I wanted a way to protect the front driveshaft from the heat of the catalytic convert that sits only a few inches from it. I ended up buying the "Heat shield Products 177101 Exhaust Manifold Heat Shield":

It's enough material that you can cut it in half and wrap both cats. I think it turned out well. This is not a substitute for greasing the driveshaft joints, I still plan to do that every oil change. This is just an attempt to add a little more reliability.

 

Damn good idea!

 

Would be cool to see driveshaft temps before and after install

 

But how much hotter are the cats now??

 

I wonder that too. Will it destroy the cats?

 

@Sixpack577 looks like he has about 60% coverage so it should not make too much difference, I would think less would work just as well and avoid any cat issues, not that we have a really hot exhaust system anyway. Just covering the side nearest the drive shaft would do,so about half the material shown

 

I don't know.
A member here wrapped his exhaust manifolds in heat tape to lower under hood temperatures...and that had his cats glowing red hot.
Holding more heat in the cats is a bad idea.

 

For what it's worth, I'd advise against this.

Upside: Maybe you drop the temps the driveshafts are exposed to by a non-zero amount.
Downside: You run the risk of overheating your cats and ruining them in the process.

Big downside for potentially negligible gain, aka, high-risk, low-reward. So long as your grease your driveshafts regularly, heat is sort of a non-issue. The heat is only an issue when it dries out the grease packed into non-greasable driveshafts, OR, driveshafts that ARE grazable, just not maintained.

 

I am not familiar with that material, what is the material bonded to the aluminum skin? I did similar to mine, but only on the driveshaft side with an aluminum duct from Home Depot. Aluminum radiates 2% of its heat, versus over 95% for the steel cat shell. The duct reduces the radiant heat the driveshaft sees by over 90%, while decreasing cat heat (increased surface area, aluminum ducting conducts heat to the airflow equal to or better than cat steel shell. Others have asked for a photo - it is ugly. I just wrapped the aluminum duct around it and secured it with very large hoseclamps.

 

to clarify, you wrapped the aluminum piece AROUND the catalytic converter that is next to the front driveshaft...correct? There was a rectangular piece of heat shield on mine that rotted from the sheet metal screws that attached it to the underbody on mine. You opened the aluminum with tin snips I take it....