What's in that fuse box?

sol7

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
A couple or see weeks ago, my started to start when the key was turned to the "Run" position. Though it was the switch going bad. Bought a new one and still the same issue. Then the headlights started flashing on there own and finally just staying, without the key in the ignition.

I pulled the cover off the underhood fuse box to pull the headlight fuse and noticed the the top of the fuse box was wet. We had just had some heavy downpours a few days prior, but how did the water get in there? Then I got a whiff of animal smell. Freakin' mice pissed on my fuse box! So I pulled the fuse box shroud off and low-n-behold.....

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Underneath that nest were a couple chewed through wires. I soldered the wires back together and though I was golden. Nope, still had ignition/headlight issues. I did more troubleshooting and found that the + was shorting with the headlight relay. I pulled the fuse box out and sprayed it with contact cleaner, blew it out, and still no good. Even threw it in the ultrasonic cleaner. Figured I had nothing to loose and thought I'd try to pull apart the fuse box to see what was going on. Needless to say, I ended up going to the junkyard to find a used one. There's a lot more going on in those fuse boxes than you would think. No way I was getting this back together...

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deal with it here every winter . i keep telling them to leave the bonnet up and not a scrap of food in the car .and also covering everything in waste diesel engine oil . have had fuse-boxes like that apart a few times and fixed them .not that difficult really .
dont forget to wash your hands after touching where those rodents have been as they can kill you or make you seriously ill .
 
deal with it here every winter . i keep telling them to leave the bonnet up and not a scrap of food in the car .and also covering everything in waste diesel engine oil . have had fuse-boxes like that apart a few times and fixed them .not that difficult really .
dont forget to wash your hands after touching where those rodents have been as they can kill you or make you seriously ill .

I was wondering what I could do to keep them out. Maybe I'll spray some used oil on the fender. Keep the mice and rust away...
 
rodent urine is pretty foul stuff, both in terms of stink and what it does to metal bits.
 
You got that right.

With all the stray cats around, I'd think this wouldn't be a problem.
 
This is on a GM product right?

I've seen failures in these crappy fuse boxes without any help from rodents, just look how it's built, this wires just wedged into the terminals, failure is absolutely an option, more like a certainty at some point.

this is probably why it's easy to replace, because they knew it would need to be done at some point.
 
It was easy to remove. 3 nuts to disconnect power cables and 4 connectors. I cussed the truck and the engineers/designers, who designed the truck, up and down. After I found out the cause of the problem and fixed it, I had to apologize to the truck. I still hate the engineers/designers.

It's bad when I look at my 95 Silverado with +300k mies as the reliable vehicle. By the way, this fuse box is in a 04 Silverado. I think everything in this truck is computer controlled from the engine (ECM) to the interior lights (BCM).
 
yeah modern stuff has extreme electronic control. Lighting control module or a body control module that controlls every single thing. They also usually have some sort of a data buss between the modules so the proper diagnostic equipment can tell you everything thats going on in the vehicle. Of course that adds things that can potentially fail so there is a trade off.

Ford had problems with the relays in the LCM dying, their "fix" once they ran out of them was to basically solder pigtails to the board, knock a hole in the case, and hang a conventional relay outside of the LCM box to make it work again. For a while they were doing free warranty replacements since the usual failure mode was the headlights or running lights would quit and thats sort of a safety problem. Personally if I had a vehicle with one of those, I'd be inclined to fix it the same way myself, but using relay sockets so I could just swap the relay if needed.
 
dip it

tool dip....

either dunk the wire side in, or use a nylon brush to coat em, many coats
 
Wow, that wiring is scary bad. It makes me want to pull the box in my jeep and check it. Moisture will build up inside I noticed if not driven much and in cold weather. I would leave the hood up when parked in the garage in the winter. Along with a side window open some. A ragtop jeep can turn into a rain forrest in the winter.
 
I had squirrels chew up the fuel injection wires on my ford Taurus and they built
a nest with the fiberglass hood insulation.

The guy at the auto parts store said it's a common problem and WD40 sprayed
under the hood will keep them away as they dislike WD40 ....
 
Never ever had mice bother any of my toys.Theres a simple trick to this ,put artic cat stickrs on everything.Mice hate cats!:)
 
Once they figure out how to get inside (probably a rust hole) also they can sure make a mess!
they have a bad habit of chewing through where the wiring looms come through . i have patched a good few up now . sometimes the whole dash needs to come out to do it . far from my favourite job .
 
I had squirrels chew up the fuel injection wires on my ford Taurus and they built
a nest with the fiberglass hood insulation.

The guy at the auto parts store said it's a common problem and WD40 sprayed
under the hood will keep them away as they dislike WD40 ....

Lets not talk about squirrels. I have a Hickory nut tree in the front yard. Squirrel Heaven. I have to trap them to keep them under control. I think they have my nuts buried all over the neighborhood.
 
This was the wiring harness underneath the nest. The blue wire was toast, The white wire still had, I think, two strands of copper left. I was pleasantly surprised when I cut and stripped the wire ends to splice in some new pieces. Nice clean bare copper. Unlike that crap wire that's used to make trailer wire harnesses that corrodes from the inside out.

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As I understand, the insulation on a lot of wire made today is based on soybeans
and this may be the reason for the squirrels hunger for it...
 
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