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Damn squirrels...

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paratrooper307

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I sometimes park the K5 outside under my carport if I'm cleaning the garage or have a project going on. I had left it out for a few days without starting it, and when I went out the other day it was stone dead. Figuring I had left something on by mistake, I hooked up the jump box only to have it spark violently. A couple checks with the voltmeter confirmed I had a hot wire that was grounding somewhere. Following the main positive cable, I found it missing about an inch of insulation, and welded to the side of one of the header runners. The culprit lay dead underneath the truck. A cable repair and a new battery later and I was good to go. Poor critter, 1000 amps couldn't have felt too good through his teeth as he was gnawing the wire. I guess I should be lucky the damage wasn't worse than it was.

Moral of the story--park your cars inside or start them regularly to prevent vermin from taking up residence.
 
Odd. I've never heard of squirrels chewing on wires. Also, I don't know how it biting through the insulation would kill it. There is no amperage draw at rest.
 
Never mind. Reread the post. You just happened to have a dead squirrel under your truck that burned the battery cable through on the header.
 
Whatever the squirrel is standing on is likely chassis. The hot wire from the battery is always hot, unless the battery is disconnected. I'm surprised 12V from mouth to feet would kill, but if it made the wire arc to the header, it could have been burned.
 
Touch your positive battery post with one hand and touch the fender at the same time. You don't die. Dc current isn't the same as ac current.
 
-stew- said:
Odd. I've never heard of squirrels chewing on wires. Also, I don't know how it biting through the insulation would kill it. There is no amperage draw at rest.
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Talk to a cable repair guy.. around here, they spend a large amount of their time repairing above-ground cables that has been gnawed to pieces.
 
I didn't witness it, so I'm just assuming. But the insulation looked chewed, not melted. I've never seen squirrels chew wiring before, but rats and rabbits for sure. And as anyone who has worked around starters without disconnecting the battery can attest, a hot positive wire touching negatively grounded metal produces a nasty arc (That is how welders work after all). I would normally have assumed the wire burning through on the header, but it's been set up like that for a while with no problems. I just figured tooth marks on the wire, a dead squirrel, and a shorted electrical system was more than mere coincidence.

You don't die from sticking your finger in a light socket either, despite 10 times the voltage. But voltage does not kill, amperage does. Surprisingly, a matter of milliamps can kill a person, assuming a direct connection to the heart. Fortunately, people are pretty poor electrical conductors. Alternating current and direct current differ more in their delivery than their energy, with direct current allowing voltage and current flow in one direction, and alternating current allowing flow both ways. Given equal voltage and amperage, one is just as dangerous as the other from an energy perspective. Probably more than anyone cared to know, but I like science :D
 
Oh you have no idea.
Somewhere here is my story about my F250. I blamed it on rats, but it just as easily could have been squirrels.
Used to be plenty of both around the farm.
Between my pellet rifle, bait, infrared lights and video cameras, there are not as many rats as there used to be.
Couple of cats that got dropped off here helped.

I thinned the squirrels out last winter. They were delicious.

Even so, its now a standing rule that any vehicle that is going to sit more than a couple of days, gets it's hood raised and left open.

Both squirrels and rats prefer privacy when doing their damage.

The interconnect box for my 100KW generator has the lid permanently removed. About 8 years ago, I cranked it to run a test before hurricane season arrived, and it went crazy.
Weird voltages, crazy speed changes.......

I traced it to a missing ground reference. When I took the cover off that heavy steel box, I found about a 2 inch long piece of 4 inch wide copper braid strap had been eaten.
I don't know what they did with it, but it was just gone out of the box. There were a few tiny scraps of copper in the floor, but most of it was gone.

No insulation, just bare copper. I have no idea why they would chew that up and haul it off.
Or just swallow it.

People who visit ask why every vehicle I own is broken down. I have to explain that they all run, but won't unless I leave the hood up.

As for what killed the squirrel, odds are it was not the electricity. But its possible. 12 volts is not enough normally to push enough amperage past skin resistance to kill.
However, if the bare wire was in his mouth, and the part touching ground was either thin skinned or wet, there might have been enough to stop his heart.

