Gas tank "heat shields"?

[JD22]

Are they completely essential? One was making a God-awful clicking noise when I drove, so I just ripped it off and found it was broken on one side from rubbing against the drive shaft. I did this after I drove and got the truck up to normal operating temperature, and the drive shaft wasn't really warm. So I'm just asking if I should worry about replacing it or not

 

[strvger]

same thing happened to the heat shield on the cat converter on my Tracker trail rig. pulled it off and nothing has caught fire yet. i'm betting you should be fine. i'm thinking it is more of a stone/sharp object protector for your gas tank. i'd give the tank a really good, thick coating of the rubberized spray on undercoating for sure though. just my $.02.

 

[JD22]

alright, thanks for the input.