PSA check your motor often

[Metrodps]

It had been a month since I last checked under the hood of the 1993 Blazer. I get fuel today and go to check the oil and find a mouse nest on my intake manifold the size of a football!

I cleaned it out and have now parked it away from house where our wild cat lives. So now I have a pre-drive check list of look under the hood.

 

[jt512]

Make sure the new list has "check for wild cat" especially when it's cold out

 

[Metrodps]

Oh yea would hate to lose kitty.

 

[diesel4me]

I have no less than 5 feral "outdoor" cats hanging around my yard,and I still have found evidence of mice in my lawn tractor engines in my shed,despite the fact the cats often sleep in there! (only have 2 stockade fence panels for doors on it that dont go all the way to the ground,I left room enough ,about 8" to let the cats be able to get in there for shelter ,and get away from coyotes)................................................................................................once in a while I'll see a dead mouse or mole left as a "present" on my doorstep,or near the shed or my vehicles,and I appreciate their efforts to keep them out of my posessions and home,but I think I may be feeding them too well,since they are not leaving as many trophies as before...

 

[Blue85]

I have cleaned mouse nests off all my engines. I hate the varmints because the chew and destroy whatever is around. I have also pulled birds nests out of fenders and rocker panels - even on vehicles being driven every day. Once I pulled a tailight and found the whole rear quarter panel was stuffed full of grass and complete with little eggs. Last year I found about 4" x 10" of birds nest in my air intake. They had been climbing up between the grill and the core support and filling the snorkel all the way to the air filter. The truck wasn't really responding right and I was getting ready to re-tune my spark and fuel tables! I drove it like that for months and then went to knock the dust out of the filter after 3 days on the trail. I must have gained 90hp! I wonder how it felt in there when I mashed the skinny pedal.

 

[diesel4me]

I remember going with a friend to look at a 1963 C-10 a neighbor had in his backyard that he was interested in buying...it had a 292 six and three on the tree,the truck was parked under a large oak tree for about a year since it was last used...we brought a battery and some gas,and tried to get it running so we could see how it sounded ....................................................................................................................................................................................................The owner said "it should start right up,I put a battery in it a couple of months ago and there was still some gas in it,and she fired right up!...so we put our battery in it,and got in,tried to start it...it spun over about 6 times and vrooom,it fired right up...but stalled a few seconds later...the owner says "its got a hand choke you know!--pull it out!"...so my friend goes to pull the knob out,and immediately we heard a loud squealing noise,and we all look at each other as if to say "WTF"??...we open the hood,and hear the squealing is coming from the air cleaner...we were about to dump gas down the carb anyway,so we take the lid off the air cleaner,and we see a large mouse ,that was halfway down the venturi of the carb,with the tail sticking out,the choke butterfly was pinching it almost in half!.............................................................................................we opened the choke and the owner grabs the mouse by the tail,and tosses it into the woods,and it ran off,evidently not fatally wounded!....the air cleaner elementwas all chewed apart,they even chewed thru the wire mesh on it!...and the housing was packed FULL of acorns,some "Cheese-Its" crackers and various other seeds and nuts,and we saw at least 2 more mice scurry away and dissapear into the cowl under the windsheild wipers while we were looking under the hood......the truck fired right up again and ran nice after we let it warm up some,so my friend decided to buy it--handed the owner 300 bucks,and we figured we'd just drive it to my friends yard,maybe a half mile away up the street..."just follow me close",he says..OK......................................................................................................................................................................................................He got about halfway up the road to his house,when I see him start swerving all over the road,and it looked like he was swatting something inside the cab "oh no",I thought,maybe there is hornets in there!....he pulls over to the side of the road and bails from the cab,and I see him flinging his arms around,like he was trying to brush something off himself...then a mouse flies off his shirt,and about a dozen more come leaping out of the cab from behind the seat,and go scurrying across the street in 10 different directions!.....................................................................................................................................................................................................I was laughing so hard I almost peed myself!..my friend was pissed,and really didn't want to get back in the truck,I told him "we'd better get OUT of here,before a cop comes along"...he jumps in it ,and drove it the rest of the way home at about 70 mph,skids to a stop in his driveway,and started tearing the truck apart...we found a big nest made of the jute padding behind the seat,the entire open back of the seat was a mouse condo...but evidently all the mice bailed out before we got it to his house...it reeked,we had to gut the whole cab and use a pressure washer & soap to wash it all out good..ended up scrapping the seat it was so bad!..........Amazingly,none of the wiring was chewed up ....the seat stunk so bad my friends dad threw it on a pile of brush he was going to burn ,and he put gas on it and lit it up...