[geeks] Mice and wires

[Eric Gustafson]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Francois Dion wrote:
| Everybody has read the story about the ENIAC and the bug. What I
| didn't realise is that mice are a lot more destructive than any bug.
|
| Recently, I've had glitches in the electricals of my Peugeot 505 turbo
| wagon. It's a well maintained car and all, my daily driver (and a
| great vehicule for "antique" computer rescue operations as you can fit
| a computer rack in it). I couldn't find anything wrong, checked
| voltages etc. Added a LED to monitor power to injection and ignition
| ECU. Since it was nothing big (tachymeter stopping from time to time,
| stuff like that), I continued to drive the car. But, alas, one day it
| left me stranded at work. Had the car towed home and checked spark,
| compression,  fuel pressure, tested for air leaks etc. Discovered that
| the injectors were flooding the engine.
|
| First tought, ECU or AFM. I had a spare of each, known good. Swapped.
| Still a problem. I ended up doing quite a bit until I traced back some
| wires that had 12V going to the ECU that shouldn't. So this weekend, I
| opened up the fusebox, removed the PC board. Looked at the wires.
| Rubbed my eyes, pinched myself, no I'm not dreaming. Looked at the
| wires again and sure enough about 12 wires had been chewed by a mouse,
| some making contact.
|
| Apparently it's common:
| http://www.wombatnation.com/category/the-unusual-and-the-weird
|

Driving home one night in my late grandmother's '86 Cutlass Ciera Wagon,
I started losing power. When I smelled burning, I happened to be near
the auto dealership where I worked at the time, so I pulled into the
service department, opened the hood, and found that squirrels had packed
my air cleaner full of acorns, and the frictional heat of the air coming
through that restricted space had melted the air filter.


| Argh. Splicing some new wires, insulating others, the car is now back
| on the road.
|
| I'm just glad the fuel didn't shut off while accelerating under boost
| to get on the highway, might have ended up with a blown piston or
| headgasket or something...
|
| Moral of the story, keep some cats 24/7 around your car :)
|
|
| Francois
| _______________________________________________
| GEEKS:  http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/geeks
|

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFCL0SgQHuk0F/G9N0RAnkHAJ9NYj+l4lwWAVRZUkGP6CNFueHfSQCcDmTr
TUMi24wXeSt7AvpqCEGFbZ8=
=L+O8
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----