Almost a fire on maiden voyage of my 2003

Hello,
Just bought a used well taken care of 03’ runner with V8. Loaded it up with the family and dog and headed up to the ski resort. Pull in after 1.5 hour drive and smells like burning brakes. Smoke coming from underneath in the back. Look underneath in the back half and something is smoldering and glowing red. It looks like it is either some sort of noise insulation or heat shield that is separating the muffler/exhaust system from the bottom of the vehicle almost on fire. It appears it is only installed where the exhaust system is located. A little snow put out the embers. I am hoping to get some help by this community.
Q1. What the heck is this matting? It is definitely fibrous like a wool matt. Apparently not fire proof.
Q2. Can I rip it all off? Don’t want my new baby to catch on fire.
Q3. Could the catalytic converter or exhaust get so hot get it catches stuff on fire? The exhaust system is relatively new. I look a video but upload .mov
Much appreciate any insight.

 

Woah that sounds a bit concerning.

It took me a while to understand those pictures, but it almost looks like those heat shield were very recently sprayed with some sort of rubberized or tar coating (usually used for corrosion control, or to cover up corrosion).

I’m assuming the bright red in the pics is because you took the pic while it was burning? If so, it almost looks like it was sprayed very very recently, and the flammable volatiles in the coating were what caused the burning because they hadn’t had a chance to off-gas yet. Otherwise, there is no reason any heat shield should glow cherry red like that (the catalytic converters could possibly glow a dull cherry over the whole surface, but they are closer to the engine, and you’d have a hard time even seeing it).

While my theory is that it was fresh rubberized coating burning off, maybe it’s old dried coating, but it burned due to an exhaust leak from the new exhaust. There is probably a welded junction right behind the flange (with no bolts) in your picture. It could be leaking from there, and if it was a jet of hot gas going right onto the shield, maybe that’s what caused it to burn.

 

One more thing…that exhaust pipe looks to be rather small diameter for a V8 engine. It might be worth having an exhaust shop go over that install to make sure the correct size exhaust tubing was used, and that there is enough space between the tubing and the heat shield. If it’s too small, I could imagine it getting hotter than it should at a choke down point.

 

Put a fire extinguisher onboard.

 

where are the flange bolts!?!?