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+--- Thread: A mouse ate my bike! (Well sort of...) (/showthread.php?tid=78998)
A mouse ate my bike! (Well sort of...) - Wharfe - 05-11-17
So, my other bike is a 16 plate Tracer (and yes, I love it).
[color=rgb(51, 51, 51)]On Friday, noticing that the bike was running lumpy at low revs with a very erratic idle, and unable to establish any obvious cause I took it off to my local Yamaha dealer to do the necessary (it's still warrantied so i was hopeful that this would be a nil-cost visit (fat chance as it turned out). The diagnostics computer revealed nowt wrong so, as the guy said, "it's down to spanners and spotting to find whatever's broken, fallen off or whatever". [/color][color=rgb(51, 51, 51)][/size]After considerable spanner action in their workshops the cause turned out to be vermin (mice probably) damage to two of the three vacuum ports (or more specifically the rubber bungs that sit on top of them). The scottoiler vacuum valve atop the third was not to Pixie and Dixie's* taste apparently.... 3.5 hours of labour charges those b%st%rtd mice cost me as obviously this was NOT covered under warranty! "Oooh I hate those meeces to pieces!"*So Foc-er's, take care this time of year, the little blighters are coming into warm places (like the top of your engine in your garage), they're hungry and they'll chew all sorts. You have been warned. Here at Wharfe mansions it's mousetraps all round. Now I'm a buddhist kinda guy, don't eat meat, don't like killing anything if at all possible, but my garage is now a free-fire zone for anything that moves..... *kids, ask your parents about the old HannaBarbera cartoon "Pixie and Dixie and Mr Jinks"....Crap that passed for entertainment in the 70's..[/color]
Re: A mouse ate my bike! (Well sort of...) - tommyardin - 05-11-17
Hey Hey hey! We all hate meeces to pieces :lol
Re: A mouse ate my bike! (Well sort of...) - Hugh Mungus - 05-11-17
A mate of mine couldn't get his bike started after the winter storage. A mouse had nested in the airbox! Air filter was gone and replaced with nice new mouse nest.
Re: A mouse ate my bike! (Well sort of...) - darrsi - 05-11-17
They are very attracted to peanut butter, makes very good bait.
Re: A mouse ate my bike! (Well sort of...) - Grayo - 05-11-17
(05-11-17, 07:53 PM)darrsi link Wrote: They are very attracted to peanut butter, makes very good bait.Or chocolate. In fact, anything sweet. Just don't use cheese as mice hate it and you will never catch them. It's an urban myth that mice love cheese.
Re: A mouse ate my bike! (Well sort of...) - YamFazFan - 06-11-17
Mice will readily take cheese as bait.
Chocolate and peanut butter may be more attractive to them, but rodents are notoriously unfussy. They can't afford to be in order to survive.
Re: A mouse ate my bike! (Well sort of...) - BBROWN1664 - 06-11-17
(05-11-17, 03:12 PM)Wharfe link Wrote: damage to two of the three vacuum ports (or more specifically the rubber bungs that sit on top of them).
I have a house in France that doesn't get used much but last year we had a few mice that decided the rubber cap on the sink u-bend that capped off where most normal people fit a washing machine or dishwasher waste pipe would make a good snack.
We didn't notice it until after the first load of washing up water ended up on the kitchen floor.
New cap, wrapped in tin foil and the little feccers haven't gone near it again. They don't like tin foil on their teeth.
Re: A mouse ate my bike! (Well sort of...) - YamFazFan - 06-11-17
If they're hungry enough, they will even have a go at a bar of soap. Seen that before.
I've heard stories of them nesting in air boxes previously.
Apparently the urine is quite corrisive and can end up down in the carb/bore.
I bought a second hand spark arrestor silencer for my KL250 that came with a complimentary mouse nest inside.
Re: A mouse ate my bike! (Well sort of...) - fazersharp - 06-11-17
Is it that they dont actually eat it but just like to chew on it - like when I eat cashew nuts I like the crunch - and yet softness about them and I cant stop eating them
Re: A mouse ate my bike! (Well sort of...) - YamFazFan - 06-11-17
I think they have the permanently growing front teeth don't they?. A lot of rodents do.
They have to gnaw at stuff to keep them in check.
Re: A mouse ate my bike! (Well sort of...) - fazersharp - 06-11-17
What is needed is a kind of a sacrificial gnaw block, something that is very satisfyingly gnawable so they go for that and not important rubber stuff
Re: A mouse ate my bike! (Well sort of...) - YamFazFan - 06-11-17
Yep and you just know what would happen to the gnawing block.....it would remain untouched whilst they carried on chomping away at everything else! :lol
Re: A mouse ate my bike! (Well sort of...) - fazersharp - 06-11-17
(06-11-17, 08:06 PM)YamFazFan link Wrote: Yep and you just know what would happen to the gnawing block.....it would remain untouched whilst they carried on chomping away at everything else! :lolShotgun then :2guns
Re: A mouse ate my bike! (Well sort of...) - steve 10562cc - 06-11-17
Those little b*stards ate through one of my fishing holdalls and chewed there way through £50 worth of boilies but guess that was cheaper than eating the bike. I really have no excuse I used to be a pest control officer. Just to give you all an idea of what your up against a fully grown mouse will get through a hole the size of a 5p piece, but on the bright side if there's mice you haven't got rats and visa versa.