Re:The Rat Trap

That's nasty. I'd be stripping the interior to the shell and attending upon that with the biggest diesel steam cleaner in the hire shop!

Lambert wrote: That's nasty. I'd be stripping the interior to the shell and attending upon that with the biggest diesel steam cleaner in the hire shop!

Ha ha! I left the dash in but stripped the rest and hosed it with hot water for about 30 mins. It was unreal

On a serious note, get a trigger spray mix of Jeyes fluid made up, spray the beejeesus out of it. You can get some nasty stuff around rats.....

sniper

My old SJ could take the power washer treatment. I removed the stereo, but the rest of the car was ok with it. Large fan to dry it up after

Wonder why wires are so tasty for the little critters. Or are the wires used for nest building, like scaffolding or for strengthening?

You should get a wiring loom from a donor as well it seems

Cool to see it coming to life, keep the pictures coming and welcome to the forum.
Google said:-
"Mice and rats can cause considerable damage that includes damage to electrical wires. Their teeth constantly grow, and they have an instinct to gnaw on things to wear down their teeth. They sometimes chew on things like wood or ducts, but they also chew on electric cords of all kinds."

So it's likely if you have something electrical not working it's going to be a broken wire courtesy of a rodent with a nice smile :laugh:

I'm certain mice and rats are incontinent and their urine carries something called Weil's disease - its nasty. They no doubt carry a ship-load of other evil bugs

Sniper is quite right - blitz everything with disinfectant

Good shout on the spray guys. I've been wearing latex gloves whilst working on the inside due to worries about nastiness. There were maggots of some sort in the old carpet the thing is just nasty. Or was. Before I put the interior back in I'll soak it in some sort of disinfectant for sure

yakuza wrote: My old SJ could take the power washer treatment. I removed the stereo, but the rest of the car was ok with it. Large fan to dry it up after

Wonder why wires are so tasty for the little critters. Or are the wires used for nest building, like scaffolding or for strengthening?

You should get a wiring loom from a donor as well it seems

Replacement loom has crossed my mind but I'm not sure re the hassle of removing the dash Vs soldering everything. Plus I've already repaired 3 sections so don't want to give in! And budget is the theme. It may come to it though ...

Keirravn wrote:

yakuza wrote:
You should get a wiring loom from a donor as well it seems

Replacement loom has crossed my mind but I'm not sure re the hassle of removing the dash Vs soldering everything. Plus I've already repaired 3 sections so don't want to give in! And budget is the theme. It may come to it though ...

I think you should be able to change the loom with the dash itself in there but remove the instrument cluster, heater control / center panel, stereo and glove box. it is some work of course but so is trying to find our where the bugger chewed the wire.
I know the feeling when you fix stuff like this and the point of doing it at all is to save money.
Time spent is also a cost, you could spend it on something else
Not always easy to calculate how much time you will spend fixing something, and if at all save time if you buy a new part.

yakuza wrote:

Keirravn wrote:

yakuza wrote:
You should get a wiring loom from a donor as well it seems

Replacement loom has crossed my mind but I'm not sure re the hassle of removing the dash Vs soldering everything. Plus I've already repaired 3 sections so don't want to give in! And budget is the theme. It may come to it though ...

I think you should be able to change the loom with the dash itself in there but remove the instrument cluster, heater control / center panel, stereo and glove box. it is some work of course but so is trying to find our where the bugger chewed the wire.
I know the feeling when you fix stuff like this and the point of doing it at all is to save money.
Time spent is also a cost, you could spend it on something else
Not always easy to calculate how much time you will spend fixing something, and if at all save time if you buy a new part.

Ah you reckon? It'd be a lot easier to remove and sort in the house, that's what I did with the tail section. I already removed the instrument cluster heater controls etc but the loom looked as though it wrapped around the metal bar etc. I'm off today to spend some time on it so I'll check again before commencing soldering. The fusebox area is the one that'll be the bugger as I'll be upside down for a while.

Time I don't mind really, it's a hobby for me

So a mixed bag today. After soldering behind the instrument cluster and above the fusebox I have my indicators and rev counter back along with a few other things.

No tail lights though and only the third brake light is working. I have power where it should be going as far as the last connector from the interior to the rear bumper so I've removed the bumper pulled the mini loom off of it and taken it in to investigate tomorrow. There's been some bodgery on it in the past and I can see a broken wire which I think is likely to blame.

The bigger concern is I now have the engine management light on. That in itself is no big surprise really but unfortunately my Bluetooth obd 2 thingy isn't connecting to the car. So that's a bugger

Hopefully the eng mgt light is just a sensor. I cx'd the one on the exhaust manifold a week or so ago and it seems fixed.

Look at my second post on THIS thread