Heatshield Solution

By Richard Hardesty

Instructions

If you're running a 323f from the 94-98 era, then there is a good chance you'll come up against a little problem - probably around 50,000 miles. The car starts to make an awful rattling type noise at around 2000 to 3000 rpm and it sounds like an expensive problem. Its actually very simple to fix, that's why I'm hoping this little article should provide useful.

The 323F has a heat shield that its designed to protect the underside of the car from heat of the exhaust pipe - especially around the middle section of the exhaust and around the catalytic converter.

The heat shield consists of a strip of metal secured to the exhaust pipe itself by a number of clamps, the picture below illustrates the problem nicely. This is the clamp that literally fell off from the location marked in the picture above:

As soon as the clamp works loose, you'll start to hear the rattle. If the clamp hasn't perished as far as mine had - then tightening it will solve the problem temporarily, but eventually your likely to find the clamp rusting away at about the same time the rear backbox hangers start to go (see later).

You can replace the clamp with a jubilee clip (from any decent hardware shop - or "Halfords" for those in the UK). Its simply a case of jacking the car up, putting in a couple of axle stands and securing the heat shield with the jubilee clip. Your rattle will stop instantly.

Whilst this might sound trivial - the rattle is bad enough that you might be tempted to make a trip to a dealer - who will want to replace the entire heat shield as the "official" clamp comes as part of a kit for the heat shield as a whole. Plus, my Mazda dealer simply tightened the clamp - hastening its eventual demise - rather than replacing it with a more suitable jubilee clip.