Mouse proofing the 68 A-Body ??
 

So mice have been getting in. They will try to reside in my passenger headliner, passenger seat, rear seat and trunk LID.
No nest found?! No diggings found.

I’ve kept them at bay from making damage by putting the poison pellets in the trunk. They seem to die off in the garage and not the car. Pretty much a solution for now. Strangely, the car seems to not have any pee or damages.

So, who know all the access holes into the interior?? However, I’m afraid the lower cowls at the lower fenders would be an area I cannot remedy so easily.

The 95 towncars and Chrysler 200 are completely impervious to mice getting in. Even for leaving slim Jim’s or beef jerky in the glovebox. A-bodies didn’t get such design detail huh.

Would be great to know how to stop them. Besides having the car in a tight building.

I feel your pain had the same thing happen. Got in my back seat, really not happy about it and I have the electronic zapper traps all around my car.

The mice are so bad here they fall in the pool and drown. There are also two owls parked outside my dump on any evening.

Anyway, I've had luck with this formula:

- open box of tide detergent in trunk
- irish spring smelly bar of soap on car floor
- bounce fabric softener sheets all over interior
- the "better mouse trap" brand knocks them off all-the-time - i buy them from the farmer store:

https://www.amazon.ca/Intruder-16000...Q%3D%3D&sr=8-7

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/..._QL70_ML2_.jpg

I used to have an outdoor cat for extra insurance, but I accidently ran her over - that was an awkward converstation with the daughter... :(

I did a frame off rebuild but had no thought to mouseproof it. Need frameoff folks to chime in on all the holes.

Plastic bubble it is it restored that’s why my buddies do.

https://carcapsule.com/16-carcapsule-indoor/

I have those too they do work but won’t kill small mice that can’t trip them. The most effective way from what I’m told is the bucket w the roller and anti freeze and water in the bottom

Had a 200 in the shop a few months ago with a hard start problem. The mice ate the insulation off the crank sensor harness.

The green bricks work the best for me.

Grandpa Gus
 

I would first try to find where they are coming in from. Maybe a new bottom seal for the garage door, and look up Grandpa Gus.with the pouches and spray. I put them in a little metal or plastic pan with the pouches in the interior and the trunk.

I’ve spent more time researching this topic than I have doing any work on the car for the past month or two. I tend to get sidetracked lol.

As suggested above closing up any obvious entry/exit points is the best start. I had to redo the side and top seals on my garage doors to tighten up that space. While doing so I found that there was a path behind one of the seals where the garage sill met the concrete. I used some mortar where the concrete was low and some animal repellant spray foam from the store.

I’m hesitant with poison because our cat sometimes sneaks into the garage. I’ve also had bad luck with whatever dies seems to want to crawl into tight unknown and inaccessible places.

When we kept our cars in our bigger storage building in town we had no power there and the strong scent thing worked great. We had 3 cars parked in a totally vacant 15k sq/ft building and no issues. That’s where we first started using urinal mats for scent. Those things pack some serious power and (at least the variety we bought) the scent would air out completely in a day or two. I still use those in our home garage cars now, but basically use one mat cut in a few small pieces spread around inside the car.

I had a post going somewhere else on the forum about some more in-depth deterrent strategies programming some microcontrollers to flash small strobes and run small vibrating dc motors to assist in scaring away anything that would get past the scent. This can be simplified by simply using a “short period cycle timer” (Amazon search term) and a strip of RCBIC led strip lights.

Without making a long/boring reply even longer and more boring… there is published research data showing that mice have an adverse reaction to some colors of light (more so than others). Green is one of the colors they can tolerate the most and blue is one of the colors they can tolerate the least. Blue actually triggers a hormone in the mice that essentially creates “pain” for the mouse. Other studies I dug up listed strobing/flashing and light movement as additional deterrents.

I mentioned the RGBIC leds because most of the ones you find on Amazon have modes you can cycle through. On mine I just found a mode that flashes blue while it streams a random color through the whole chain (blue + movement). My short cycle timer just runs at night (20s every 5min or so) because we’re often in the garage during the day.

Peppermint oil has worked best for me.. a few drops in the interior, a few drops in the trunk and even a few under the hood. Get the strongest you can find. It's not all created equal. Some brands are actually sold as rodent repellent.
As for actually sealing every passage to the interior, I haven't a clue.

When I started restoring my 69 it had a ton of mouse nests and I was able to trace all the entry points. If all your body plugs are in place including the ones in the trunk extensions then there are only two points of entry left. 1 is through the cowl in the engine compartment and the other is through the rocker panels. There are multiple openings in the rocker they can squeeze into, then from there they can get right into the lower cowl as its open to the rocker. Its pretty easy for them to squeeze past the the trim and go anywhere they want from there. Im going to stuff my rocker openings with steel wool over the winter and figure out a way to block off the upper cowl.

Okay, I could crawl around the underside perimeter, and plug along the way.

However, the Lower firewall sides behind the fenders has me beat. kickpanel efforts? Heater Box/cowl?

Sticky traps in every corner! And at the sides of ALL doors!!!
Pepermint oil on cotton balls righrt next to the traps or on the traps.
I catch bugs, spyders, nutes you name it!!!
Even baby rabbitts, in the house garage! that was no fun working to free him from the glue!(came in when the door was open!)

Only effective overall strategy I have found is to delete the location population. Trap, trap trap until they are all gone, there IS a finite number of them.

Although this model only works if you have reasonable control over the surroundings, no barns close by, no close neighbors that are less than vigilant about mice.

There is NEVER a moment in my shop when there is not at least one baited trap set. Same for the outside tool shed, same for the wood shed.

This year was typical, about a month ago I started reducing the population in the wood shed so they would not build nests in all the wood and make it too much of adventure to bring in armfuls of wood. Set ONE trap ... got one mouse a day for 17 days ... then nothing for the last couple of weeks ... the local population that was hoping to move into the shed for the winter is now dead. The tool shed was about five mice until it stopped.

Nearest neighbor is 100 yards away through the woods, so once I decimate the local population and they drop below a viable number ... they just kind of disappear for a few months.

Haven't caught one in the shop in at least two years ... which is starting to make we worry the shop environment is so toxic that they won't go in there ... but I am, makes you think :)

Yeah Its a tight fit between the frame and that last hole. Probably could cut a piece of sheet metal big enough to cover it and wedge a wood shim in there to hold it over the hole for the winter. I cut some brass screen for my upper cowl that im going to place under the stock covering just for the winter. I don't have any mouse problems currently as my garage is tight as a drum but I don't want to take any chances with my new interior that im getting ready to put in. When I bought the var my rockers were chock full of mouse nest and acorns. There urine had made 4 or 5 rust holes I had to patch.

If you're serious about mouseproofing, it's important to know just how small of a gap they can squeeze through. I saw one dart across a room and slip under a door that had maybe a 3/8" gap between it and the floor. And it didn't even slow down while doing that.

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1669443974

Well, sealing the Alabama garage is hopeless ( our 1920 PA 3-car garage was well sealed ).
The AL land has sheep, hens, bees, barn, so the sheep poop has attracted rats, mice.

No roaches !! plenty of geckos, chameleons, and a garage frog.

If I were to pull the fenders to work the Lower cowl-side sealing (screen or metal to close it) I’d consider the “ $300 “ wrapping as a repaint to make it worthwhile. That would motivate.

No one gets out alive

Sounds like the perfect environment for a Jack Russell or Rat Terrier....or a cat if you like them.