Squirrel, I think! Grrrr….

[GeoHorn]

I quit shooting squirrels that get into the bird feeders because I hate the bad feelings of killing them picking them up and tossing them out into the woods behind the house. I came to see them as comical acrobats and got over them getting into the feeders. That may change.

I hadn’t driven my truck in a couple days. Yesterday the wife asked me to go into town to grab some groceries she needed for a dish she was taking to a church social or something…and as I left the house I noticed the “check engine, Service 4WD, and the Throttle-body-Icon was illuminated on the instrument panel. I also noticed there was no coolant-temperature-indication.

Since it was driving “OK”…. I decided to continue and address that later.

Today I grabbed the OBD-reader and it gave a “P118” code for hot temp indication. I popped the hood and immediately saw the wire-loom had about 4” completely missing above the water-jacket sending unit. The sending unit had one of those factory plastic plugs stuck on it….but only barely-visible were two stubs of chewed wires.

I was PIZZED that some critter had completely removed about 4 inches of wire-harness and left me with one of those proprietary electrical connectors with no wire coming out of them you can splice onto.

So I peeled-back the wire-loom conduit and discovered two 22ga wires, one white, one blue…. and managed to use my pocket knife to pry the locking-lever open on the plug and remove it from the sending unit.

The little bastard had chewed the wires so closely to the plug it was almost impossible to see any colored insulation to determine which pin used which color wire.

After an hour of finagling I finally managed to pull the hollow pins/sockets out of the plug so I could solder some 22 ga wire onto them…. and then soldered the new wires onto the remaining harness. (Had to pull the air box off the throttle body to get to the harness for the repair.)

A little heat-shrink and some new plastic loom-conduit….and….now to see if I can successfully guess which pin on the sensor goes to which lead without letting any smoke out…

Got lucky. Turning on the ignition I saw the temp gauge come up from the peg to the “C” position.

Fed the new leads thru the now-hollow connector (not just to look good but also to help hold the little sockets onto the sensor-pins)… and closed the conduit-ends off with electrical tape for security.

Cleared the cache with the OBD-reader and fired her up… Drove to the P.O. to mail some Xmas gifts to the kids. Everything works again. (I have no idea why “Svc 4WD” displayed in that scenario..but that warning is gone now also.)

I’ve got the .22 Marlin loaded with hollow-points. I’m going to have a glass of Christmas Spirits…. and those little bastards are going to have a “Silent Night”

 

[Nicksacco]

Hmmm, reminds me of this past Fall. After plugging and seeding my lawn and covering the bare areas oh, so carefully, I came out to see the little rats digging for the seed (or just digging).
I've been having some fun with my pellet rifle!

 

[Runs With Scissors]

Yea those little bastards can cause some real havoc.

Not sure about your area, but around here, our local library has some pretty decent shop manuals for just about every car. It's all on computer of course, but they let us print out whatever parts of the manual you need to take home....and it's free....(well my tax money pays for it, but you know what I mean)

That might help you to identify the wiring a little better.

 

[The Evil Twin]

Those connectors are a pain in the rear when you can't replace both sides!
FWIW, any codes for stuff still an issue may not come back for a couple hundred miles. Non critical problems can set a soft code and not illuminate a light unless they persist for a period of time. Hope that's not the case for you.
Oh, and I highly recommend CCI Meat Eater!

 

[Vince1230]

I read somewhere new wires are soybean based which rodents love. We add peppermint smells under hood of one car we rarely drive.

 

[Chanceywd]

If you can' find them at like napa, rockauto list those repair connectors for a lot of applications.

If your vehicle is a little older like mine you can find a used one at the pick and pulls around here to splice in. I am sure your repair will probably do as I have done the same before.

Just hope you get that little furry fool before he tries again!

Bill

 

[DaveFromMi]

What kind of squirrel? When we lived in suburban Detroit, we had problems with small red squirrels. I think they are called American Red Squirrels. They moved in the garage and wouldn't leave. I used my suburban pest control gun which was a Crossman pellet pistol to dispatch them over a few days.
They would go to their nests about dusk, so I waited for them. My kid filled a 5 gallon bucket 1/2 full with water and then about a 1/2" layer of sunflower seeds. We dispatched a couple using that method.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

hmmm,, wonder if Candy Canes hung under the hood would keep the 'unwanted guests' from coming back ???

