Mice in blower motor
 

2002 F150
Anyone know how to block these Mice from getting in blower motor? This is 2nd time I've had to pull this blower out to remove dead mouse.And if you've ever done it you know it SUCKS.
I put some hard foam in last time but it must be in wrong place.

HELP PLEASE

The outside air intake is the cowl along the bottom of the windshield which has a screen on it. That would leave you with the mice entering the air duct from within the cab. There must be a place in the cab where they are getting in. They don't need a lot of space. If a firewall grommet was popped out, that would be enough of an opening for them to get in. Try setting a mouse trap on the passenger floor for a couple of nights and see if you catch him.

maybe poison on the ground around tires, or a piece or two laying on the cab floor would help... something like moth balls keep mice away ???

There may be another place they can get in, such that they can get within the blower wheel. I have not looked on my 1997. But on the previous generation trucks...

Rain that makes it through the holes in the air intake cowling between the hood and the windshield has to go somewhere to drain out. In the 1996 & earlier design, it goes left and right under the intake grill in a tray, and then drops through the fender area on each end, and out from behind the wheel well liner. To prevent engine compartment fumes, road dust, etc. from being sucked up from down there and into the cabin, there are rubber flexible one-way valves that open with the weight of water to drain down and out. No weight, they close. They are pressed into a hole in the metal on each side. If a mouse or rat chews through the flexible rubber valve, they then can climb up into the cowl area, which gives access to the blower wheel's suction side (the middle of the blower wheel).
Like I said, I haven't looked how its done for the 1997 design, but I expect the concepts should be the same, the execution may have some differences.

Some enterprising person with a 1997-2003 could look into this, and give us a detailed report on how it's done, so we all could learn :)

Install a cat.

Here is where the mice are entering my 2003 F-150
 

I have a 2003 F-150 and after pulling the blower motor for the 4th time in less than a year I decided to track down where the mice were entering. Another post says there is a screen where the fresh air intake is under the wiper cowl, so I thought maybe mine had rotted out. After pulling the cowl i found that there is no screen on my 2003 F-150 just a plastic cage. Well the cage has been chewed through and that is where they are entering.

To access this area pull the passenger side half of the wiper cowl. There isn't much room to work where the cage is, in fact the I had to use a mirror to see it and also to take the pictures. The only thing I could think to do at this time ( since the cage is not replaceable) is to stuff steel wool into the hole that they had made. I also put a glue trap into the cowl channel so I can hopefully catch them. I left some of the mounting hardware off of the cowl for now to make it easier to check or replace the trap. Hope this helps.
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