I thought i'd share the pain some mice have caused me...

My car sat for 3-4 years part way through its restoration. At that time the doors where on the car but there was no glass, except for the back hatch. The car sat in my dads garage that wasn't sealed and a family(or 10) of mice decided to make the car their home.

I had the car delivered to my house in early spring. I started by pulling the the battery box, kill switch and wiring from the trunk. This basicaly brought me back to the point where everything was out of the interior except the dash. I also pulled the doors back off and the one fender that was on the car. From there i completely cleaned the interior. First i'd use a brush and simple green, followed behind with a Dawn soap bath. The floors were sealed so i just used a shop vac to suck the water out. I wrapped the dash with plastic and just cleaned the floor boards under it. I could smell the urine from the vents so i knew the dash was going to have to be pulled eventually. But that was for another day.

The pictures should show how dirty it was from the mice.

 

I decided to focus on the rear of the car at this point. I wanted to get it to where everything was done but carpet. I took the deck lid back off to get it aligned. I also had to make some gaskets out of rubber for the spoiler. From there i EZ cooled the trunk, reinstalled the battery box and kill switch.

Once that was done i decided to put my attention to the dash. I pulled the dash pad off and could see a dead mouse laying on top of the heater box. I then pulled the dash out of the car.

This was when i could start to see how bad it was. There was mice urine and feces everywhere. In the wires, in the gauges, in the ducts. Luckily it didn't look like they chewwed any wires.

I started by working on the gauges. There was urine inside the cluster so all the gauges had to come out of the plastic housing. I then noticed there was uring in the back, in between the copper connections and the plastic housing. So that had to come apart as well. I cleaned everything real good and put it all back together.

 

Next i completely tore apart the dash. I cleaned the plastic dash, metal brace, and all duct work. There was one place i couldn't get too inside the main ducting and i could still smell the urine. So i bought a replacement off of ebay.

I was then ready to move onto the wiring. The first thing i did was remove all of the small computers that were attached. As well as the relays and switches. The urine actually got into the small computers and onto the circuit boards. The housings on all of the computers came apart real easy. I cleaned them and then cleaned the circuit boards real good with alchohal.

 

I think your project just earned the nickname "Mighty Mouse".

 

The smell was deep in the wiring. So i needed to remove all of the old electrical tape. I would then soak a section in a tub of simple green and water and then hit it with a cleaning brush.

When i swapped the LS1 in we ran the wires when the dash was already in the car. I had put two connectors in the LS harness so that i could still seperate the new wires from the engine harness if needed. Turned out i needed too so this was a good idea! But, running the wires in the dash wasn't very clean.

I took this oppurtunity to shorten the LS wires and run them through the harness so that they were like factory. I left the drive by wire pedal harness seperate though since that harness runs from the pedal directly to the TAC module.

I was also planning on running fog lights. I wanted to integrate them into the dash harness like they did from the factory. I already had the factory fog light switch. I then noticed that all of the wiring for the fog lights was already in the harness. Turns out I could have also figured this out if i just searched TGO. The 91-92 camaro's(and possibly a few years before) had the fog light wiring built into the dash harness. However the engine light harness did not have the fog light wire installed.

So i purchased a new relay, plugged the switch that i had in and put a fuse in the fog light spot in the fuse box. I then tested it and everything worked.

After i finished cleaning up the dash harness i pulled light harness out of the engine bay. I bought new terminals and 14 gauge purple wiring. I then hooked the purple wire with a new terminal into the firewall plug. This way i can run the fog lights just like they did from factory. I'm waiting for more loom so i stopped after i got the wire into the connector.

 

I still need to reassemble the dash. But from here i pulled the heater box out. This was where the big nest was. The smell was awful. I dumped everything right into a trash bag and will be throwing it all away. I already have a new heater box off ebay and i took the HVAC controls from my parts car.

I started to clean the firewall when i noticed a decent amount of urine under the steering mount. I figured it just got inbetween the firewall and the EZ-Cool so i pulled the EZ-Cool out. Then i noticed some fiberglass insulation. Inside the car there is a "sealed" section of metal that runs along the cowling. Their was no way i could get in there. So i had to cut it open and sure enough found another nest.

I pulled the front bumper off the car too. I looked in the subframe rails and they were in there too. I can see some insulation in the one. I'm going to try to get a shop vac hose in as far as i can. Then i'll shove a garden hose in there and try to flush everything out. Atleast this is on the outside of the car so there should never be a noticible smell if i can't get everything.

That's as far as i've gotten. I think I'm almost done dealing with this nightmare...

 

Actually mine was quite a bit worse than yours (10 years in a shipping container that had a hole in the floor). They will also be in your frame rails, they will be in any accessible areas of the unibody, my exhaust was also plugged solid with nests.

We gutted and disassembled the car, cleared the rails using compressed air in one end and a shop vac in the other. Also had to use coat-hangers to pull it all out. We used some 1" and 2" flexible tubing on the shovac as well to pull stuff out. Had to cut a few access holes for other areas. Firing up the car (it was not easy) eventually cleared the exhaust. The interior was cleaned, cleaned, cleaned with many items just tossed. I had to replace all the heating ducts because the nests actually split most of the plastic.

Other than the obvious smell and hygienic issues, they pack the frame rails with jute which will trap water and cause short term rot problems, have to get it out of there. Can also be a fire risk depending on where they made the nests.

Based on what you are seeing, there is more....

 

I think i got it all... I stuffed a hose in the 4 frame rails and stuff only came out of the one that i already knew had a nest in it. So this leads me to beleive that was the only frame rail tha thad a nest.

The fact that my car was in the middle of a restoration helped... Most of the interior was already gutted and i only had headers on the car. The car fired right up and nothing blew out of the headers.

The last place that i know they have been is in the bell housing. I can see some insulation and there is even a mouse tail hanging out of a very small gap. For his sake i hope he was already dead before the car started up... I'll need to pull the transmission and clean out the bell housing before the car is ever put on the rode. I'd hate to have a fire.

 

Those vermin were gettin' down and dirty in there, for sure. If you haven't already, I strongly suggest a full respirator and eye protection. I only say b/c it wasn't mentioned. Cute looking pug you got there too. Great work!

-Chris

 

Ewww. Sorry for your 'tenants'. Our shop is located in the middle of a field, and it's fairly-new, so the rodents that formerly-occupied all that green space are now trying to occupy my 'gray' space. I've found the little monsters are particularly-interested in under hood insulation. I've had to replace one in our 68 Cadillac that they occupied and died in, and they attacked the hood insulation in our 98 Dakota R/T. Luckily, they lived to leave that, so a simple vacuum job seems to have done the trick.

Now, all our cars in the shop are kept there with the hoods up. That also seems to help the hood lifts live a longer life. I'll probably configure some plastic cover for the engine compartment to keep the dust off, but keeping the mice out is much more important at this point in time.

 

NOt to go off topic- OK, I am- but are there any tricks to putting a dash BACK? I had to partially pull mine to replace the heater core and now it won't seem to go all the way back...it's hung up on something...

 

That's horrible freakin mice living in your car like they pay rent or something. I hope one day your car smells of fresh pine needles.

 

I'd take the scent of mice over the scent of one of these anyday! Takes me back to when i used to install car electronics for a living.