Has anyone ever removed the splash shield from the bottom of a 2.8 intake? How did you do it? It's riveted on with steel rivets, I know I could grind them off, but how would I re-attach it? Is it necessary to have, or can I just leave it off? I need to remove it to clean the gunk out that's in there.

I've never even seen that before...

It's a carb intake, injected intakes may not have the shield. I've searched for pics of the bottom of a 2.8 intake but couldn't find any. I guess no one ever takes pics of the bottom.

Give me a bit and I can put some of mine up.

Hope this helps, off an '85 MPFI 2.8.

It looks like your intake has the 5 raised ribs where a shield could be installed, was there never one on there?

With a really good vise grips, you can usually pull the rivets out....use a twisting motion as you pull as the rivets are serrated.... When reinstalling, I usually put a bit of blue Loc Tite on each one.... The shield is there to keep the hot oil from splashing on the bottom of the intake...a cool air/fuel charge works best, I'd suggest putting the shield back on after the cleaning.

If so, it was removed by someone else, which seems highly unlikely as the engine certainly doesn't seem like it was ever rebuilt.