How important is the heat shield over top of the muffler ?? Mine keeps on rattleing and I was wondering if it would be a bad idea to pull it off ?? Your advice is appreciated.

 

I would fix the rattle rather then tearing it off, but that's just me. I'm sure if you wanted to take it off, there would be no ill effects afterwards. However, you may want to take care while removing it, just in case you need/want to put it back on.

 

Just a FYI you might find useful. I noticed on my 97' F-150 the heat shields are made out of hard metal however, on my 2004 it's made from some kind of (non rattling) composite aluminum foil type material. Don't know if something like that would help your problem.