Mice!

[Duke Thrust]

I'm in the process of putting my 450 back on the road after a period of hibernation whilst belonging to the last owner.

It was leaking fuel badly from split hoses so I took the plenum top and trumpet base off to enable access. Whilst there I noticed a lot of crud sitting on top of the valley gasket so though I might as well take that off too.

Very glad I did as this lot was underneath:



Used the workshop vacuum to remove the mousey evidence and this was underneath:



Only the slightest finger pressure was enough to push the metal through.

[ButtonIt]

What's underneath that plate?

[Duke Thrust]

Push rods, lifters, cam, crank, sump - in that order.

[Duke Thrust]

My SD1 Vitesse, but the same:

[ButtonIt]

Crikey, that's really not good then.... Mouse piss must be VERY corrosive!!

[QBee]

does your wiring all work?

[Duke Thrust]

It does now...

[chrispitman]

They do fail like that I guess water collects and rots it thro, when I did my heads V8D supplied some different ones. Looks like you just caught it in time, I'd check the coating on the other side is intact and not gone around the engine ie stuck in oil pickup.

[Duke Thrust]

Did that, was fine.

Will be doing another oil change as a precaution, good practice after the engine's been open.