rats nest air filter

[dlb]

i just encountered an interesting coincidence.

a few weeks ago, a co-worker had some troubles with their truck. turned out a rat had torn through the air filter and the shreds got sucked into the combustion chambers.

today, my pal brought his gf's ford freestyle over and mentioned it had been running oddly. his in-laws had just replaced the battery so we took a quick look at that. it was fine but while we were in there, i noticed a few rodent turds and nesting on the valve cover, which i had cleaned off the last time my pal came over, so i knew rodents had been in there recently. remembering my co-worker's experience, i pulled the air filter out. and look what i found.

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time will tell if the nest was the cause of the intermittent poor running but i wanted to share this anyway in case anyone else runs into running issues and telltale rodent signs.

[Petros]

may have sucked a few mice down the intake too. hopefully it did not bend any valves, presuming the combution chambers pulverized the carcass', likely they made it out into the exhaust pipe with not much harm done.

[dlb]

sorry, i should have mentioned that the filter in my friend's freestyle was still totally intact. the nest was just underneath it, blocking half of the air filter. my co-workers truck may have sucked rodents in though. no internal engine damage for him though, very lucky.

[splatterdog]

Time to go mad trapper. Where there's one, there could be forty. While I don't advocate for free running cats, they can be very effective. My neighbor has had a roaming cat for the last year. Last summer I caught half as many mice, with twice the number of traps, as the year before.

Better the air filter than the heater box! Might want to check/clean the MAF. Check wire harnesses for obvious signs of chewing too.

Just worked on a Chrysler minivan where the owner keeps the back full of bird food and dog biscuits at all times. Parked in the sun on one of the warmest days this spring, I almost threw up. The smell of infestation is hard to mistake.

[dlb]

Might want to check/clean the MAF.

how do you do that? remove it and spray it with sensor cleaner?

[splatterdog]

MAF cleaner will work obviously. But I've been using CRC QD electronic cleaner since long before MAF sprays were available. As an electronics cleaner, it is possibly the most plastic safe.

Being a Ford, you need some "tamper" torx bits to remove it, or clean the MAF while still in the air cleaner housing/snorkel. If you remove the MAF, pay attention to it's O-ring. Also, sometimes Ford epoxies one or both screw heads shut. Small vise grip works then, or carefully cut a screwdriver slot in the head with a dremel.

[irowiki]

I can vouch for the cats. The cats at the farm all passed away and a few months later they were over run with mice!

[Mad_Marx]

I've cleaned more than one rodent nest out of cars that have been stored, now I put decon in anything I store. I've also had problems with mice trying to invade my garage/shop when the weather turns cold here. Traps, lots of traps!
On a side note, I replaced a timing belt on a V6 4Runner once upon a time, for some reason it had gone out of time and suffered loss of power most noticeable under load, going up hills or towing. After removing the timing belt cover I found bits and pieces of a mouse in the bottom of the lower cover. The mouse had crawled into the gap between the upper and lower belt covers, a hole between the dust seal about 1/4" to 1/3", when the owner started it in the morning the mouse got caught between the belt and camshaft drive pulley on the right (passengers) side. It was enough to make it skip a couple of teeth and put the motor out of time.

[Ace]

I've had mouse or chipmunk nests in my heater fan a couple times. After the second time I realized they could get up the cowl drain behind the front wheels, so I stuffed window screen in there. If you get leaf debris down your cowl vents, you may want to remove the screens periodically to flush out accumulations so they don't rust through the sheet metal.

The easiest precaution to keep critters out of the heater fan is to always park the car with the air control on "recirculate", which blocks passage from the cowl vent areas. I also set traps regularly to prevent rodents from becoming habitual visitors.

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[Petros]

it can happen overnight. my daughter drove her 2001 Suzuki Esteem wagon to class one spring day, she came home and said her heater sounded "funny" so she did not use it. I opened up the heater fan (on her car just three screws under the dash drops the assembly). I found a nest with a freshly killed family of bloody mice. the "funny noise" were the tails hanging outside the squire cage type fan whipping the inside of the housing. I showed it to her and said it was a good idea you did not use it, you killed the mice instantly and continued use may have put mouse guts all inside the heater ducts. She was grossed out. But the point is, it was only parked overnight, not for days out in a field.

[irowiki]

Same thing happened to us with the Camry at our folk's place. Parked overnight, the next day the fan sounded odd. Got home and there was a freshly killed mice family in it.