 

[cuboodle]

Perspective...........At least it wasn't a porcupine and at least you weren't camped out in the middle of the Allegheny national forest with no cell service and at least it didn't chew all the transmission lines off and at least you didn't have a 5,000 lb camper on your truck. Yes it did happen to me and a buddy. Id say you were lucky.... still sucks though. I like the corn pile and .22 idea

 

[imnukensc]

Never had a squirrel (gray squirrel) chew wires on anything. FWIW, gray squirrels are mighty tasty, IMO.

 

[Yooper]

Glad you got it fixed! Found a mouse nest in the wife’s Tahoe engine intake manifold but fortunately, no chewed wires. I have my five gallon bucket mouse trap in the garage now and shooting those damn varmints on the bird feeder. All a person can do is slow them down. Impossible to eliminate

 

[William1]

I 'sniper nest' from the 2nd floor of the house when they eat the bird seed. Any place else, I leave them, be. Ditto with the deer. The deer are now smart enough to run past my place and not stop to eat anything or else '...sumthing bit me!!!...' right in the ass. .177 Pellet rifle

 

[Donystoy]

We have tons of squirrels and chipmunks in our area, but the majority of damage is caused by mice. I just removed over 50 hickory nuts from the air breather intake of our car that is stored in the garage. It now has a screen over it. Nuts are also in the hood that rumble around when going around corners. Chipmunks get caught in the garage and then chew out the rubber bottom gasket to escape. This then lets the mice in. I have caught 7 in the last week. Trying to figure out what kind of metal molding to put over the gasket area on the inside. Virtually any outside material that can be used for nesting material is gone in no time including insulation in air conditioners and car firewalls. A few years back it cost my insurance company almost $3,000 to strip the interior of my Ford Explorer and repair mouse damage.
In 2019 I had to completely replace most of our underground corrugated eavestrough drainage system with smooth sewer pipe. The chipmunks would go into it and are too stupid to exit the same way and would chew through the side of it trying to escape. Rainwater would then exit the pipe and enter the weeping tile around the house and then into the sump pump. The joys of country living in the woods.

With regard to bird feeder issues with squirrels we have good success with putting a minimum of three feet of 5" air duct just under the feeder on a 4" x 4" post that is six feet tall. Keep the feeder away from trees that squirrels can jump from.

 

[ruger1980]

Funny I was just shooting a red squirrel off the bird feeder from the kitchen window. Reds get tossed across the road, greys go in the freezer.

 

[Trimley]

If you feed the birds and critters, you created and continue to feed the problems.

Stop feeding them.
Stop putting anything (aside from poison) out for them to consume.

Place strategic bowls of Rat Poison around your property, and keep those bowls full.

We had an issue where they (mice and rats) were living in every building and then some. Even in our vehicles.

Nevermore.

 

[GeoHorn]

I have a hard time convincing my wife that birds attract snakes. I‘ve opened doors on the porch and had them drop off the top of the screen onto my shoulder… I’ve had them hide inside Christmas wreathes hanging on the porch…. We’ve almost stepped directly onto a rattlesnake laying on the welcome-mat… And they don’t even rattle anymore, apparently an evolutionary thing to survive wild hogs by remaining silent…

I think these are all gray squirrels. (now with short life expectancies)

 

[retired farmer]

The Marlin is a sure cure. Save the critters up in the freezer until you have enough for a big pot of squirrel & dumplings for the next church social.
rr

 

[PoTreeBoy]

hmmm,, wonder if Candy Canes hung under the hood would keep the 'unwanted guests' from coming back ???

Might attract a fat man in a red suit this time of year.

 

[fried1765]

If you feed the birds and critters, you created and continue to feed the problems.

Stop feeding them.
Stop putting anything (aside from poison) out for them to consume.

Place strategic bowls of Rat Poison around your property, and keep those bowls full.

We had an issue where they (mice and rats) were living in every building and then some. Even in our vehicles.

Nevermore.

I buy 10 lbs. of rat/mouse poison pellets each year.

 

[KKBL]

If the vehicle is parked indoors and will not be driven for more than a few days at a time, try leaving the hood open. Critters like having a dark secure place when they work on the wiring for you. No problem with chewed wires on the tractor or antique car since we started doing that years ago.