tonight I took the time to go over my engine compartment.
as I have mentioned in past posts I have a cut cable in my engine compartment. anyway, while I was in the procedure of tracing the cut cable I found a few things out of place.
things like: nuts, bolts, 2 rags,leaves, stones, a tube of RTV, connectors unplugged and a radar detector! that's right,,
I traced the cut cable to a hole cut in the firewall leading to the drivers side foot well. I looked under the carpet and found one of those (un)professionally installed radar detectors that run sensors to the back and front bumpers. after I labeled it useless I ripped the rest of the assembly out along with a bunch of wires and cables I have been trying to find an end to for months!
its a good idea to check things out yourself sometimes.
im glad I removed these fire hazards and frustrations.

Isn't it interesting what you can find in a car's engine compartment sometimes?

When I had my MGB, there was this rattle from the front whenever I would go over a bump. It was really annoying.

My mechanic looked at it, checked the whole suspension and could not find anything rattling or loose.

After he drove it and heard it, he took a magnet on an extended rod, fed it into the fender, and out came a wrench.

LOL

luckily my car's engine compartment doesn't have any left over stuff in it.

Alon

Years ago, I took my old 200D in to the dealer for a valve adjustment. When they called to tell me it was ready, they commented that they had also tightened the fanbelt amd asked if that was OK. I told them sure, it was OK that they tightened the fanbelt. When I picked the car up, I found that there was a $50 charge for tightening the fanbelt. The service advisor explained that this was because they had to precisely tighten it to MB specifications. I drove the car for a couple days and noticed it was making an intermittant clunking noise which had not been there previously. Upon opening the hood, I found a 2 1/2 foot crowbar dangling from the air cleaner nozzle. This was when I decided I had better learn to do my own routine maintenance. I still have the crowbar to this day. The dealer went out of business a year or so later.

Got a nice set of pliers from the dealer once.
They left it on top of the radiator :)

Years ago, I pulled into the driveway after a 15 mile highway trip (including speeds up to 80 mph), and turned the car (1980 BMW 320i) off.
Heard a strange, low-pitched groaning noise from the engine compartment.
Thought, gee, that's odd, the car is not even on!
Opened the hood with some trepidation to find . . . a cat in the engine compartment!
I guess he had crawled up in there and fallen asleep! Luckily, he was resting in a place that was on the intake side, so it was relatively cool, and towards the rear of the engine compartment, away from the fan and belts! He also had the sense to not come down while I was on the highway! He was a little shaken (duh!), and a little warm, but alive and well.
I didn't have any need for a cat, so I sent him to the good people at bonsaikitten.com!
(Ok, the last sentence is not true!! But the rest is!).

Funny thing about this thread...
 

Just this afternoon, I did an oil/filter change on my 300E and was thinking that I should post what I found in the engine cover underneath the engine. There are a lot of squirrels living in the heritage oak trees in our neighborhood. One less squirrel, though. I can't figure out how it got in there.

EEEEEEW! GROSS!!!
 

Hmm, this might be a cause for the "smell" that some people complain about coming through the vents! :)

Kuan