Well i heard the rattle comes from the heatshield so i took off the cat heat shield and then the heatshield right above the shift linkages. It didn't work. I then took off the heat shield on the header. didn't work. I finally pinpointed it to the heatshield behind the header. My question is; is there any way to take off the heatshield with out having to take off the header? If i have to take off the header can i reuse the old headgasket. This has been driving me nuts. Thanks for any help i can get

 

This may just have been my car but when I had an exhaust rattle I thought was the heat shields or the exhaust resonator it turned out to be just a loose bolt on the header and the washer was vibrating around. Oh yeah the bolt was on the cast iron part of the header. Good luck...