38 reasons to seal up stored engines

[Phil Waterman]

Started getting ready to run the engine I pulled from my Pattern 13 C60S on the test stand. This is the original engine from the truck that I took out to install a 261 engine. Boy did I get a surprise. When I pulled this 216 engine out I put all the parts back on it to keep all the original parts together. Did the normal bit of pouring oil into each of the cylinders, taped up all the opening, accept one. You guessed it the chipmunks found the one I had forgotten to seal, the exhaust header. The engine had been sitting on one of my engine test stands since it was removed so the exhaust flange was about a foot off the floor but the little stinker climbed up manifold past the manifold heat riser flap and out the exhaust manifold to insert acorns into each of the exhaust valve ports.

During the engine swap I had removed the two piece exhaust manifold to use on the new engine going into the truck. At that time I bolted in its place loosely a standard 216 exhaust manifold with out a gasket. Well to day when I started getting ready to run the engine I unbolted the manifold to insert the gasket and what did I see? Acorns lots of acorns, thirty eight of them in fact stuffed into each exhaust port. Along with the acorns were about two table spoons of Decon mouse and rat poison pellets. The poison may explain why the critter never came back for the acorns.

Moral of the story tape up, stuff, cover, or plug any opening into an engine which you intend to reuse or start later.

[Bob Carriere]

....all things considered ....I prefer the nuts I got from Australia to yours Phil.......

Boob

[Ganmain Tony]

D'you reckon it was Chip & Dale? or Mac n' Tosh?

Frustrating for you Phil, I know, but very funny.....

[Tony Smith]

Good thing you found them before you cranked up the engine. The engine would have run OK, but there would have been nuts ricocheting all over the workshop!
Rat-a-tat-nuts!

[Keith Orpin]

Phil,
Maybe this where the saying "Revving the Nuts out of it " came from !
Best Regards
Keith

[Phil Waterman]

As I said before Chipmunks are rodents with racing strips. They may not be dangerous like some of your Australian critters but they are sure annoying.

They really seam to like exhaust pipes, I've had them fill mufflers with acorns, particularly bad if the muffler baffles are such that they can fill the can with acorns, had a muffler fire that way on my HUP. Now I try to remember particularly in the fall to put a soda can over the end of the pipe when I park the truck.

The trucks make such a strange sound when you start with a chipmunk in the pipe.


Cheers Phil

[Phill]

Phil, I had a pet chipmunk when I was a kid. Good to hear a story like that. Phil

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Phill

My problem is that we have a lot of them and they all think they are pets. Two of them got on the screened porch and terrorized our 20 lbs cat. He enjoyed watching them run around but when they started coming towards him he didn't want any part of it and when running for cover.

It is great to be working under one of the trucks and have one run across you on his way out of the shop.

Cheers Phil

[Keith Webb]

Have a look at this:

Launch them into space...

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Keith

Here is an squirrel amusement ride that we put in a couple years ago. Squirrels enjoyed it through out the winter until the spring when a bear came along and carried it off.

http://www.canadianmilitarypattern.c...rrel%20Fun.htm

Cheers Phil

[Jim Veliss]

Hi Phil ,
This story reminds me of a car which sat in our garage half built for a couple of years , we went to sell it and found
the plenum chamber under the windscreen was almost full of wheat , couldnt figure out how it got there ,
then realized rats or mice must have brought it from the chook shed 50 feet across the yard ,
Then later noticed the fruit on our peach tree was being eaten so we covered it with a net thinking it was birds or bats but the fruit still went missing ,
to the point where a peach seed was left on the stem perfectly clean ?? .
One day I moved a pile of roof sheets laying behind the chook shed and found lots of snail shells , peach seeds and egg shells , how did they steal the eggs ?
Regards Jim.

[RickWG]

Easiest way to keep the rodents out is scatter mothballs all over the place. I do that, my neighbor doesn't. I have a garage bereft of mouse turds etc & also put some mothballs around the outside of the house to stop them moving into the home

Neighbors place is over run with em...mice, chipmunks, ground squirrels, gophers etc etc.. Looks like Wild Kingdom on his side of the fence..

[Bob Carriere]

...some pussy......cats that is....... they do clean up...... and bury their own droppings....... I usually have a dozen or so...... some house pets some free ranging...... and it allows me to have my very own legitimate "Cat House"

Boob