Cat shield anyone?

Nifty! You should have wore gloves and saved your hands.
All these devices are deterants.... Short of ending their lives, if the thief wants something,
they will do almost anything to get it.
The harder you make it for them to get it, the more chance they have of getting caught.

Nice job!

 

Really nice set up.

As soon as thieves realize that Gen 3 cats have about the same amount of precious metals and the Gen 2's , and are as easy to cut out and remove with the same technique as the Gen 2's, they will go after them.

Since there is no aftermarket C.A.R.B, replacement for Gen 3 cats, it is safe to conclude that the Gen 3 is an ultra low emission vehicle with a high precious metal content converter.

If you had to do it again for any reason, you might purchase one of these, which is also available at air conditioning too outlets and stores like Home Depot.

6 in. Straight Jaw Sheet Metal Seamer

 

Doh, yeah that metal seamer tool would have been a really good tool to use.

It would have saved a lot of time and probably spared me some of my battle wounds lol.

I didn't have any heavy leather gloves that would fit, plus they would have been hard to do the task which required a lot of manipulation of the cutting pliers and my needle nose pliers I used to bend the wires over the edges. That's where the seamer really would have helped.

I have some epoxy putty somewhere, I just have to find it. I am going to use it to tack down the wire to the shield to further secure it to the shield, and prevent any vibration between the wire and the shield.

Mounting the shields is probably going to have to wait until next Friday or Saturday though.

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I had forgot to ask, are you going to solder the wires??? It should keep the vibration down...

 

Epoxy, like JB Weld is the way to go. It's hard to weld stainless steel to aluminum.

 

Yeah, I don't want to subject the 6061 aluminum to any heat that might affect the temper of the material. Although, I'm sure it will get plenty of heat next to the exhaust system in its lifetime.

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Excellent choice.

 

Soldering, not welding, is a lot lower temp, lower than the exhaust heat....
Either way should keep it from rattling...

 

The large cat shield will be a giant heat sink, conducting the heat applied away, so the only way to get solder to stick to it would be to heat it up locally to a much higher temperature than would be normally required.

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Aluminum becomes soft and loses temper at around 500 degrees

It melts at about 1100 degrees F.

 

Does it not stick to stainless steel well? Both the shield and wire are stainless?

 

Austensic 304 stainless steel doesn't melt until 2300 degrees F.

 

I don't mean melting, I meant does the solder NOT stick to the stainless steel?
Or do you have to do it a different way?

 

You can solder stainless steel to stainless steel, but not aluminum to stainless steel. His shield is made of aluminum.

Adhesives including epoxy has been used in aircraft constructed of metal since the De Havilland Comet in the 1950's.

It is now used universally in the automobile industry.

Unlike rivets and screws, the stress is spread over a wide area, instead of a local point that would result in stress risers.

 

Makes sense, thanks!

 

The current popularity of carbon fiber structural components is deceiving to the general public.

A major component of these panels is epoxy which is a catalyst hardening thermosetting plastic.

 

If I was doing it, I would cut 1/2-1 inch strips of thin aluminum flashing to go over the ends of the stainless steel wires and glue the sandwich together with epoxy, clamp it together with strips of wood until the epoxy hardens overnight. This will add additional surface area to the glued line. Gluing just the wires to the aluminum would have week stress points described by engineers as "stress risers."

 

Has anyone had an issue with overheating?
I’m thunking of putting one of these on my 2012 prius but I heard they can cause the converter to overgeat.