Weather up and around here in Podunk land has been holding out, so I've been driving the Olds while I can. I've had my daily driver 2006 F-250 parked in front of the shop for a few days. Ok, so far. Last I drove the daily was over a week or so ago. I went to drive it one day, and drove like crap. Engine check light came on. Stopped in the big city and had the code read. #7 mis-fire, #7 running lean. Ok, so I say to myself, I've got a bad fuel injector. I go to the Ford dealer, and get a set of 8 new fuel injectors. If one's bad, then the others are probably too. (90,000 miles) Today, I start to pull the injectors out. Left bank...Hmmmm....those wires are bare, and it looks like one the copper wires are showing.....HMMMMM... Well I'll be damn. MICE have gotten to the engine and have eaten the insulation away. They completely ate thru one of the wires on #7 injector. That would sure as hell cause a miss fire. I look at #6 and #8, the insulation is chewed thru on both of them. #4, same. If I haden't seen it, I wouldn't have believed it. The truck was parked outside. Only thing I can think of, field mice got up on top of the engine while it was still somewhat warm, to keep warm, then went looking for a free lunch while they were there. So...I bought out Wally World's supply of traps, and placed them all over in the shop, so they won't get in there and eat up the HellRaiser. I might even get out my trusty .22 with little bird shot, no make that little mouse shot and go on a safari out there in the shop the next few days. Them little buggers are everywhere. So guys, now that the weather has turned off colder, It's time for you to heed my little battle with them thar varmits, and don't let them get into your rides this winter, since you won't be driving enough to keep them at bay. HellRaiser P.S. It better be, the "First Mouse Gets The Cheese"
Around here the pack rats will eat up a bunch of $$$$ late model wiring real quick if you leave your car sitting very long. Leaving the hood open helps.
Carlas Buick was owned by an old retired farmer............same thing, mice got to the wiring because it was not driven to much!
I was out in my shop the other day and saw something out of the corner of my eye, thought it was a cat. Got a better look and it was a big ass rat! Went running across the floor and up behind a work bench.
I'll store the 32 at my place for the winter There was a post on here about mice recently and a cool home built rodent catcher was listed. A 5 gallon plastic bucket was used with a off center hinged lid - like a carb choke. A ramp goes to the lid, bait is put on the far side, it trips the lid and they go for a swim in whatever the bucket may contain (good use for drain oil)
Had a rat chew my truck's wiper hose, front and rear axle seals, and devoured my black polishing compound. When I finally killed the little bastard he had black ears, tail, and nose...
Years ago, customer complains of a bad smell inside her Olds. We saw evidence (poop) under the hood. Also saw a hole in the fresh air duct. We took turns with the cable grabber tool thing, pulling little dead rats out of the duct work. I'll never forget that job.
the insulation on late model wiring is made primarily from soy. the mice love it. I spend lots of time at work fixing mice chewed wiring
A minor twist... Saw one last year with 'rodent damage' to the wiring. The little buggers had also raided the dog food bag stored in the garage... the engine valley was packed!
I tried the above. I made mine from a headliner bow out of a Chevelle. I've got rats. They simply skirted the rod and licked off the peanut butter, the fu*kers. They love the cars, especially intake manifolds on a cold night. I love finding bits of bread, chicken bones, bread wrappers, dog sh*t, rat sh*t and anything else you can think of that they have scavenged, 'stored', or excreted on my engines. I've had the best luck with full sized rat-traps and beef jerky that I press into the trap mechanism so they really have to tug on it. I buy two, and screw them into a piece of plywood, placed opposing each other- with the catches armed on both ends. Snaps their necks every time. If they get food from one trap, they lose their luck on the second one. Sometimes I get lucky and they lose an eyeball too. Sometimes I catch a squirrel and feel bad. The dog caught one for me once. I've thrown in the trash at least a dozen of these "Norway" variety, yet they keep coming back. Big fuc*ers. Small kittens. There are electronic devices out there: http://ratzapperonline.com/ that are pretty good, I've not had the chance to try one myself, but it's coming.
