Way Way OT!

Re: Way Way OT!

William Duffield

Decreased mileage. Increased road noise. If you lived in South Florida, you might find a python entangled in your fan belt, elsewhere, maybe a squirrel or opossum.

Correction

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

That would be "possum" south of DC. They don't use O's in front of anythang

Re: Way Way OT!

Jack Guzman from Maine

The shield is there to keep dirt and crap off the engine. So,if you remove it you may get dirt and crap on the engine. Don't go mudding with your car. It should be fine.

Re: Way Way OT!

John McGaw

I guess you could consider yourself lucky then. My first new car was a 1969 Fiat 124 coup. (Laugh if you want, I've owned three Fiats in my life.) It has such a shield but it was stout, steel, and had maybe a dozen screws holding it in place and was impossible to get to anything at the bottom of the engine without removing it. I got to be pretty good at it since I changed the oil and filter every 3K like clockwork.

I wouldn't monkey with anything down there but you might get in the habit of checking that it is screwed down properly after every service visit.

Re: Way Way OT!

Jerry Nicholson

No laughter here- I drove FIAT Spiders for 25 years, 1974 and then a 1981. I well remember the metal shield but I would only take a couple of bolts out and bend it out of the way to get to the filter. I tried a whole bunch of different filter wrenches trying to find one that would fit into the limited space available. I was really happy when I discovered a brand of filter that had a large hex nut spot welded to the end of the filter -- when I went to remove that filter the wonderfully convenient hex nut popped right off! I had the '81 for 17 years (2 liter engine, Bosch electronically controlled fuel injection) and only sold it because I had retired and was cutting down on the number of vehicles. The '74 had factory installed air horns.

Jerry

Re: Way Way OT!

Jerry Nicholson

No mudding with that car - far too low a ground clearance. For mudding I would use my 2004 Dodge Dakota 4 x 4.

I have owned a bunch of cars over the last 68 years and most of them had nothing to keep mud and crap from getting on the engine. As related in another post, I did have a couple of FIAT Spiders that had partial shields.

Jerry

One possibility...

Jason Roehl

...is that the shield is there to direct air to better cool the engine or one of the other components. There could be a hot spot that it is addressing. Sometimes things like that are engineering fixes after testing or even a few model years have developed a common issue.

Jason

Re: Way Way OT!

John McGaw

"The '74 had factory installed air horns."

So did the '69 models. Quite a distinctive sound.

Re: Way Way OT!

Bill Howatt

From what I see, possible reasons to keep it in place are to keep dirt and rocks out of engine compartment, possible aid to air direction for cooling and also improved aerodynamics for better gas mileage.

It is very unlikely the manufacturer put it there just so it is there - doing nothing.

Bill

Re: Way Way OT!

MartinMJ

These shields have several reasons for existence and it depends on the vehicle.

Airflow for cooling already mentioned

Airflow for fuel economy

NVH noise reduction

Some of the shields are plastic, composite or metal. The NVH group liked metal but

overrides due to cost sometimes dictated a plastic.

The fasteners could be metal or a variation of the plastic bolt. All of the plastic bolts

become 'flimsy' and less effective as they get removed and replaced. And if the shield

is plastic, take a look at the holes. They do get ovaled or broken at the edges.

You will have to get down there and take a look at what is shield material and type of

fastener. Replacement plastic fasteners of course are available and sometime you can

get one with a large head should the shield hole be broken or ovaled larger.

With a metal fastener then maybe all you need is a washer.

Re: Correction

William Duffield

Re: Way Way OT!

AZ in Colorado Springs

I had a used Fiat 124 sedan. What a rust bucket. But it was a stout little car. I think we got nine people in it (three were in the trunk) one night when I was in college.