header heat shield missing

hi guys.

so, a while back i went to the mechanic to have a rattle sorted. i had assumed it was the lower cat's heat shield. when i went to pick up the car i asked what it was and he said it was a plate-ish thing that got loose.
couple of weeks went by, and as i'm waiting at the toyota dealer for the wifes car, i take the chance to have a look under the hood. i looked at the exhaust headers and notice some screw holes. "meybe they use this header for other cars and those holes are just there for something else" i tought...but this bothered me...so i went to look at some photos of when i bought it and sure enough, the header heat shield is missing.
the mechanic must have taken it off the car.
now, the top holes are clean, but the side mounts still have the broken screws in them and they wont budge.
is there a problem in driving it like that?
i'm afraid the heat radiating from the headers might damage something, either prematurely kill the alternator belt or the expansion vase.
thought of wraping it, but as i was looking for wraps, i found a website claming that keeping the heat in the header like that will damage it and the gasket, and that the propper way of doing it is ceramic coating it wich is probably expensive.
had a look online and all i could find is a used one on ebay sold by cam suzuki. is the header the same in the m13a as in the g13b?

The g13b has 2 variants in manifold, one with a cat one without

M13a is different again

Which version do you need?

Well, i managed to talk with my mechanic just nos, he said he took it off cuz it was craCked on the inside ad the screws hás broken. He assured me that since there's a lot of space on that side of the ebgibe bay and nothing close enough to be damaged by the heat. Still, i'm horried about the hood paint.
I need the m13a non vvt One. The One on eBay hás no mention as to wich engine it's for, but the price was nice,20 quid

I regularly remove mine for a number of reasons. However, I take care to remove it so that I can refit it which means taking care of the bolt heads!

One reason I do it for is to cut away the parts that make it hard to remove it once the bolts are off. So it can clear the O2 sensor lead etc.

Mostly though I remove it initially to see if the manifold is cracked and I have to tell you that in many of my motors (particularly Suzuki) they are cracked. My Junior, Pinin and Vitara recently. SJ, earlier Vitaras and so on; it makes me wonder how many Jimny owners have cracked headers and just do not know.

I can tell you that in most cases I do not bother to replace it either - except my Pinin where components were close and where I wanted to hide the crack from me.

Bottom line, I left mine off the Jimny and it was perfectly fine (and all others too!).

Most critics of this refer to heat etc. but I reckon it is a judgement call and bear this in mind, is it possible that the heat shield build up heat and contributes to the header cracking.

See this.
www.bigjimny.com/index.php/forum?view=topic&catid=6&id=51537

thanks for that helijohn.
as for the steering being close to the headers, it's not that close..i would be easier for the expansion vase to be damaged by the heat.
anyway, drove the jimny to work today, around 20 miles...when i parked it i put my hand on the bonnet.. the part just over the header was really hot, but no hotter than it would be after a day in the sun during the summer. other parts of the bonnet were also hot but not as much. i'll probably end up getting some of that gold reflective film to cover the inside of the bonnet and some plastic parts, though not sure it will do anything.