Mouse snacked on my wiring

A few years ago a mouse chewed through my high pressure fuel line - luckily I figured it out before taking it on any long trips.

Now, a mouse has chewed into the wire loom above the passenger wheel well in the engine compartment. The insulation is gone on a couple of wires and one wire is chewed completely through and a segment of the wire is missing. I got the wires separated and sort of reinsulated and jumpered the broken wire (brown with white stripe) . My ABS light, which had been constantly on was no longer on which is nice!

I plan to use a 3M adhesive shrink-wrap to better insulate the individual wires and solder a permanent splice into the missing wire and stuff it all back into some new wire loom.

Anyone else have experience with this sort of problem?

Is there any reason to worry about the airbags deploying or not deploying as they should?

Is there a good wiring diagram that might tell me if the brown/wht wire is the crash sensor.

Just looking for more information on this problem. Thx in advance!

 

Any time you are working with wires like that, especially anything with the ECU regardless of its SRS (airbag) related, disconnect the battery.

I suggest marine grade heat shrink- it has an adhesive that will help prevent water/moisture from getting into your solder joins. Try to do straight inline solder joins, and most importantly use the same gauge wire. You don't want to alter the resistance of the wire at all, especially if it's connected to a sensor.

You'll need to provide more info on your truck (year, engine, etc...) for someone to get you a wire diagram for your vehicle. They aren't necessarily the same from year to year.

 

Honda actually makes a spicy electrical tape to try & prevent this issue. It's coated with capsaicin. Stuff ain't cheap though & it looks unsightly. I suppose you could just cover it with a layer of regular black electrical if one wanted to use it. No idea if it works well though.

 

I always like seeing reply replying “rodent problem” as both a question and a reply.Turns out that happens.

 

It's a 2001 XTRACAB 4X2 V6 According to Toyota's website:

3.4L V6 DOHC EFI ENGINE 4-SPEED AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION

(I thought it was a 2000 all these years)

 

I read somewhere that using coyote or cat urine can be a deterent.

 

A guy on one of fhe other forums I frequent works for American Honda and he reports warranty claims for rodent damage went way down when Honda first started using this almost twenty years ago, on O2 sensor harnesses IIRC. They’ve started using more of it in more places over the years. It works.

Half the price on eBay compared to my local Honda dealer.