I just sprayed off the winter buildup of acorns off the top of the engine. Nothing like a warm flat-four on a cold evening to attract the squirrels and mice with their snacks. The washing should keep the wafting of cooked nuts away until next fall anyway. I've found the darn critters nesting in the air-filter as well but it seems the top of engine location is most popular. Wonder if this is common with boxer engines? ...may be able to add that to the wikepedia "flat-4" article as an interesting feature.

I was changing the thermostat in a corolla and the aibox was so full of insulation from mice nesting I'm surprised it ran. He says the power is better now.

Common? Not sure, but I have had to vacuum the top of my engine too!

 

A narrow hose into the cavities and the vacuum cleaner hose over the other end...got some funny looks from passers by and neighbors

Not any more common than any other engine being nested in by rodents.

 

They love engines of all kinds- it's a small, warm, enclosed space.

A buddy of mine lived on an old farm and parked his car in a barn. His solution was to wet down the engine and sprinkle some cayenne pepper in the nooks and crannies. Seemed to keep the little vistors away. This was after they chewed through some harness wires.

Got more than one pound of dog chow stuffed there by mice out of my sister's car heater blower cowling. They did that in less than 12 hours. Mitsubishi Spider. Made quite a racket when she first started the blower motor.

Got more than one pound of dog chow stuffed there by mice out of my sister's car heater blower cowling. They did that in less than 12 hours. Mitsubishi Spider. Made quite a racket when she first started the blower motor.

 

I would have laughed like crazy if it shot dog chow out the vents...

That's a good thought - cooked cayenne may even smell good. I sprinkled some on the ground next to my house once when our dog insisted on chewing the alumnimum siding. He was also chewing the nearby chain-link fence (ughh?!). It was effective.

 

A buddy of mine lived on an old farm and parked his car in a barn. His solution was to wet down the engine and sprinkle some cayenne pepper in the nooks and crannies. Seemed to keep the little vistors away. This was after they chewed through some harness wires.

I just sprayed off the winter buildup of acorns off the top of the engine.

 

Got the same situation here, normally I use compressed air to blow the nuts off the top of the engine. Now that sounds good, doesn't it. I need to do this every six months or so, the rodents are quite efficient...

When you work on a country Subie do you have to check for mousetraps first?

Ha! On the early 2.2 engines the meeces will hang out on top of the engine case and pee on the $358 crank angle sensor so that when you remove it you wind up with shards of metal and 6,000 feet of thread since it has corroded to the engine!

 

I've driven a Karmann Ghia 80 miles only to have my buddy say "MAN! that is one HOT engine!".......15 minutes later with the engine out and the fan shroud off some squirrel lost his mother load cache of acorns!

When you work on a country Subie do you have to check for mousetraps first?

 

I actually found mouse traps in a Sube I bought that had been in storage for 5 years. I didn't get snapped by any of them, but the suckers were armed! Snapped my screwdriver pretty hard when I tapped them with it.

Warning to all: I recently "inherited" a Ford and the wipers stopped working. After replacing the multifunction switch with no improvement, I took apart the grill cover to see what was wrong and discovered a few *gallons* of nuts and assorted debirs (yuck) packed into the linkage area. This had caused the shaft connection from the motor to strip and so now I'm looking at a new (junkyard) motor assembly even though the old motor works. Darn critters. When I reassemble I'm definitely leaving some mouse/rabbit repellent pellets in there. Since I haven't had the car that long not sure if the critter infestation happened previously or parked in my drive. In any case I'm now encouraging the cat to get outside and do her rounds.. maybe it will help if I feed her less!

I used the have a problem with mice nesting in my CB750's air box. I would start it up in the spring and it would run for a few minutes and then stall. No restart. Pull the plugs and they would be completely fouled. What fun pulling the air box and cleaning the boots out.

 

The pepper thing works. I had bird that kept trying to nest on one of the lights on my garage. Every morning for a week I knocked the nest down and every night when I got home the nest was back. Covered the light and garage with cayenne pepper. I watched the bird try to land on it and jump off. No more nest.