• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Dog food for Kitty?

Share this page

pcanonge

pcanonge

Member
Offline
OK.
At 43 years young I have seen alot in my life. I finaly wrestled the air cleaner off of my 73 XJ6 and found it full of old dog food and rat crap! Yes dog food...

My other half and I recently brought this car home from Lancaster and the previous owner basicaly stored the car for 3 years and did not have much if any service performed.

This was obviuosly someone's idea of a lousy joke.

Now I can say I have seen it all...
 
Check your wiring, and look into the heater box... I'd do it BEFORE it was running, too.
 
Yeah, somebodies idea of a joke alright. Mickey mouses idea, or maybe mickey rats. Critters will hide stuff in the weirdest of places. I have pulled the heads off of old Jag engines and found dog food and bird seed in the combustion chambers. My anglia had the heater box absolutely stuffed full of acorns, and some sort of insulation. The stuff held moisture, and rotted the box away. I found another in England, as it was too far gone to fix.
 
Jesse,

Thanks for the insight. We plan to give it a good going through. I need to pull the fenders and dig out all the crap the rodents stuffed there.

Do you have any words of advice befor I pull the fenders?
 
Rats and squirrels (basically, fuzzy tailed rats) can and will absolutely destroy any vehicle left alone long enough. Copious quantities of rat poison left each fall and spring inside the passenger compartment, the trunk/boot and on top of the engine help a great deal. I also prop open the hood/bonnet about 6 inches as it appears the varmits don't like open spaces.

They will chew right through wiring, including steel spark plug wires, and build nests in headliners and heater boxes using stuffing from the seats. It doesn't much matter whether the car is stored indoors or out - left alone for 6 months to a year, it probably will be infested and damaged.

If you have pets, of course, poison is not a viable solution. Live traps work but are labor intensive. It has been suggested that mothballs will keep them out, but that didn't work for me. The best solution is to drive your LBC at least once a week, right after emptying the live trap.
 
I've had cars towed into our shop with the critters still inside 'em... old barn-stored Midget was the first one. Found "critter-sign" in the trunk, rolled it outdoors and set a bunch of traps. The upshot is: they're extremely destructive and insideous. If the Jag is stored in your garage, be alert to the possibility you've had a "hull breach" of sorts.

We soon realised our 'shop cat' was EARNING her keep. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif
 
I bought an S-Type recently that had rats living between the cam covers. Their urine is so powerful in ate a hole through the cylinder head enough to see a valve and piston.

Alan T.
 
Amazing stories!!!

Well so far the only sign of rodent damage was the dog food in the air cleaner and droppings behind the batery and power booster. I have already pulled the seats and found no damage to the interior other than normal wear.

I know I'll need to pull the fenders. Anyone been through fender removal of an XJ6? Should not be too complicated??

I'm concerned the rodent droppings and related garbage will cause them to rust if I don't address the issue.

Thoughts?
 
I'd STILL be more concerned about the heater-A/C box and ducting, & any wiring in the "hidden" areas. A good steam cleaning of the inner fender & undercarriage areas should do the job. Not sure you've much to gain by removal.
 
Just today, I had proof that leaving poison in a stored car and propping open the hood worked quite well. Last summer, I stored a 95 Jag for a friend of mine out in the open. Put rat poison in the trunk, passenger compartment and engine compartment. Left another box behind one wheel. Today, we took the car to the repair shop. Result: box in engine compartment half eaten, box behind road wheel empty, boxes in passenger compartment and trunk full. No varmit damage to anything.

The smell these varmits leave behind will stay with the car through restoration. I concur in the recommendation that you steam clean the heating/a-c unit. If the carpets are damaged, it is probably cheaper to replace them than to try to clean them.

Good luck with your project.
 
Back
Top