Exhaust Manifold

I pulled the exhaust manifold to repair a broken bolt on the manifold end-cover of my 1968 Interceptor (Ford) 289 and discovered a rattling piece of some sort to be on the inside.

I removed an end-cover and a piece of rusted sheet metal about 10 inches long, 18 gage, bent at a 90 deg angle fell out.

The manifold seemed to be cooling properlly on my last outing. Anyone have any ideas about this piece of sheet metal? It must have been some sort of baffle or heat sink. Evidence of how this piece was fastened has been corroded away. Should I concern myself with it?

Thanks Tim. You have given me some things to look at. I decided to pull the other manifold, take off an end plate and look in it. Unfortunatly, I was only able to remove one bolt, I broke off two bolt heads and rounded the 4th - this stuff is old and corroded. I have to take a 2 week break for work :() then I'll get back on the project. You just have to love this stuff.

I guess I was lucky, I only had one bolt to break off on the "inward plates" on the exhaust manifold. I took it to a machine shop and the guy welded a washer and a nut to it and turned it back and forth for 30 minutes or so and got it out. I thought he was going to break the manifold by hitting it with a hammer, and he scorched the paint off that corner. I was nervous and told him if it broke it would be expensive for another set up. But it's pretty tough on the corners where the bolts go in because he hit it several times very hard. I put anti seize on the bolts when I put it back together. The gasket on that end was paper with metal in the middle, and since it has never been taken apart it came off in many pieces, so I went to NAPA and bought a sheet of gasket material with one sticky side that you cut. I cut it out with an X-Acto knife to a perfect fit then made a copy for the other side.