Squirrels In My Engine?!!!! Wtf?

[luckieleo]

So i got my stuff from fordpartsnetwork today, and i did not want to start any of the valve cover gasket stuff today, so i decide to replace the air filter. i popped out the old air filter, wasnt THAT terrible (only been about a year and a half since the last replacement) and what do i see in the bottom of the air filter holder compartment thingy.... A PILE OF FRIGGIN PUMPKIN SEEDS@!!?!?@#&^%@#$)! WTF? :slam

it was hilarious, but seriously, how did they get there? i know I didnt put any damn pumpking seeds in there!!!! now i see the reason for an air filter!! if it wasnt there, whatever creature crawled into the air filter thingy would have gotten into the damn engine!!!! i just vaccumed them out, problem solved. but i thought i'd share. :L


(oh, and btw, why is the "I love my Cadillac" BEFORE "i love my Lincoln" )
someone needs to fix that ASAP!!! it IS LINCOLN vs Cadillac, not Caddilac vs LINCOLN!!! see: :V :N fix it now please!!!!

 

[GrayGhost1]

The inlet to the air box is open at the bottom so some creature probably crawled up there and started to make a nest. You probably scared it away one day when you started it up. You'll probably see an increase in gas mileage now! LOL!!

 

[lsbit]

Maybe someone off-roaded with the car through a pumpkin patch!

j/k

 

[Jim Henderson]

It happens. Watch out for mice and squirrels chewing up your wires or making a nest on the manifold. Seems like mice like to nest on the intake manifold. At least one of my vehicles which can sit for a week or more at a time has had the problem of nests a few times. I keep some rat poison under the hood for that reason.

One time after a scout camping trip I had an electrical problem, almost fire, due to a poor wiring job by the canopy installer and one of the scouts leaving the canopy light on for the week. Anyway, while looking under the hood to find the problem, the other lady scout leader screamed bloody murder. Apparently two mice were crawling back and forth in a support "tube" that ran along the underside rear of the hood. There were peep holes every few inches and the mice kept running back and forth and peeping at the lady. Almost made me jump straight up a few feet while I had my head buried in the engine compartment. It was almost as good a scream as when she discoverd the legendary Pac NW Banana Slug in her shoe, no the scouts didn't do it, neither did I, and they are called banana for a very good reason, wow.

Anyway, it is a good idea to prevent critters from taking up residence. Some will damage plastic coatings, others will stink up the car, and where do you think they get the nice cotton and foam padding for their nest? Just think what are your seats and carpets made of? Hmmm? Swine creatures.

Good Luck,

Jim Henderson

 

[SoonerLS]

i popped out the old air filter, wasnt THAT terrible (only been about a year and a half since the last replacement) and what do i see in the bottom of the air filter holder compartment thingy.... A PILE OF FRIGGIN PUMPKIN SEEDS@!!?!?@#&^%@#$)! WTF? :slam

it was hilarious, but seriously, how did they get there? i know I didnt put any damn pumpking seeds in there!!!! now i see the reason for an air filter!! if it wasnt there, whatever creature crawled into the air filter thingy would have gotten into the damn engine!!!! i just vaccumed them out, problem solved. but i thought i'd share. :L

:soapbox: Could be squirrels (damned bushy-tailed rats that they are) that crawled up the intake inlet. I find the remains of their food in the airboxes of my vehicles every now and then (I live on 10 acres of heavily-forested land, so no matter where I park a vehicle, it's under a tree that's used by a squirrel). Rats and mice will do it, too; they also like to sit on the intake manifolds of V engines and eat acorns.

The worst time was during the fall of '02 and spring of '03, after my one outdoor cat disappeared (cats and small dogs have a tendency to just disappear one day out here; we have coyotes and 50mph traffic at the end of my driveway). That coincides with the time that the neighbor decided to demolish an old derelict barn on his property, and a horde of rats moved into my place. The little bastards chewed through a $300 wiring harness on my SHO, stripped the top layer of the underhood insulation (that used to say "SHO" in big white letters), and built a pee-scented nest in the fresh air intake. (This was all in the space of a few weeks, while I was awaiting a new t/o bearing, pressure plate, clutrch, and flywheel.)

BTW, glue traps don't work on rats--they just poop themselves until they get free. Eww. Some of the rats I killed were almost as big as a small cat; the biggest was around 12" long, not counting his disgusting little tail. I rather enjoyed lifting the hood of my SHO and finding him folded in half by the rat trap. (I used to feel bad about getting rid of varmints, up until they started destroying my vehicles. Now I have no compunction about shooting, stomping, and generally eradicating them from existence.)

I now have seven outdoor cats (one Siamese-looking blue-eyed momma and two generations of children), and an almost non-existant rodent population. As I tell everyone, I've had too many cats and too many rats, and I'll take the cats any day. I have to feed the cats, but they don't eat $300 wiring harnesses, complete spark plug wire sets, or destroy upholstery.

And I remember that every time I look out the window and see little dirty paw prints on the LS. It's a small price to pay to keep the internals protected. Stupid, useless, disease-carrying, wiring chewing, :q, :q, :q, :q, :q rats.

Did I mention that I don't like rats?

 

[lsbit]

BTW, glue traps don't work on rats--they just poop themselves until they get free. Eww. Some of the rats I killed were almost as big as a small cat; the biggest was around 12" long, not counting his disgusting little tail. I rather enjoyed lifting the hood of my SHO and finding him folded in half by the rat trap. (I used to feel bad about getting rid of varmints, up until they started destroying my vehicles. Now I have no compunction about shooting, stomping, and generally eradicating them from existence.)

