Exhaust Heat Shield fixed

One of the downsides of the dramatic noise reduction as a result of rubber mounting the exhaust (See here) (now you can hear me coming from only 100 yds away rather than half a mile) is that it exposed some other noises and rattles that had previously been hidden by the exhaust noise.  

One intrusive one was a vibration from the bell-end of the exhaust heat shield.

  This was actually loose when I bought the car and I thought I had fixed it by clamping it to the rest of the heat shield with some stainless steel brackets.

Apparently not well enough :-)

 Having seen other Superspecs I knew it was actually supposed to be fitted inside the heat shield.  My problem was that the screws holding the hear shield together were rusted solid, which made them impossible to remove and also looked very unsightly.

 So it was out with the drill and I drilled out all 6 of them.   That enabled me to position the bell housing properly inside the heat shield and then I bolted it back together with stainless nuts and bolts.  So now it looks much better and I will be able to remove it easily if needed.

And with addition of some pop rivets on the heat shield to stop the bell housing coming loose again the job was done.

A quick test drive and the rattle has definitely disappeared.   At the moment I can't hear anything else rattling or vibrating , but time will tell.