S210 heat shield above rear silencer come adrift

[welland99]

A very unusual thing happened at the weekend! The missus and kids all reported a funny "grating" noise which I couldn't hear.

"Do you hear that?" Long pause to listen carefully.
"no - is it still doing it?" I replied
"No it's stopped now!"
"Thanks for telling me! Exactly how long did the noise last?"

And so it went on. To cut a long story short, it turns ot that the cause of the noise is the heat shield above the rear silencer. It's come adrift from its mountings on the boot floor and was hanging on one side until it touched the silencer. Basically, it's rusted and fallen off some of the bolts. .

Unfortunately, i can only undo one of the nuts as the others have seized. Has anybody else come across this? What solution did you find?

Any advice welcome.

 

[230K]

Hi

It is common, well it has happened to me. Best solution is to put a larger washer under the head of the nuts.

Hope this helps

230k

 

[renault12ts]

And mine has just been fixed too...with a new rear silencer going in at the same time (the fix 230k did for me in 2009 failed... ).

 

[welland99]

Hi

Best solution is to put a larger washer under the head of the nuts.

Yes indeed. That is what I was trying to do. trouble is that i could only undo one nut.

It appears that there are five nuts holding the heat shield: 2 at each end and 1 in the middle. The middle one and two at one end have pulled through, leaving only the 2 at the other end. These appear OK for now, but will be under higher stress and I expect them to fail at some point too.

I couldn't undo the middle nut, nor one of the end nuts. So i have put a larger washer only on one of the end bolts.

If I lift the boot carpet, will i see the other end of the bolts? Would this allow me to grind off the bolt heads to facilitate their removal?

 

[Dieselman]

There should only be four fixings iirc, they are welded on threads with pressed nuts screwed on.

Undo them with mole grips.

 

[welland99]

There should only be four fixings iirc

Mine definitely has 5, but the middle one would be unnecessary if the end ones are secure.

they are welded on threads with pressed nuts screwed on.

That is what I feared.

Undo them with mole grips

This is very tricky with the silencer in place. However, i have tried this without success. The nut is now completely rounded and i cannot grip it.

I'm thinking about carefully trying to hacksaw the nut off, then try to get a new nut to fit.

 

[Dieselman]

A regular nut won't fit as the thread is more like a corkscrew.

Lower the silencer to gain access, then you will get them undone.

 

[ShinyF1]

I just got rid of mine - boot has not caught fire yet

 

[welland99]

A regular nut won't fit as the thread is more like a corkscrew.

O dear.

Lower the silencer to gain access, then you will get them undone.

I wonder how much i could lower it without putting undue stress on the exhaust?

 

[proser]

You will have enough space. mine was removed a couple of years ago, due to this problem, and haven't had any issues.

 

[johnsco]

This is a common problem with 210s.
My heat shields went in the scrap bin years ago on both E300TD saloons.
Just means that one side of your boot gets a bit warmer.
No disasters have occurred !!