Rat Nest in Engine Compartment

Can someone please ID this damaged area? Wiring harness, I think? Runs from below the fuse box into the cab of the truck, below the master cylinder.

Left my truck parked next to my wood pile for a few weeks, opened the hood and found a rats nest in the corner closest to the driver’s seat. Underneath the master cylinder there was about a scrotums worth of fuzz. Not sure if that was collected outside and brought in, or if it was pulled from the wiring harness it was resting on. Part in question seems to have been chewed on but there are no visible wires or anything, just fuzz and little bastard teeth marks. Wondering is this is something that needs to be priority replaced. Drove the truck for half an hour, seems totally fine.

Thanks all.

 

Thats a small problem, but a problem still the same. The one I pulled out of my Tacoma covered the entire top of the engine & they filled up the a/c system with grass to boot. Took 4 hours to clean it all out.

 

As long as you have no problems. I might start looking for that used harness just in case fuses start to open.

Clean things the best you can and keep driving.

Good luck!

 

My damage was confined to the washer hoses & the headlamps connections. I put heatshrink on the headlamp wires & taped up the washer hoses to fix everything. Every couple of years, the little buggers get into the fan & evaporator core in the A/C system & plug it up with grass in the late fall. Doesn't matter where I park it This last time in November of 2022, it caused my fan resistor to burn out as they really packed the grass in tightly & stopped the fan from turning.

I cleaned it all out again & replaced the fan resistor & it worked great till a few months ago when the system bled down the freon. I replaced the freon & it has been working great. Rats, mice & palmetto bugs are the ban of Florida out in the country. One mouse 5 years ago got into the cab & ate a hole in the seat covers which I just replaced as they didn't eat the actual seat material.

The rats & mice have totally destroyed my shop which is abandoned after a gopher tortoise dug a hole & pushed dirt up in the back allowing the termites to get into the wood structure & now it is a disaster area worthy of a fire cleansing only.

 

squirrels have fun in Florida to

 

By far the worst thing is when they chew through the Air intake pipe push past the throttle body and can`t get out .

Talk about a mess and strange problems . Nothing like digging out a dead rodent sucked into the intake .

 

The first time I had problems with the mice/rats was when they went into the air intake in the fender & crawled into the airbox. There they ate thru the air filter, but never got thru into the throttle body. My road is several miles of sand & limerock, so a compromised air filter is bad juju in dry weather & the clouds of dust.

To stop the little devils, I took a piece of expanded ss screen & cut it to fit between the inner fender wall & the airbox intake. Nothing but air can pass thru it & they can't chew thru the stainless steel screen. I would have done the same thing to the A/C intake, but on the 2004 model, it would involve cutting thru the firewall to get to the opening below the window to apply the screen mesh. The 2005 model has a cabin filter that has a backing screen that keeps the mice/rats out!

 

examples for thought:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/cabin-air-intake-screen-mod.566441/
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/mice-in-heater-fan-in-cab.795321/#post-28494333
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/need-a-better-mouse-barrier.783639/page-3#post-28073430

 

oh my Christ , lol, I needed that

 

Not great luck, but all my shops are now Ex military truck mounted mobile shops. Two came from Iraq & are truck mounted & the other two are trailer mounted. Gopher turtles are not able to pile dirt 5 feet vertically & the termites can't eat aluminum. Mice & rats can't get into them as they are designed to keep vermin out.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.