so a mouse made a nest in the fan of my brat, then it died, I need to know how to remove the fan.

 

I removed a bolt under the fan and one above and beneath the black box beside it, but the fan still won't come out, what am I missing?

IIRC, there's 3 bolts/nuts that hold the housing in. 1 below, and 2 above, behind the glove box. It's still somewhat of a sruggle to get it past the lower edge of the dash though, but it can be done.

 

Went thru the very same thing on all 3 of my BRATs. Used Murphy's Oil Soap to wash everything down with. Helped out alot, but still took sometime to get all the odor gone.

Be carefull not to breath in any of the dust from the job, Henta(sp?) virus can kill. Tim

just pop off as many of the clips you can reach, and pry the box open so you can go through the side opposite the firewall

I got it done a few hours ago.

 

I removed the fan and took it apart and cleaned it, I vaccumed out the heater box and the rest of the ducts, I am just glad I got it cleaned before they started to smell

 

Thanks again

 

-AK

Mix up some bleach and water in a spraybottle and spray down everything inside the ducts. Better is smells like bleach for a bit than you get sick.

I too had the same problem, lots of lysol, then some febreze, and now it smells nice and fresh , well, if you like that febrezey smell.

start the car and get it up to operating temp. That'll get the mouse out of there

Tim - Junta Virus. I believe.

 

In My 81 Brat (Brat#3 sold to Mountain Tech) I had the exact same thing. I came back from the Gulf in 93' and pulled the Brat out of the Barn. While getting it going and trying everything out, the fan kept clicking, like a playing card in the spokes of a bicycle. I just figured the bearings were going out and kept on driving for months. Finally one day I decided I was going to replace the fan assembly and took off the cover.

 

I laughed so hard when I found what was inside! A field mouse was dried up lengthwise, outstreched around the curve of the squirel cage fan. His dried tail was sticking out of the cage a bit and that was what was clicking as it spun around!

 

The funniest part was why it got there. Gripped tight in his tiny claws, stretched out like a diving touchdown, was a 1/2 inch peice of french fry! He had found it under my seat and crawled up into the fan to live / eat and didn't plan on me coming home!!!

 

I just cleaned out the cage compartment and put everything back together. It had been so long any smell was gone.

 

It seems to be a very common occurance for our heating designs.

 

Good luck-

 

Kurt

I had to retrieve a squirrel from the dash of my neighbors 2000 Impreza recently. It was alive and ANGRY. Fortunately it didnt chew anything up.

just like to say: the rodent sroies: priceless. I'm glad you told me about the virus- don't those things carry rabies and stuff too? in other words.. don't eat the french fry, haha.

 

When we got my brother's legacy, there were moths in the wheel well. along w/ about a quart of water. had been garaged for 3 years and the whole spare (was donut now full size) was coated in cacoons and nesting and fun stuff like that... least they didn't smell..

 

Knew a kid w/ a swallow porblem..

I have my RX sitting at my brothers house right now, and I found a basketball sized mouse nest where the spare tire should be. so I cleared it out, and got my brother to put some traps in there

and I had a vibration problem, pulled the air box and duct work out, the division caught a huge mound, and the fan was full, but it still worked, now setting 1 was setting 4, glad I cleaned it

Only time I had a mouse problem it wasn't in a subaru, nore in a fan system, A mouse managed to make a nest in the intake manofold through the carbrator... chewed right through the airfilter. this was on the big chrysler.