Rodent Damage

Hi Guys Boxster 2005 2.7 the car is running ok, and the nest shown in the pics is an old nest from last year I think, which I only discovered yesterday when changing the air filter, the mouse has had a nibble of the cable shown, however this cable is black and yellow and I don't know what it belongs to, rear spoiler and airbags are yellow, and the rear spolier are yellow and brown, and yellow and Blue quite concerned about the fact the wiring is exposed, and what the wire belongs to?..... I do know I will have to remove the plenum to get to the wire does anyone have a how to to remove the plenum? Thank you for reading my post and I hope someone can help Kind Regards To All Nick

Sorry to hear about your issue. Rodents chewing on wires is probably one of the things i worry about. Does the following link help?

Sorry to hear it, @Nick7602 - Boo!!! Hiss!!! Stupid rodents. When you get all the way in there, assuming the wire itself is okay but it's just the insulation that is stripped, I like to use silicone electrical wire tape, which binds to itself. This way, it should be able to handle the high heat in the engine. I'd probably do that before attempting to cut/splice/solder, but that's just me. Let us know how you get on with it.

As far as removing the plenum - is that the intake plenum? I think it might best be removed because you don't know what else has been damaged by the nesting rodent(s). They tend to pee where they nest - and the pee is highly corrosive, I'd want to clean the entire mess out and make sure all signs of it are gone.

Normally, I have to effect repairs to the highest standard. However, in this case? The car has suffered no ill effects from the bare wire (yet). Unless you're going to replace the entire harness associated with this wire, (the perfect repair) and you can reach it as is? On a 19 year old ride? I'd tape the chewed area with high quality electrical tape. Then wash it down (minimally and carefully) with some baking soda solution (base) to neutralize any potential residual uric acid as mentioned by Don.

Agreed with the above. Again, the self-sealing electrical tape (silicone) is fantastic. Whatever you do, do NOT use regular electrical tape. It will melt over time, and surely will cook off in a hot engine compartment. Plus, totally agreed about the rodent pee. Flush that out.

Hi Guys Thank you all for your super advice, getting the plenum off is a bit of a mystery to me, so the you tube link from MotoFanatic really really helped, I have some insulation tape from the local motor factor, the cold and heat tolerances are as follows -18 to 105c the wire is connected to this, which I think is shown in the black and white diag pic, the wire that is damaged is number 2 thats if Im correct?

So that looks like the trigger wire for the starter solenoid. You've gotten some decent advice above, I'd probably just wrap that in silicone tape and clean everything off: vacuum out what you can, then spray it down with some engine cleaner and rinse with low pressure water. Next time the plenum's off you can splice in a new section of wire if you want. Rodents seem to love nesting on top of the flat 6 for some reason. I have this stuff called "Rodent Armor" that's a pepermint repellent spray that I've used on the wife's car when we had mouse issues. It needs to be reapplied once in a while, however, and that's kind of a PITa given 987 engine access. Maybe you could spray it from below...

I've heard that rodents can be a problem with catless headers.

Interesting. how long was car sitting? Where in the country is this?