I think I have a valley pan kicking around somewhere. If I do break the rivets could I just leave it off and use the valley pan instead of the manifold shield?
Not sure about that so I don’t know. That area where the exhaust crosses over gets extremely hot. I mean real hot.
Any oil that hits it when it’s hot Coke’s off.
If you are even half careful you should be able to get them out. 99% of the time it’s pretty easy.
I have had a couple of times where I broke one off or the hole was so blown out no amount of peening would tighten up the hole and I would find another spot on the casting that would take a rivet and drill it there and put the rivet in.
You can get those rivets from Goodson IIRC or similar sources.