I think this is my favorite paragraph of the post. Damn funny. I always think of things graphically and seeing that rat poop himself free. bawhahahhaha.

 

[luckieleo]

:soapbox: Could be squirrels (damned bushy-tailed rats that they are) that crawled up the intake inlet. I find the remains of their food in the airboxes of my vehicles every now and then (I live on 10 acres of heavily-forested land, so no matter where I park a vehicle, it's under a tree that's used by a squirrel). Rats and mice will do it, too; they also like to sit on the intake manifolds of V engines and eat acorns.

The worst time was during the fall of '02 and spring of '03, after my one outdoor cat disappeared (cats and small dogs have a tendency to just disappear one day out here; we have coyotes and 50mph traffic at the end of my driveway). That coincides with the time that the neighbor decided to demolish an old derelict barn on his property, and a horde of rats moved into my place. The little bastards chewed through a $300 wiring harness on my SHO, stripped the top layer of the underhood insulation (that used to say "SHO" in big white letters), and built a pee-scented nest in the fresh air intake. (This was all in the space of a few weeks, while I was awaiting a new t/o bearing, pressure plate, clutrch, and flywheel.)

BTW, glue traps don't work on rats--they just poop themselves until they get free. Eww. Some of the rats I killed were almost as big as a small cat; the biggest was around 12" long, not counting his disgusting little tail. I rather enjoyed lifting the hood of my SHO and finding him folded in half by the rat trap. (I used to feel bad about getting rid of varmints, up until they started destroying my vehicles. Now I have no compunction about shooting, stomping, and generally eradicating them from existence.)

I now have seven outdoor cats (one Siamese-looking blue-eyed momma and two generations of children), and an almost non-existant rodent population. As I tell everyone, I've had too many cats and too many rats, and I'll take the cats any day. I have to feed the cats, but they don't eat $300 wiring harnesses, complete spark plug wire sets, or destroy upholstery.

And I remember that every time I look out the window and see little dirty paw prints on the LS. It's a small price to pay to keep the internals protected. Stupid, useless, disease-carrying, wiring chewing, :q, :q, :q, :q, :q rats.

Did I mention that I don't like rats?

LMAO!!! i wonder where NORMAN is... i dont want to live there!!!

whats weird is that my car has never been left sitting for more than a day...
and when it does, its in the closed garage... i'm sure some creatures manage to get in the garage, closed or not, but damn! i dont like rats either! i own 2 ball pythons... they dont like rats either! :Beer

 

[eL eS]

Maybe someone off-roaded with the car through a pumpkin patch!

j/k

HAHAHA. I got a visual of some old bird flying through the pacth in their LS thinking it was the wal-mart parking lot.

 

[luckieleo]

HAHAHA. I got a visual of some old bird flying through the pacth in their LS thinking it was the wal-mart parking lot.

LMAO!!! i have never driven this car thru any pumpkin patches...
(not that i can remember... :joke )

no, i blame the rats/squirrels...

 

[SoonerLS]

LMAO!!! i wonder where NORMAN is... i dont want to live there!!!

whats weird is that my car has never been left sitting for more than a day...
and when it does, its in the closed garage... i'm sure some creatures manage to get in the garage, closed or not, but damn! i dont like rats either! i own 2 ball pythons... they dont like rats either! :Beer

If it was in the garage, it's probably mice, but it could have been pretty much any of the rodents (though probably not the cute fluffy little bunny rabbits, 'cause they'd never do anything so heinous).

Norman's the home of the University of Oklahoma (my alma mater and employer), about 20 miles south of Oklahoma City. It's really a great place to live, and I'm rather fond of my property, which is in a rural setting, about four miles out of "town." Norman's about 190 square miles, with about 145 of that being rural--although development of new exclusive neighborhoods is changing that. Land that wouldn't sell for $3000/acre a decade ago is going for $7500/acre and up--$17,500/acre and up on the 2.5 acres lots in the developments. There go my property taxes again... But I digress.

Really, it was just that one period of cat-less time that we had big problems with the vermin. The barn had been there for decades; the guy who lives on that property now inherited it from his dad (the previous resident), who was quite elderly when he died.

For some reason, rats seem to greatly prefer newer wiring. My '66 Galaxie sits out behind the house, but they've ignored all of the original wiring, only going after the plug wires and the "home run" hot wire I installed for the stereo...

I think the nest in the fresh air intake was actually built while the car was in the garage; I found the biggest rats in there. My garage is a detached 2-story affair of new construction (pressure-treated lumber and toung & groove plywood sheathing), but it's also closest to the location of the neighbor's old barn. Those little (and big) buggers can fit themselves into some amazingly small crevices.

BTW, I'd expect that pythons would love rats.

 

[eL eS]

So that would explain the few incidents down here where car owners found Big Constrictors in their engine compartment.

 

[luckieleo]

^^ yeah, my pythons DO love rats (as food... not as company!) i love my pythons for that!!! :monkey:

 

[SoonerLS]

^^ yeah, my pythons DO love rats (as food... not as company!) i love my pythons for that!!! :monkey:

I have friend who thinks that snakes are only good for two things: boots and hatbands. I guess he can add another thing to the list.