A mouse made a home out of my Craftsman LT-3000, as well. Over the winter, the little bugger chewed the insulation from the spark plug wire. He also packed so much junk under the engine cowling that the the "Bendix" spring couldn't push the starter gear into the flywheel. I had to repair the wire and clean out the engine to get it running again.

While I was under the hood, I cleaned all of the engine fins and cooling passages of plant material mousey had carried in for bedding. The cowling was already off at this point, so his handiwork was clearly visible.

Sounds like your cooling fins were clogged as mine were. Unfortunately, your engine overheated as a result.

Guess I was lucky that the mouse had caused enough damage for me to remove the cowling. Otherwise, I would not have thought of cleaning the cooling fins either.

BTW...that Spring lesson is still paying dividends. When I took the mower out two days ago, a mouse scurried away as I sat on the seat. It started and ran just fine. However, there were grass and leaves in the flywheel fins. How did he get in there? Off came the cowling. Sure enough, more grass and leaves were clogging the cooling fins and passages.

Cleaning up after mousey took from my seat time. Yet a fried engine resulting from impatience would have taken a lot more.

Peace.

Marco

Where do you guys store these that they get mice in them out of interest? For years, our tractors went under a tarp behind the house in the off season, and more recently in the shed that was added to the property. Never had mice get them, and we live around a bunch of farms and always have a fair number of field mice in the house. Worse problem for me was always leaves in the fall. To this day I'm always a little nervous mowing over a fair number of leaves.

I dumped an entire box of moth balls in my shed during the Winter. What a stink! No meece in the Spring though!

Mice also love barbeque propane hoses. Make sure you turn off your tank after use.

My mower is stored in a shed at the bottom of a hill in the backyard. It's heavily wooded there and borders state land. The small steel shed is a bit beat up, so critters can get in even when the doors are closed.

I'd read in this forum to keep the hood open while the tractor is parked. Mice are supposed to prefer enclosed spaces, so an uncovered engine is less inviting. However, that idea didn't work in my case. Mothballs are next.

Peace.

Marco

when we first got our house, i used to get mice in my shop. then i started doing what we do at work for our tower sites, 1-2 boxes of mothballs scattered around, with part of that in old tube socks laying right on anything i specifically don't want them around. no more mice and no more snakes. even the wasps seem to stay out. smell does not bother me, i am used to it from work.

I sometimes get mice on my old Ford 601 on top of the radiator. Best prevention is to leave the hood open. The mice never stay when they are exposed. I guess the cats can reach them there.

But I had a somewhat of a serious mouse problem in the basement of the house recently. And I am happy that I stumbled on a good trap design, and I got rid of all of them (8 of them) in six nights. Now, no mice.

I posted my thread about Homemade mouse traps in the Pest forum. Surprising how well it works, I think better than snap traps. Pics of the final design are near the bottom of the thread.

How would about 6" of water work in the bottom of the five gallon bucket? They couldn`t jump out!!