Hi everyone. I've got a rather annoying thud noise every time I go over bumps (which is often), and it's extremely annoying. I've been trying to hunt down the source of it, and I'm thinking it's due to the passenger lower heat shield (images below). I can feel it in the floor, so I'm (not 100%) mostly certain this may be the cause.

Is there any issues just removing this shield? Would the additional heat cause issues to the surrounding area? The end closest to the O2 sensor is split, so it shakes around and does hit the bottom of the truck.




They don't seem to cost much, but far more convenient to just rip it out than to replace it and deal with the guaranteed rusted hardware.

Much appreciated!

 

have you checked the sway bar links? those will make a thud when going over bumps that you can sometimes feel. a heat shield is usually a tinny rattle.

 

I have not check the sway bar links. Reason I figured it'd be the shield is because when moving it with my hands, it would hit the bottom of the truck and cause a bit of a thud. I had taken a short video, which you can listen to here: There's a rattle type noise, but also a thud as well.

I will have a look at the sway bar links tomorrow, since it's already dark out.

 

So I had a look at the sway bar links, and there's zero play. Unable to move it with my hands or with a crow bar (whole front end off the ground). I had a look at the sway bar bushings, and they do look like they've seen better days.


Passenger side is a little worse than the driver side, which seems fairly consistent with where I'm hearing the noise coming from.

I'm going to order new bushings and swap them out... Even though there's zero play in the links, do you think I should just go ahead and swap them anyways?