1engineer
Moderator
We got my son a slightly used Subaru Crosstrek (5 speed manual lol) last year. Nice little vehicle that is perfect for the youngsters to go lightly off road. Anyway he was heading back to college Sunday afternoon and loaded his vehicle up. We had some snow and ice so he decided that he would start it up and let it warm. Uh, oh. I had just came back into the garage when he started it and MAN! All of a sudden there was a whine and smoke and crap started billowing up from under the hood! I grabbed the fire extinguisher and ran back out (fearing the worst - always keep a fire extinguisher in the garage) and he had shut it down and was popping the hood. I ran up, opened the hood and.....ugh. There was a squirrel leg laying up on top of the radiator cover. There were entrails draped over the fan. There was fur everywhere and blood dripping from the front of the engine. The belt was shredded broke and a piece of it was lodged behind the idler pulley.
Apparently the squirrel had decided to climb up there to get out of the wind and snow and had been sitting on the lower part of the belt when my son fired it up...literally. Talk about a stench! Burnt rubber from the belt, burnt squirrel intestines... jeez. Glad it was cold! He had to go back to school so that night after everything was frozen I went out there with a screwdriver and scraped and pried up all the frozen bits of squirrel I could find. I then took a bucket of hot water and a rag taped to a stick (to get in the cracks) and cleaned up all the blood and squirrel fluids I could. I then crawled underneath and removed the plastic cladding and used the water to clean it up. Went and got the belt yesterday and only took about 15 minutes to put a new one on. What a mess...
Apparently the squirrel had decided to climb up there to get out of the wind and snow and had been sitting on the lower part of the belt when my son fired it up...literally. Talk about a stench! Burnt rubber from the belt, burnt squirrel intestines... jeez. Glad it was cold! He had to go back to school so that night after everything was frozen I went out there with a screwdriver and scraped and pried up all the frozen bits of squirrel I could find. I then took a bucket of hot water and a rag taped to a stick (to get in the cracks) and cleaned up all the blood and squirrel fluids I could. I then crawled underneath and removed the plastic cladding and used the water to clean it up. Went and got the belt yesterday and only took about 15 minutes to put a new one on. What a mess...
