Went to start the truck the other morning to go to work and heard a good thump... thought was a pop, almost like a backfire, thru the exhaust (dual stacks
) but checking mirrors I didn't see any smoke or anything. It seemed to be running fine and all gauges looked normal & no lights...Thought, well, maybe it was the belt bc something has been intermittently squeaking in the accessory belt system so I shut it down and pop the hood latch. As soon as I get out I see hair flying.I knew what it was then... Eased the hood open and hair is everywhere! But no creature. The hair looks like either squirrel tail or tabby cat... Wait! My cat is a tabby cat and is outside!
Luckily I saw him on the back porch just before I went out front to leave so I was sure it wasn't him. There is a neighborhood tabby cat and I've seen it on/around my truck plenty of times.
I look around a little but see no creature and didn't have a good enough light handy to see much down into the engine bay but heard a "sigh" from something. Instead of risking a repeat, I left it be and drove a different vehicle that day. That evening I took a closer look trying to find the creature but saw nothing. I figured it was either gone and I only got it's tail or it had curled up and died inside the fan shroud. Ugh. Drove it to work the next day and someone commented it stunk like a dead animal around my truck. Great it's in there!
Didn't look into it at work. Got home and this time I found it! Squirrel with a stripped tail
and guts hanging out. IDK where it was the first time I looked but this time it was dangling just above the plastic splash guard towards the passenger side so I retched up in there and got it out. Flies. Mercy the flies already had him! It's been 80*+ everyday so he was RIPE!
I can't see where he did any damage accept a coiled up piece of wire came out with him... I have no idea what the coiled wire went to and everything is still working like it should.
The only thing I could think the wire might be to is the block heater? but it's not coiled at the plug end and this wire isn't very big so IDK if it's to that or not?