Hello everyone,
I would like to share my solution for the really disturbing heat shield rattle issue, which affects Bmws built with the n13 Prince engine. The cause of the problem is that the metal shield warps due to the regular and excessive heat load and therefore comes into contact with the downpipe as the engine vibrates.
Here's a reference video of what I am thinking of (not my video):
At the dealership they only offer to change the complete heat shield for tons of money. As you can see on the following diagram the whole part is mounted with three screws only to the outlet manifold which is a really dumb design:
I came up with a solution which is not very refined, but cheap and easy to implement. I just call it the toilet paper method
All you need is:- Approx. 2 meters of 2 mm thick heat resistant fiberglass wrap. It is generally used for insulating downpipes. These wraps are heat resistant up to a 1000 degrees Celsius so they can easily handle the heat load. Here's a link: link
- 1 piece of stainless tie
- Hook cutter
Instruction:
All you want to do is rolling up the wrap in several layers onto the oil pipe (no. 8 on the diagram) which is located next to the heat shield. Thus the wrap will jack up the heat shield into the right position. Then apply a stainless tie on it in order to prevent it from coming apart. Cut off the overhanging part of the tie.
(The oil pipe is mounted to the chassis so it shouldn't be a problem to take such small amount of load.)
Hints:
Use gloves when touching fiberglass as it can be stingy.
Only work on your car when the engine is cold.
For me it works perfectly. Altough I have only made just a couple of hundred kilometers since I have installed the wrap.