August 27, 2008 - I spent some time under the car last night.
An oil change, a quick nut-and-bolt check and a general under-car inspection. Remember that red PPF?
I also decided to add a bit of heatshielding. You can see the factory heat shield that I've added above the catalytic converter in this picture. It weighs next to nothing so I'm not sure why I never put this in before. Probably because it's the sort of sharp, oddly shaped piece of metal that always gets first squashed flat by accident and then eventually thrown away.
There's also some Reflectix insulation inside the transmission tunnel. It's not very visible here, but it's near the white header. I attached it with waterproof foil tape which has been very effective in other applications, but which seems to disapprove of the particular texture of the bottom of the car. So while I'm happy with the effect of this shield, a quick peek under the car when I arrived home showed that the bottom tape had separated. Shame. The material itself is pretty neat, just a double layer of bubble wrap with a Mylar coating on each side. It weighs next to nothing (a 24"x25' roll is about 3 lbs) and can withstand 180F in direct contact. That's borderline for this use but the air space will help a lot. A good thing about it for under-car use is that it's also completely unaffected by water. I'll probably end up removing it if I can't manage to adhere it. Still, given the lower temperatures in Newfoundland, the heat shouldn't be too big a problem.
tags: ergonomics |
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