I read about an idiot who managed to kill himself with a 9 volt battery. Stuck himself in each thumb with a sharp point and the milliamps through his system across his heart caused an arrhythmia that killed him before anyone found him.

Blood and bare flesh being much more conductive than skin.
 
-stew- said:
Touch your positive battery post with one hand and touch the fender at the same time. You don't die. Dc current isn't the same as ac current.
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do that when your sweaty as h3ll and see if you wanna do it again:whistle: one of the most painful shocks ive had was sitting in a non AC'd 72 regular cab chevy on a 100+ degree day and bracing my hand on the dash trying to cut a wire shorting out under the dash..... I've been an industrial electrician for 17 years and have gotten into a few things.... that shock in the truck SUCKED way worse.... if a squirrel chewing a wire got his head between the wire and header it would have had an A$$ load of amps right through his tiny skull:eek1: that'd hurt
 
Out here we have to beware of marmots (yes real word)
yellow-bellied-marmot-pup-standing-by-raquel-monclus.png


They love rubber hoses too! If you ever see a car with chicken wire around it they have had a marmot experience.
 
There are 15 species of Marmot, including the woodchuck, so it's not a completely specific term. The only problems I have with them is they eat everything in the garden and dig holes under every building. Something ate a bunch of the thermal liner under the K5 hood this winter (yum!), I assumed it was mice, but it could have been squirrels. We're overrun with those tiny ground squirrels this year.
 
Blue85 said:
There are 15 species of Marmot, including the woodchuck, so it's not a completely specific term. The only problems I have with them is they eat everything in the garden and dig holes under every building. Something ate a bunch of the thermal liner under the K5 hood this winter (yum!), I assumed it was mice, but it could have been squirrels. We're overrun with those tiny ground squirrels this year.
Click to expand...


Yes I have an ongoing war with those little ****s!
 
I think I told you guys how a friend of mine stuck his finger in the cigar lighter socket on my '56 chevy pickup years ago,trying to clean the contacts in it so he could light a ciggarrette..he yanked it out quickly and went "yaaaaa",and said he got a shock..

I said BS,twelve volts cant give you a shock!.."oh YEAH"?...he grabbed my hand and jammed my finger in the socket,and he was right!..smoke came off my fingertip and I felt the current going thru me!...since that day I've been more careful around batteries,I have gotten a belt when I was sweaty and laid my arm on the positive post and the radiator support ...its not 110V AC ,but its definately unpleasant!...

I think 110V is plenty to kill someone,even if its an amp or two,especially if their heart is weak..

I've been lucky so far,no squirrels have ruined any wiring on my vehicles or toys,but I have had field mice living in one of my lawn tractor engines and they destroyed the ignition coil..saw a severed head and blood come out of the flywheel area after I started it..it ran about 30 seconds,then stalled--no spark...was 50 bucks for another used coil too..:mad:..I am glad I have at least 3 feral cats keeping watch now...I found a dead mouse by my front steps this afternoon..good kitties!..:D:D...better than having live ones in the house,thats for sure..
 
Well it could be
The-Twilight-Zone.jpg


Portrait of a frightened man: Mr. Robert Wilson, thirty-seven, husband, father, and salesman on sick leave. Mr. Wilson has just been discharged from a sanitarium where he spent the last six months recovering from a nervous breakdown, the onset of which took place on an evening not dissimilar to this one, on an airliner very much like the one in which Mr. Wilson is about to be flown home - the difference being that, on that evening half a year ago, Mr. Wilson's flight was terminated by the onslaught of his mental breakdown. Tonight, he's traveling all the way to his appointed destination, which, contrary to Mr. Wilson's plan, happens to be in the darkest corner of the Twilight Zone.
 
Yeah, who says it has to be squirrels????


putbull.jpg

He gnawed his way from underneath.....

There was a lot of stuff that had to be replaced......

putbull.jpg
 
diesel4me said:
I think 110V is plenty to kill someone,even if its an amp or two,especially if their heart is weak..

..
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110/120 v kills more people than any other voltage:doah: and 1 amp across your chest (hand to hand, hand to other foot, etc.) will kill you.
 
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