Mice problems....
 

Hey guys. So I have a problem. I have a freshly built 5.3 that was covered and inside. Sometime in the last few weeks a mouse built a nest in my intake. It chewed right through the cover I had on the engine and the rags stuffed in the intake. I pulled the intake and found that the mouse had gotten into my bag of bird seed and filled the drivers side head with seeds. I also dumped 4 baby mice out of my intake. I am going to pull the heads and the oil pan and clean everything really well before reassembling the motor. I have never even put oil in the motor its so fresh so it should be easy to clean.

My question is that when I look into the intake port on cyl #3 I see some seeds stuck in the grease on the stem of the valve. If I wipe all of that out will I be ok? Is that just assembly grease from when the machine shop did the heads? Or is it needed. I can vacuum all the seed out and use air to blow it out when the head is off of the motor but the seeds stuck in the grease will be stuck unless I wipe the grease out with a pipe cleaner or something.

By the way.. I know someone will tell me I should have done a better job protecting the motor but I did what I thought was good. It is installed in the truck, rags in intake because I don't have a throttle body yet, and then the engine was covered with plastic. I thought I was only having to keep dust out.

Re: Mice problems....
 

Im just glad rats dont have carbide teeth.....surface cleaning everything may be good enough....
Remember if you pull the heads, those bolts are torque to yield ...one time use...and will need replaced

Re: Mice problems....
 

Yeah I didn't like the TTY bolts the first time so I am ordering the ARP ones this time. My rebuild kit last time came with head gaskets but now i am trying to pick out a new set. there are lots of choices.

Re: Mice problems....
 

I see sticky boards in your future

Re: Mice problems....
 

What is a sticky board? Like a Popsicle stick with tape wrapped on the end sticky side out? Or like a forum board sticky that I should have found and read?

Re: Mice problems....
 

More like the first one.

If you need a cheap trap for the shop, take a 5gal bucket and put a piece of dowel through the mouth of it. Take an old 20oz soda bottle and put it on the dowel like a bbq spit. Fill the bucket with coolant and put peanut butter on the soda bottle. Instant 1-way trip for mice.

Re: Mice problems....
 

glue board

https://express.google.com/u/0/produ...paign=11268992

My mom had a problem, she bought like 10 boxes and put them everywhere.

She no sooner got them placed when she caught the bugger.

Being mom she packed them all back in the boxes they came in.

Re: Mice problems....
 

Oh I get it.. You guys were talking about mouse traps. I though sticky boards was something narrow and sticky to help me get the seeds out of the head.

Does anyone know about the grease I mentioned? I am thinking it was for assembly and if I take some out it should be ok but I wanted to hear what others had to say.

Re: Mice problems....
 

I work for a car dealership service department and see this kind of thing all the time. (usually the motors are in the cars).
I have seen mice/rodents do some serious damage to wiring when the try to nest up in an engine.
about a year ago I started up my Fiat 500 abarth (daily driver at the time) noticed a CEL, pulled code, misfire on cylinder #3 popped the hood and found the #3 coil wire chewed up and mouse droppings all over my motor. I fixed the wire and then put a small bag of moth balls in my engine compartment. This kept them away, but my car smelled like mothballs.

I noticed last week something got into my Suburban engine compartment and chewed up and made a nest from my hood insulation. they then tucked all the chewed up insulation under my engine cover. Thank goodness the rodent didn't chew any wires. Looks like I may need more mothballs and my neighbors outside cat needs to up his game and do his job!!!

Re: Mice problems....
 

I attached some pictures. the first is before I wrapped the engine up so so you can see that there wasn't much except a gutted cab and the engine there. Lucky for me no wires to bite.

The second is one of the intake ports on the drivers side after I vaccumed out as much as I could with my shop vac. It was filled to the brim. You can see some seeds stuck in the grease. It must just be assembly grease so I think I will wipe it out with a q-tip if i have to.

I got my ARP bolts last night so I just need to get to work and go get some head gaskets.

Re: Mice problems....
 

Man that sucks....at least you found it before you cranked it over

Re: Mice problems....
 

I just wanted to affirm your decision to pull the heads. I had a similar situation but I didn't find it until the urine from the mice had rusted the cylinders. I had to tear it down and hone the cylinders.

Re: Mice problems....
 

Not to get into a whole thing, but I think the glue traps are kinda cruel. They suffocate slowly and so on. I prefer snap traps, kills 'em dead quick, but I get there are places you can't use them.

As for a nest in the motor, it'd all burn and they don't gnaw steel much, but their urine is pretty corrosive. So it depends how long they were in there, living and peeing, I guess.

So the urine would be my concern, but I've never had this happen!

Re: Mice problems....
 

I took the passenger head off today, been too busy to get to it before and everything looked fine. I still need to pull the drivers side head.

How do I pick new head gaskets? When I built the motor I used the gasket from the kit (I had the machine shop order me the rebuild kit). I pulled the head and the gasket has no markings and when I was on summit racing’s website there was lots of variables like bore size, thickness, material, etc... pics of what I have...

Re: Mice problems....
 

I run GM LS9 head gaskets most of the time.

Re: Mice problems....
 

those you have look less desirable, not MLS. I'd second the notion for GM gaskets.
they are about $32 to 40 ish a piece.
The 5.3/5.7 MLS gaskets are fine, Mahle or Felpro permatorque, or the Ac Delco gasket (they all look about the same if MLS)

the LS9 would be a bit bigger bore than you need, but will work fine too.

Re: Mice problems....
 

Man, I hate the mice. Harvest time around here and they get in everything. I spray my moms truck down with peppermint oil from the health food store. I spray it under the hood in every nook, vent, flat spot and esp. on the wires. Plus it smells a lot better than moth balls

The little terrors ate the wires off my brand new Bad Boy mower last year:devil:. It get a good spraying of peppermint oil every couple of weeks now. YMMV

Re: Mice problems....
 

So would either of these work?
https://www.amazon.com/MAHLE-Origina...RSMW8WNPW72Q4A

https://www.amazon.com/Fel-Pro-9292-...GDRJFAQN4Z2XEN

I like the price on the fel-pro but I don't want junk.

Re: Mice problems....
 

Looking online I found that I can't use MLS gaskets because I have the early heads with the notch.