Something fell off my Geo...

[ringo_desu]

So my painfully, wonderfully teal Geo "Stumpy" has his problems... went through the whole engine-drops-dead-for-no-reason thing since I bought it used a while ago, and it's hitting a new record by being out of the garage for over a month! The slow setting for the windshields doesn't work, the windows get stuck, the right door has a hole somewhere, and so on and so forth, but he works! YAY!

Then today I was driving home when I suddenly heard a terrible metal scraping sound and quickly pulled off into a parking lot. I went on my stomach at the back of the car to take a look and saw a hunk of sheet metal hanging off within arm reach. I couldn't get it off, but bless everything I saw a cop, who yanked if off for me and I drove it the remaining few blocks home.

So now I have a curved hunk of strong and dirty sheet metal, 11" x 17 1/2", sitting in my front room. What is it and should I be worried about driving to the garage?


~ringo_desu

[jtgh]

heat shield for exhaust or cat .
is the metal thin or thick 10guge.?

did it have arms like the cage under gas tank has.?
photo, 1000 = words.

[lord_galathon]

Yeah it sounds like the heatshield for the muffler or cat. Mine dropped one morning as my wife boarded the truck and closed the door. The truck was stopped and the way it dropped just with the door closing impact was made more comical by the accompanying sound effect.

We still laugh about it. The shield is in my shed. The muffler had to be replaced later that year as it developed into rust.

Mechanically, the only weak spots for those trucks are the auto trannys and the exhaust system.

[Tracker Tommy]

Originally Posted by lord_galathon

Yeah it sounds like the heatshield for the muffler or cat. Mine dropped one morning as my wife boarded the truck and closed the door. The truck was stopped and the way it dropped just with the door closing impact was made more comical by the accompanying sound effect.

We still laugh about it. The shield is in my shed. The muffler had to be replaced later that year as it developed into rust.

Mechanically, the only weak spots for those trucks are the auto trannys and the exhaust system.

There is nothing more dispickable than a tracker with an automatic transmisson, for shame sir.

[jtgh]

notice carefully the future of slush-o-matics.
in a world where people pay up to $8 a gallon for fuel and rising fast (eg. Ireland)
they now have 8 speed auto's , imagine how many parts in that , that can break and still drive. GM and Lexus both . ( and Mitsubishi)
but....
the solution was simple , they now have a Automatic Manual transmission.
check it out it is ingenious!
2 manuals side by side and an auto shift TCM, with a new kind of clutch.

the path to 50mpg will side step slush box's.


but seriously that shield
it is is there to keep the carpets from burning.
if the ECU (?) goes goofy and loads the cat with fuel AND air ,it will glow red hot.
then it melts the paint and then the carpets in side, thus the shield.

sorry if obvious.

[ringo_desu]

Thank you so much peoples! I hate to say I have an automatic transmission because of problems with my legs that make it impossible to do a clutch... but I really wanted a Geo! And my digital camera just went off the deep end (I'm not having a good year) so no pictures from me, but I think you guys got it anyway! It's off to the garage with me. Thank you all soooo much!