Fron yesteryear, in my younger days, when I was working for the PD in Omaha in the winter months and would work out of the South Omaha station, (somewhat near the old numerous packing plants there) we would park our cars in the parking lot, do our shift, , then get into our cars around midnight. Now if just getting into our cars didn't scare off the rats from up under the wheel wells, or on top of the engines, then somtimes when we would go to start the engines, a person would hear the ole whump, whump, whump. One got caught in the fan belt and got tangled up in the fan. WEELLLL...The suckers would go scurring out across the parking lot. Now let me tell you, if you haven't ever seen a well fed sewer rat, that's gotten big and fat from scrounging around those packing plants, let me tell you, you better keep your pit bull inside at night. Them varmits grow to the size of of a cat, and I don't mean no little cat either. So anyway, those big ole rats would go a waddling across the parking lot. We would chase after them across the parking lot with our night sticks, clubbing them as we could. You talk about something out of the Keystone Cops movies!!!! Now those Sum Bitches every now and then would turn on ya. Let me tell ya'll, when they say when you corner a rat, he'll bare it's teeth and turn on you... They just ain't a joshin you any. That'll make the hair on the back of you head stand right up tall like. I'll bet my hair looked like I had just put my finger into a light socket. (That's when I did have some hair) I still think they might have fillmed that old scary movie "Willard", (that was the movie about the boy with his pet rats), right down the street from where I was working at the time. So be it rats, mice, or them damn snakes I have out there in the shop in the summer time...You can just keep them all to your self. Thank you very much.... Now the day in the summer when I go out to get into one of my rides, and I see some damn snake a laying there on the seat, you can rest assured, the siren you hear will be a neighbor has called the fire department to report a car fire. Maybe they are just telling me, to get out of the garage, and get out and drive more. Ya spose???? HellRaiser
I had some rats in the upper part of my garage. I put out some poison and went up there one day to see a live rat just sitting there looking at me. He must have been almost dead as he didn't run away. I didn't have anything to hit him with, so I picked up a 4x4 and smashed it straight down on him. It took two hits to stop the squirming. I turfed him outside. Next day I killed another rat. This was a normal size rat. When I turfed it out, I noticed the first one was quite large compared to the second. I measured it and it was 15" head to tail. 8" of which was his tail. He was big..........
My Mom went out to start her car one day and as soon as it started the interior was filled with bird seed blowing out of the heater vents. It was a lot of seed, spayed the stuff every were. A few days later the car started to stink. Turned out a mouse had got inside the garage, found a bag of bird seed and must have spent all night moving it to it's new home inside the heated fan of the car. Then when the fan turned on that was the end of the mouse.
Not to HAMB friendly, billet mouse and rat traps for the man & shop that has everything.......................
I live in the country and mice were a problem. I rescued a cat named wrangler from the county pound a day before he was set to be put down. He stayed (didnt run away) and has become the shop cat. No more mice. You can see him in my album. Great cat.
natures rat control: get a possum got 2 in my garage and no mice or rats. they will kill em. i had traps just like denise's and trick was put just a small dab on bottom side of can. hell after seeing how much she had on her trap i had to go make me a peanut butter sandwich!
Quick story. I race motocross and went to a friends house to sleep over then race in the morning we put my bike in the barn. Next morning i go racing and get to the line and i foul a plug WTF i take off my seat and the damn field mice built a nest in my airbox!!!! I was pissed i paid almost $150 to race that day and it was pissed away! and the nest was built in one day!
Hmmmm. Ford with a mouse motor? Sorry, couldn't resist... We keep trays of rat poison out in the garage and under the hoods of the cars. Between the mice and the friggen squirrels, they drive us nuts...(no pun intended)...
just put out more traps... <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YW2z8mewwGQ&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YW2z8mewwGQ&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
ive got an old field air cannon i made into a nifty rodent trap, kills anything up to a raccoon, sucker takes the bait and takes a full coke can at mach 1 to the head when it pulls on the baited trigger wire, hehhehe, makes a mess on the cement wall to .
yep. I have a mean ass cat that chases dogs 4 times her size. We see rats, mice and rabbits all the time. She leaves the dead (or parts there of) on the back porch every night.
Squirrel got in the attic, this is how i patch the hole. . squirrel is using a stick or something to snap the trap and steal the bait. wife thinks it cute that i have a nemesis. me, not so much.
I've never seen a rat here in FL like those barn rats in the midwest, but there are mice everywhere. I use that Decon stuff from the Dollar Store that is yellow with black letters and it is wedge shaped. I haven't seen a mouse since I used that stuff. Not as much of a challenge between you and the mouse as a trap though. Nothin' pisses ya off more than settin' a mouse trap and come back and it's gone off, the bait is gone and no mouse!
The Jalopy Journal
