Front brake heat shield rattle

[ArmedAviator]

Coming home the other day, my roommate was out walking the dog in the yard as I pulled up. She said my car was making a rattling metal noise, and I chalked it up to playing dubstep way too loud. Two days later I head out again and I hear rattling coming from the suspension. It doesn't happen when at a stop. I listened through various windows to identify where it's coming from. Definitely from front driver-side wheel.

I took the wheel off, brake caliper off, and discovered that the front heat shield, while still in place, is rattling quite a bit - as if it's not physically connected to anything anymore. I had to put everything back together and get going once I discovered it's not a huge catastrophe, but when I'm off next week, I want to fix this.

Are these heat shields held in place by bolts, i.e. did one fall out? Are they riveted in place? What should I do? I don't really want to tin-snip it off.

[Ilya]

If you look at my images on my HowTo, you can see that it's likely held in by the hub...but don't quote me on that.

howto-change-m37-m56-q70-y51-brakes-fro ... 12727.html

[ArmedAviator]

Yeah it sure does look like it's held in place somehow by the hub.

In any case, I used an old rubber brake caliper boot, cut it in half, and placed half of it between the lower ball joint knuckle and the heat shield. That is where the metal-to-metal contact was occurring and making the awful rattle noise. It keeps tension on the heat shield inward towards the rotor but by cutting it in half, it's not pushing it in enough to make rotor contact.

It's a band-aid fix but atleast I have some peace-of-mind knowing exactly what the noise came from for sure. Now, the question is can this problem be indicative of something worse, like a loosening hub assembly?

[ssmrico]

its hold by the hub for sure. I just did my front hub and can confirm that