69 big block starter heat shield

[Chevy454]

[ QUOTE ]
What we need are a few of the very low
mileage owners to chime in here.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey Tedford, wake up!

[1969L78Nova]

My March built 69 L78 Nova (Numbers Matching) has a heat shield installed. This is much earlier than the June date mentioned by BKHPAH.
I can't be certain that its original since I am the 4th owner.
Martin

[TDW]

I have an 06D built L78 Chevelle that has the shield. Looks just like Belairs, only not as clean. I don't think my starter has ever been taken off.

[mrrec]

The shield was polished stainless steel (the more reflective the surface, the better it reflects heat). My 69 SS RS 396 conv. still had it on when I bought it in '79. It is a 10A 68 car.

There is absolutely no question the heat shields and parts similar were "lost" along the way. I worked in a service station in the 70's and know first hand that many parts like these were trash canned.

The GM replacement has been galvanized steel for years. I believe the polished stainless shield is now being reproduced.

Dave

[Mr70]

I remember tossing these in H.S.,along with the Distributor RFI shield.

[mrrec]

Yep, Mr70, those shields were a pain. It was tough enough getting the solenoid wires connected after you rebuilt the starter or replaced the solenoid. The manifold was always hot, plenty of grease - just leave that shield off! Since I was in high school when I worked on 'em in the 70's, I'm sure I learned this "trick" from the full timers.

Why aren't there any around? We didn't save all that stuff at the station, we threw it in the garbage! It was junk!

Dave

[nuch_ss396]

Dave,

Didn't you have the foresight to see that these shields
would be valuable 25 years in the future? Come on! I
guess you also threw away SMOG system components too.

Oh yeah, I did that too............ sorry!
When you sit down and actually think about this logically,
I wonder how any of these sheilds survived the 1970's. Did
anyone back then actually think there would be a future
muscle car craze? Especially after the second gas crisis
hit the US in 1979.

Steve

[NCGuy68]

[ QUOTE ]

There is absolutely no question the heat shields and parts similar were "lost" along the way. I worked in a service station in the 70's and know first hand that many parts like these were trash canned.quote]

Yep.....Just like the starter solenoid wire harness retainer clip. I tossed a few of them in my younger days. Now, originals are hard to find in pristine condition.

For those interested, the clip appears to be gray zinc phosphated.

[JoeG]

My heat shield had salt/rust stains on it---galvanized---started clip was also galvanized---

[bkhpah]

This whole topic is a good one. I dug into some of my other GM manuals with clearer text. I appears that the revisions were made in the 5/13 and 6/3 of 1968. So those early cars that still have the shield on them would appear correct. We have put starter shields on most of the restorations in the past, but I was never sure what was right. But they do work well, and in most cases we also change the selinoid spring to the heavy duty one available through any GM dealer. It will help start some of those peskey high compression big blocks when they are hot...BKH