toplessFC3Sman

After sitting for a few months between HPDEs, I got into Vera over the fall and noticed that the blower motor wasn't working. When I turned it up to full blast, there was a whole bunch of grass clippings, dirt and other debris blow out the vents, plus a funky compost-like smell. Well... some animal decided that it wanted to make its nest in Vera's HVAC system and had chewed through the fresh/recirc vent door, cabin filter and a few other bits of the HVAC housing in order to do so! It had then packed the blower hamster wheel with all sorts of lawn debris, which had jammed the motor at lower speeds and caused the variable speed resistors to burn out (actually, melt a piece of solder "thermal fuse" put in place to protect the resistor and motor if it was stalled).



I was able to get the resistor pack out and add new solder to bridge the thermal fuse gap, and that got the blower working well again at all speeds. The housing was a bit more challenging, especially since I didn't want to take the entire dash apart to remove it. Lots of fiddling, bending, gluing and time with my head crammed in the passenger footwell resulted in a screen that the vent door could mostly close against for recirc that should keep critters out (at least until they chew through the plastic all around it).


Since then, I've found some walnut shells in the windshield wiper cavity and can hear them rolling and bouncing from one side of the car to the other when cornering hard. The wiper mechanism has also gotten jammed by them a few times now. Its simple enough to pull the corners of the cowl plastics up to fish them out every once in a while, but how are these critters even getting in there?

BigCajun

iTrader: (1)

Wow, I've bever seen the door chewed through like that.
Thanks for posting that.
One more thing for me to check before I get mine running again.

200.mph

iTrader: (9)

best way to deal with critters is a suppressed .22lr with sub sonic ammo. make a day of it sitting in a good nice spot with a cooler of beer. its very relaxing and a lot of fun. if tree rats are the issue as a bonus you get free dinner