Mice in my rat.

zorrro · September 30, 2005

My 2001 HD (8.0L Ali) has been sitting most of the summer due to gas prices and the convenience of a company vehicle. Twice I have had the mice settle into my engine compartment and tear apart the sound liner on the firewall (now it's all over my yard). The sound liner is filled with your basic yellow fiberglass insulating material. Now it looks like crap in there. Is there any non-flammable black goo I can paste over what's left of my insulation? It looks like a major job to remove all the stuff mounted to the fire wall just to replace the material, not to mention the $$ GM would want for the stuff! I've pretty much lost all sympathy for the little rodents and plan to shorten the lifespan of any I encounter. Any help with the black goo would be appreciated...........Zorrro

mmmikkke · October 1, 2005

A standard backwoods remedy for mice chewing into soft wood is to stuff steel wool into the hole they've chewed. They don't like chewing on steel wool.

So maybe a little steel wool in whatever you put back in there would keep the little critters from doing it all over again...

Haulin' 8.1 · October 1, 2005

Check your wiring very carefully. Mice can cause you major problems by chewing insulation off wiring. I had a customer bring in a car with a chewed up injector harness. We patched it up and a month later it came back with the harness chewed up again. I asked where he parked it and when told in a small garage out behind his house, it sits there for months without use. Well he did some extermination after that.

If it's just the looks that are bugging you spray the yellow down with BBQ Black paint or similar.

Vernon

odoh · October 3, 2005

They or some other rodent have been known to chew the wires going to the Allison.

Wingnut · October 3, 2005

I bought a few cans of sound deadening (spray-on) foam from my local stereo shop. It's a little pricey, but with a few layers it can do a decent job. Heck, I even used some of it in the house. I pulled out the dishwasher, took it apart, and sprayed the inside of the door, and the exterior of it with the stuff. Helped quite a bit in the dishwasher noise...It's now quieter than a wife would be.

Dynamat, brown bread, and a few other folks make stick-on panels that would probably do the trick as well, but those are going to cost you a buck or two as well.

You really need to treat the source on this though. As stated above, the hood insulation is the least of your worries when rodents get after things under the hood.

I'd start with taping poison blocks in a few places under there. Don't put it where your cats and dogs can get at it though, they'll eat it right up, and keel right over.

zorrro · October 5, 2005

Thanks for the info. Treating the source is a huge task but, there are a few key locations for some bait. For now I'll try the BBQ paint (I already have some of that). I'll look into the spray stuff to see about flamabilty. If it comes to replacement aftermarket panels will be the way I go. So far no injector wires have been chewed on and the truck shifts fine