I had a disappointing moment this week when I found a mouse nest in the log splitter. The problem with a mouse nest in a motor isn’t the nest, it’s the overheating it causes by blocking airflow and the dreaded chewed wires.
Cleaning the mouse nest out took about 15 minutes. First, I removed the recoil starter so I could blow out any debris around the shroud. Once I realized how bad things were I removed the shroud and removed a mouse nest about the size of a baseball.
Once the nest was gone and debris cleaned out it was time to inspect for damage. Unfortunately, I found some.
First, the mice chewed the plastic cooling fan while teething. Luckily removing the cooling fan wasn’t a big deal. I put a 19mm socket on the nut and sharply hit the wrench handle a few times to loosen the nut. The new cooling fan was under 30 dollars and should be in next week.
Second, the mice chewed the accordion-like rubber around the spark plug wire. For that fix, I ordered some liquid electrical tape which I hope will seal out water. I didn’t see any metal showing on the spark plug wire so I think I’ll be ok.
Overall, the repairs aren’t a big deal and the machine will be up and running in no time. Now I have to figure out how to keep the mice out of the log splitter in the first place.
Below is a brief video I made about the incident.