I feel stupid that I need to as for help on this. I've tried searching, but came up empty other than a photo of exactly what I'm talking about.

My winter project is to try and clean up the engine bay to make it worth showing while doing a tune up. I'm trying to get my Y-pipe heat shield off to clean it up nice and maybe paint it. Currently its one of the major eye-sores in the engine bay.

I've got the coil off, and have the front end of the heat shield loose, but it's attached at the rear somehow that I can't see or get my hand in to feel around. I can see that it splits in two pieces at the egr tube, but I haven't done that yet. I was too focused on trying to figure out the rear attachment.

I tried reaching down there with my camera to take some blind photos and ***THINK*** that I see a big nut on a stud way back there. Can anyone help me confirm how this thing attaches at the rear and if possible what size socket I need to be using. I tried reaching what I think I could see with an extension but I couldn't get anything to really grab on anything. After fighting for 30 minutes on this one thing I got so frustrated I had to walk away for fear of doing something stupid.

Currently I have the intake out and the coil off, but that's it in that area. FWIW I did get the trunk side blower ducts, the trunk heat shield and that useless firewall crossover pipe out so my 2 hours on the car wasn't a complete waste.

Here's the photo that I found while searching. In the thread where I found this photo the OP was trying to install the heat shield after doing some repairs and couldn't find support in the area. He circled it asking for help there and there were no further responses.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.



Thanks,
Ryan

[This message has been edited by Ry86GT (edited 12-17-2012).]

15mm nut on transmission bell housing. The bracket is a U shape so no need to remove the nut, just un tighten it a few turns and slide it off.

Thank you sir! I'll have at it again and report back.

I've given you a "+" antuzzi, thanks for the help. With your advice I was able to get the heat shield off this morning with very little fight once I figured out how to get to the nut.

For anyone's future info, it was a hell of a nut to break loose but after it was broke loose 2 or 3 turns and the heat shield was loose. A word of advice is to separate the heat shield parts for removal before breaking that nut loose, it will be easier handling those little sheet metal screws with the heat shield held rigidly in place vs flopping around loose.

Here's a pic of the nut/stud that was giving me all the grief. It is hiding under the crossover pipe.


Here's how I got to it after the advice I received: 15mm deep socket on a u-joint with an extension, sent in under the crossover pipe and above the transmission cable mounting bracket.

This post is the reason why I got that dag-gone heat shield off in 10 seconds after scratching my head and light profanities for at least 10 minutes.

Thank you!!!!!!