it changed the resonance of the metal). Sounds was significantly reduced, but it's back. URghhh FML. Makes my truck sound like a pile of crap. Anyway, hope this isn't a huge deal to replace. Not comfortable just removing it (it's there for a reason), replacing it seems to be the best thing to do. I'll take pics when I can........
Click to expand...

I've had to bolt my heat shield up there twice before. Gotta love the NY winters. Now I have another rattle around 1300 RPM and it's not the heat shield. :( Sounds like a baffle has rusted loose or something in the muffler... we'll see what this once costs in $$ and bloody knuckles.
 
Ok I need help with this I bought some washers for the 3 bolts the rear bolt went in fine the front bolt I broke the bolt so if I drill up am I going to hit anything?
 
Mine rusted out about a year ago. I just removed it. I don't often have anyone in the back seat, so I wasn't too concerned about hot feet back there. I never ride in the back seat.
 
Bftfan said:
I've had to bolt my heat shield up there twice before. Gotta love the NY winters. Now I have another rattle around 1300 RPM and it's not the heat shield. :( Sounds like a baffle has rusted loose or something in the muffler... we'll see what this once costs in $$ and bloody knuckles.
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Make sure you check the gaskets in the exhaust pipes. I had that too. Swapped out the old gasket (which disintegrated) and it went away. Total cost of the new bolts, springs, and gasket was something like $25 and took about 20 mins to do.
 
I just ran into this issue with my 2004 4runner, does the muffler have to be dropped to re-bolt the heat shield up? The noise is driving me nuts but having this problem on a vehicle with 184000K almost makes me happy because its minor, lol. Best truck ever!
 
I just got my 2000 runner and started noticing a rattle when I shifted from 1st to 2nd at times. I was thinking worst case scenario that my clutch was going (110k miles) but after continue to monitor the issue I realized it was only rattle at around 1100 RPMs and Im certain its the heat shield. Man I hate rattles, like somebody said earlier it feels like the truck runs like crap lol
 
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