I've had my car for a little over 5 years, 102k miles. My catalytic converter cover is falling off. I was driving this past weekend and heard a clank every time I hit a bump or metal scrapping. I checked out under the car and the front of my catalytic converter is falling off. It looks pretty rusted.

Has this happened to anyone? does it need to be replaced? I got under there and foil tapped it up for now.

 

It's just a heatshield yank it off and trash it. My started to get loose at around 60,000 miles and made a vibration/rattle sound. I pulled mine off and had no more issues. I know have a RT High Flow cat

 

I was thinking about replacing. Are there any performance improvements? Is it loud?

 

This thread, from earlier this year, contains quite a few posts concerning the converter shield corroding and becoming loose.
https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...ghlight=shield
I still haven't replaced, removed or tried to secure mine, so I'm still putting up with the occasional rattle. With another delightful New England winter coming up, I ought to do something about it soon.

 

I had the rattling for about 9 months and it was driving me nuts. I thought it was my underbody panel, under the engine bay. I finally took the heat shield off this morning and no more rattling. The shield was hanging on 1 bolt. If you want to remove it, you'll need a 10mm and 12mm socket.

Thanks for the link!

 

Rip it off and never worry about it again.

No performance improvements (except weight loss, LOL!), no extra noise.

Just don't park on long dry grass after ripping up and down a freeway.

 

Yep that's it purpose, to prevent fires from starting parked under dried grass/material since it gets very hot. I'm sure it also helps to keep it from rotting out quicker since less water can hit the cat.

The newer ones last even less. Our first one lasted 9 years. The OEM I replaced it with only lasted 4 years. At least the 2nd time was a bit easier since I used stainless steel bolts (total cost of the bolts $1.30 less than the Honda OEM ones!).

 

My 2004 with 202K miles developed the rattle on bumps and startup and my shield was badly corroded and three of the four mounting locations had completely rusted through. I tried every trick to try to remove the rusted bolts- AeroKroil, propane torch, hammering... but they wouldn't budge.

I finally just bent the two rear flanges out of the way and through bolted the rear mounts to a friction fit. The front flanges were far stiffer so I used a clamp to secure the front portion of the shield. I know it's a rather ghetto solution but hey its working.

 

Maybe 8 years ago I hose clamped the heat shields around the thing to keep it from rattling. Easiest thing.

Just this past year the heat shields completely rusted away to where the hose clamps wouldn't even hold them on. Then I just tore them out.