Mice in duct

[2015HD]

This past Spring I noticed the battery blanket in my truck had been chewed a bit but there was no sign of mice aside from that. I threw some Fresh Cab in my truck and never gave it another thought, until today. I cranked up my blower on warm defrost this AM and instantly caught the smell of dead / decaying mouse. I flipped controls back to the dash vents with AC on cold and the smell went away.

My question is, having never torn into the GEN 4 blower / duct system, were would the best place be for me to start looking for the mouse cadaver? If I have to tear the whole dash out I'll just bring it to the dealer but if there are some relatively easy places for me to access / look I'd like to try that route first.

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[TMyers]

I've done this before... Take the blower motor out to get to the backside of the airflow. Rig your shopvac into the hole. Put some rags and tape around the hose so not to lose much vacuum. Turn the shopvac on then go on the inside the truck with a blower nozzle on an air compressor and blow air back through at all the vents. Hopefully this will dislodge the bedding and dead varmints. Then, get some disinfectant spray and spray it through the system while the shopvac is running so it will pull it through.

 

[Fitz-0518]

^^^That works. Had to do that twice when we had our ranch. Keep in mind that you may have vent doors on the inside that may need to opened depending on where it nested. If you find that it nested between the back side of the air box and the heater coil,,,you may need to get a coat hanger, bend a hook to get get behind. BE VERY CAREFUL, tape the end of the coat hanger. You do not want to puncture the coil. Hope you get lucky and it sucks right out.

 

[sandawilliams]

And to try to keep them out in the future buy a few of the Christmas tree scented car fresheners. Tie them under the hood in a few places. The school buses use them in western Colorado and they keep all rodents out. I had problems with pack rats getting into our vehicles and these solved the problems.

 

[Jeepwalker]

Couple important things:

1) Find the path in. I have not taken my truck's cowl off, but on our Jeep and a Land Rover I have, if you remove the plastic cowl cover there is an open hole pretty large where any rodents can just walk right in (unless you have the cabin filter). They can get down into the top of the blower. If they build a nest in there, it's ok ....until the moment you go to turn on the fan ..and blow bits of nest all over the inside. You don't want it to clog your HVAC system drain hole or else water will run all over your carpets ..and could lead to floor rot. What I did on our land rover after dealing with the same thing as you, was make a fine wire-mesh screen over the hole ..about a little less than 1/4" mesh. So far so good.

2) You need to suck out the pieces: This can be a *****. Use your shop vac and may even need a piece of small flexible hose that you can stick in further. Beware if there is any sensors or thermal switches inside because you could easily break them and that could cost $100. So, remove them if you see any. I had to use a bore scope in mine to get all the little pieces out of my Land Rover's fan area up to the evaporator core.

3) Mouse Pee really stinks! There's something about mouse **** that is particularly pugnant. Normal disinfectant isn't going to cut it, it'll return. However ...I know a secret formula (sort of), Actually I don't remember the formula exactly but there was an episode of Mythbusters that dealt with this topic. None of the supposed anti-mouse formulas worked and they came up with a formula out of household products that actually works ..and better than expensive commercial products. I used it on my Land Rover (which by the way was SO bad inside I couldn't stand to drive it, even in the cold winter). So go to youtube and search for Mythbusters mouse pee (or *****). It's something like: Water, vinegar, soap and baking soda. I mixed up a batch and put it in a bucket, then used a small fountain submersible pump and fed a hose into the hvac area (with a nozzle I made) and hosed it down. Make sure the drain is unobstructed ..and suck out any wet remaining bits. That was about 5 years ago and to this day you CANNOT smell even a hint of mouse pee! It actually smells kind of nice and fresh actually.

Good luck.

 

[2015HD]

Thanks all, I'll come back after I tackle this.