Any day involving jackstands, rust, and a ball peen hammer...

...is a good one :-)

There's a very vocal minority who read my blog just for the "What's broken on his car today?" aspect. Not to disappoint: I came out of the office last Friday to see not only the usual weird-piece-hanging-down, but a whole buncha things hanging down. Looked under the car and it looked like the whole heat shield was loose.

"Not a problem", I thought. Bolt probably fell out or rusted through. Should be simple enough to fix.

Well, simple to fix. Wrong diagnosis, though. I got under there to see:



That, friends is a catalytic converter heat shield, RUSTED IN HALF, from stem to stern. Oddly, I took great joy in this. I had gloves. I had many different hammers and pliers, plus a creeper and eye protection. Nothing quite so visceral as clanging in your garage :-)

Here's the after pic:



And here's the rusty bits:

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