Or chipmunks & pack rats. They leave rocks sometimes.
So today I’m gonna head to town for some saccrete and truck is running like sheet.
Open the hood and see the little basturds have eliminated the wiring to one injector. Under the intake manifold, Ford 150 V8.
So, no saccrete, pull intake and fix wiring instead.
Put some Bars bait in there for the little darlings, but what’s a more permanent solution? They got the manifold depression sensor wires on wifes’ Astro a couple months ago, thought it was the fool pump.
Joe H
Replies
eradicate with extreme predijudce..
suggest plan "B"...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Take that piece of nuclear fuel rod that Homer dropped out of his pocket and put it under the hood.
Pack rats and squirrels at the cabin.
Have an old '78 4x4 there that only gets run a couple times a year, need to leave the hood open otherwise the spark plug wires disappear and everything is coverd with a big nest.
A friend told me that, he keeps his bobcat hatch open and says it keeps them out.
Wonder why?
No problem on the truck other than remembering to do it, but the van is a SOB to get that cover off & on. SWMBO probably wouldn't go for that idea.
So far no plug wires on Ford or Chevy, but I do know they like Jag plug wires.
Joe H
Parents spent a small fortune about a year ago repairing their '90 fleetwood camper; squirrels ate the whole wiring harness in eng. compt. to where the whole thing had to be re-done. They ATE one of the posts off the friggin battery, I think this is why there are so many Ld squirrels.....
The camper place that did the work told em to put a bunch of dryer sheets inside the camper; said they hate the smell and won't go near it. One year later the thing is untouched, much to my surprise. I've been told the dryer sheet thing by a few boat owners and old car buffs since...Don't know how u could hang em in your engine comp., but it sure would smell nice when you change the oil and do tune ups.....
Bing
My next door neighbor told me the story with the dryer sheets. He had Ants climbing into his 5th wheel at some point. He cleaned them all out and stuck dryer sheets into every opening. Since he did the dryer sheet trick he never had a problem ever since.Martin
There have been a couple of references to 'dryer sheets'. Are these the sheets you put into the tumble dryer?
While on the subject of animals in the engine compartment I have heard of birds nesting in an engine bay and raising the family even though the vehicle was used regularly.
"There have been a couple of references to 'dryer sheets'. Are these the sheets you put into the tumble dryer?"Yes Martin
Thanks Martin.
Rabbits can be scared away from their warrens by tossing in a few cones, soaked in creosote. Also, crinkly plastic, as from potato chip packets seems to scare them. I try to keep deer out of the back of the garden by hanging up a string of CD' discs (AOL provide these by the shed load), the idea is that the disc causes flashes of light which scares them off.
soaked in creosote
Do you make your own? Creosote as hard to find these days as Penta. EPA regs or something.........
It is difficult to get the real stuff over here too. They sell gallon cans of a synthetic substitute for homeowners but do five gallon units for contractors etc. Both smell and look the same, never got round to a taste test though.
Ar you based in the Pacific Northwest? I try to get over to Seattle a couple of times a year.
A guy I used to work with told me once a trick for crows. His uncle had lots of them damn crows on their farm and everybody knows how annoying they can be. Every once in a blue moon he shot a few of them and hung the dead crows from the trees that surrounded the place. My guess is the crows don't like to see their dead pals hung of a tree.Martin
Took me a second to realize you were talking about "crows" and not "cows". Damned trifocals.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Where I used to live there was this big palm tree that was serving as a big rats nest. I made up several homemade rat traps. I got several largish clearish plastic storage bins. I hot glued a single rat trap to the inside of the lid of each. Then cut one small hole at the top of the bin. Place the lid on the ground wherever you think rats are congregating. Bait the trap with peanut butter and push the bin down on top of the lid. Now you have a sealed water-proof, cat proof, child-proof outdoor rat trap that you can tell is full from a distance cause of the clearish plastic. Once the trap is sprung you just peel the bin up take the lid over to the trash and release the dead rat rebait and go again. The rats don't seem to learn from the deaths of their brethren. You can get mice and rats and squrilles this way, maybe if you made the hole bigger you could get possums also. You can get anything that will take the bait and fit inside the hole.
Daniel Neumansky
Restoring our second Victorian home this time in Alamdea CA. Check out the blog http://www.chezneumansky.blogspot.com/
Oakland CA
Crazy Homeowner-Victorian Restorer
Mom used to work in a hotel in Cologne in Germany in the late 1950's. At the time there were still a lot of bombed out buildings there. The rats had no were to go to find food other than the hotels and restaurants.She said the rats were climbing thru the drain pipes into the hotel kitchen. They were able to catch one rat alive. One of the Hotel doorman got a piece of steel and heated it up red hot in one of the coal stoves. Then they burned/tortured the rat with the hot red glowing piece of steel.
Mom told me the rat was screaming like a little baby.After that day all the rats were gone in that area. I guess all the other rats got the message.Martin
Wow that's really pretty disturbing actually...guess I was being to humane about it. I could make some kind of comment about WW2 era Germans and cruelity but nah....
Daniel Neumansky
Restoring our second Victorian home this time in Alamdea CA. Check out the blog http://www.chezneumansky.blogspot.com/
Oakland CA
Crazy Homeowner-Victorian Restorer
Well, I guess that was one of the necessary things they did to survive. When you grow up in a bombed out country than you try to protect whatever you have.
Btw: Even these days when they start excavation on a large development they find some huge (couple thousand pond explosive) bombs in my hometown.Martin
My peanut butter trap got 5 or 6 pack rats last year, but they aren't interested this year. Maybe it's chipmunks this time & not the rats.
No possums around here, lot of jack rabbits, coyotes, fox, squirrels, deer & chipmunks.
Joe H
I had a similar problem once. Started the car and let it idle for 45 or so minutes in the garage. Found a few culprits later, by smell. Yuck.
They ate the wiring off my computer in the van, and then the computer went bad, supposedly from urine that got inside. Also chewed out the glovebox insides.
Yeah, an old radio guy told me that there's nothing that fouls up electronics like mouse pee.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
This winter... unusual cold spell... Toyota 4runner... turn key, cranks good, no start. I know squat about motors so immediately it gets AAA'd to the mechanic. He calls and sez "Yer wiring been ate by rats!" and $300 later it runs again. Now, I have two socks hanging under the hood of each vehicle (out of the way of any moving parts). Each sock contains a whole bunch of stanky mothballs. Mechanic's suggestion. So far no repeat but it isn't cold yet, and apparently they go up in there to get toasty.
BTW on mice.....
Had rebuilt a Mopar 383 and had not attached the muffler yet, was in garage for about 6 months when figured I start it up again.
Solid frozen engine.
On disassembly, a mouse (or whole family) had been able to crawl in past the open exhaust valve on #7 piston and built a nest in the cylinder. Cyl wall corrosion so bad just scrapped the engine.
Some German acquaintences had high $ Merc (do not mean Mercury) wiring eaten by them. A Buddy who restores some cars and junks a lot had a Porsche 944 on the lot that rats had decimated the wiring, the solution was the bunch of snakes that came in and scarfed up the rodents. Kind of made the end of life decision for the once proud machine.