Rodent Damage in Fusebox Advice and Troubleshooting

Hi guys,

Had an unfortunate discovery after a trip yesterday. A few weeks ago my 2014 Tundra with 125k on it would have its infotainment randomly shut off and restart. It happened about 3 times while driving but i figured it may have been a bug. Then two days ago the truck's electrics while driving shut off and i had to brake, put it in Park, turn the key and start it again, but it started without any issues. Drove 400+ miles, wheeled it, and it did great. Came home yesterday, went to the grocery store and when i came back out the truck was totally dead. Doorlocks didnt work and it did not appear that the immobilizer recognized the key. I disconnected the battery and reconnected and everything worked just fine.

I looked into the fuse box when i got home and noticed rodent droppings and evidence that they chewed on the plastic dividers. I used my air compressor to shoot out a lot of debris and droppings from the box but didnt have time to take it apart to inspect the wires underneath. In the meantime i sprayed peppermint oil all over the bay and wheel wells and put dryer sheets into the fuse box.

I know Toyotas use soy in their wiring so this has to be somewhat common. Anyone dealt with it before? I mainly wanted advice on pulling apart the fusebox, i can't see an obvious way to see underneath the fuse panel so i can pull out debris and inspect the wires. Any advice would be appreciated. I plan on digging into it tomorrow.

 

I dealt with rodents in the past as well. They started chewing into the group of wires that run up the passenger side of the engine bay. Thankfully they only got into the electrical tape. I ended up wrapping the whole wire harness with electrical tape. I then checked my in cabin filter and it was stuffed with nesting material that a mouse was starting to build. I cleared all that out and decided to try some of the peppermint spray. Now the crazy part was that I was spraying my frame with Fluid film and found a huge nest in the frame. I removed that and sprayed a shit ton of fluid film up in that area. I’m not sure why they are on the attack but they are. I’m hoping that the fluid film will keep them from trying to get back in but I’m not 100% sure it will.
Good luck with getting your fuse box sorted. Hopefully they dig too deep into it and you will just have to butt connect some wires back together.