So my 8 has been waylaid by mice over Christmas. Went to go move it, battery was flat, popped the hood, and it looked like a disaster area of chewed insulation on the hood, fenders, and firewall. Upon further review, it seems that one built its nest in the cabin air filter because I caught him there. Forcibly evicted the little bugger, and chucked him into a vacant lot next door. Thankfully, no babies involved that I could see. Ripped out as much of the nest as I could wearing gloves and a mask, but I'm concerned I'm going to need to get into the blower assembly to really clean things out. I've read that you need to hit stuff with a 1:9 bleach solution to kill viruses.

Problem is that the shop manual says you need to pull the AC unit to pull the blower. Is there another way into this mess that doesn't involve purging AC? Based on the KBB values, I'm a little concerned that if I have a mechanic do too much work, my insurance is going to total the car since it's 15 years old. I'm thinking I already am going to need one to replace the insulation in the engine bay already and check for chewed wires. Maybe I'm paranoid; I don't know.

 

Checking for chewed wires definitely a good idea. If you need a wiring harness in addition to everything else, it might change what you want to do here. The fabric insulation is eh whatever, it's for NVH.

As for the blower, viruses don't survive long outside a host. So that should be OK by itself in a week or so. Bacteria can be killed with an ozone generator. If you really want to assess the situation, you could use an inspection boroscope through the filter opening to see how far he got.

Easy things first, I guess.

Your avatar might need a Growler update

 

mice don’t like to search much either

 

Blower motor is removed from the bottom of the blower box. A few screws hold it in and one connector furnishes the electrical connection. Takes less than 5 minutes to remove. I have mice where I live and they are constantly getting in my cars. I haven't found a good solution to keeping them out. I set traps in the cars that are stored as well as moth ball under the hood and in extreme cases, the interior. Its extremely frustrating to have to deal with.

 

Is there anywhere that you can find instructions for how to replace the insulation pads? I looked in my shop manual, searched here, Googled, and I’m drawing a blank.

 

Which insulation pads are you looking replace? The ones in the engine bay or in the interior?

 

Just saw mazdaverz7's post . . . the ones in the engine bay. Think I'm going to have a shop replace the firewall one because that looks like it involves AC parts, but I'm trying to figure out how to move the wiring harnesses on the sides of the engine bay to replace the insulation pads on the fenders.

 

Leave the insulation OUT!The little buggers won’t have anything to chew and the bay will look much cleaner.

 

I haven't tried this yet, but an older, and very knowledgeable mechanic that chased some electrical problems in a truck at work said the following. If you have to leave a vehicle/boat/etc. unused, get some Irish Spring bar soap, break the bars in half, and leave half's here and there in the engine bay, etc. He said works much better than mothballs. Like I said, haven't tried it myself (mice-elf ) but plan to do so on a boat shortly.

 

Can't find any other thread with this info, so I thought I might ask here...

Is there a trick to getting the blower motor to drop from the white housing? I've removed the three screws but it won't budge.

@mazdaverx7

nvm I got it!