I was tearing down my l24 today mainly because i was curious to wat its inner condition was like and came by something rather odd. located in the intake, exhaust and in the cylinder i found some type of creature that made a cocoon. but its not just a cacoon its a cement like substance in which it made its cocoon in... i have no clue how it got in there or what in the world it is... just figured id share my little finding if i can get a pic i will but i cant pull them off, they crumble into a million peices

Perhaps it was a "dirt dauber". It's a type of wasp that collects and builds a nest out of mud.

http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek020401.html

I had some mud daubers build nests in the grooves in a set of swastika rims one time (they were on the car, too!). I took them for a high-speed spin and then stopped by the touchless car wash and sprayed them at high pressure until gone......

I had some build a nest on my steel braided fuel line just behind the diff. I just knocked the nest off with a 6" socket extension and was on my way. They were all dead, I guess the fumes back there are good for something at least...

i've had nests built in the throttle of my snowmobile, on the inside of the side panels for our tractor,

and i found them covering the inside of the fenders on my datsun when i brought it home. they're annoying,

but easy to get rid of since they just brush off.

my question - how did they get in there?

thats them! i was very surprised to find them inside the engine... Nothing like pulling off the head and finding these things everywhere, you should have seen the look on my face haha. As for how they got there, its still a mystery to me!

Very weird! They must have crawled through the exhaust pipe.

Was your engine sealed up except for the tailpipe. Did they squeeze past the damper assy or something? Very curious.

Down here we call them MUD WASPS.

Absolutely NOTHING is safe from them. I'm forever cleaning their nests out of the gaps in bricks, Barb told me today that there's a huge nest in the corner of a down pipe that will meet it's fate tomorrow, I often find the ferrule on one of my fishing rods plugged with mud and I once had to pull an old fashioned door lock apart to clear it of a nest.

It doesn't surprise me at all that nests have been found inside an engine.

Rick.

:cry: