In all of my years as a mechanic I've seen mice wander into unusual places in search of a nesting spot, but this one takes the cake. On an early Cessna 310 the nose gear is rather long. As a result the orifice tube, which controls the flow of hydraulic fluid as the strut compresses, is deeply recessed. Replacing the upper o-ring, which keeps the N2 from escaping, is quite involved because the retaining pin is inside of the steering mechanism and thus the entire strut needs to be removed and disassembled. Imagine my surprise when I inverted the removed strut and a bunch of what looked like nuts shells poured out. But the bigger surprise was the dead, desiccated mouse that fell out when the retaining pin was removed.


The strut assembly removed from the airframe


The retaining pin for the orifice tube (red arrow)


Here is the reinstalled tube showing the opening the mouse crawled into and could not escape from (red arrow). Not much clearance between the steering cam and the top of the tube.


A plastic cap plug now blocks this opening.

Found a frog centrifuged inside of SR22 spinner once.

Supposedly mice can flatten themselves to the width of a quarter.....

They work in teams to buy Coke or Pepsi

wow they find the strangest places to go.

Weeeee..... uuuuuhhh..........xxxxxxx

Anybody remember that old Joe-Cartoon from the birth of the Internet "Frog in a Blender"?

[youtube]https://youtu.be/ebQy8QDWjkE[/youtube]

The Frog Blender was an interactive flash file. All of the buttons on the blender worked!

The McKenzie brothers once had a ruse for getting a mouse into a beer bottle. I thought their goal was admirable even if their methods were less than honest.

When I read the topic heading I was expecting a story about getting a Musketeer into a very short field.

Found this guy in one of my breaker boxes. Full grown swamp rat and he got through one of those quarter sized punch outs in the bottom of the box.

Must not have liked the accommodations..............




Ron

Terrified of those things....not because they are terrifying as animals...but their teeth and nesting habits really bother me. I have a farm. I have bush hogged one weekend for hours and hours, come back the next weekend, start the tractor up, drive to to the field, engage the PTO and add power and it falls flat on its face. Stupid mouse within one week build nest in air filter. Has happened several times. Tractor is fine....airplane is not fine! I work very hard at preaching to the wife and kid NOT A SINGLE CRUMB is to be left in hangar or airplane or you will attract those danged things!