Rat in the Truck! (long)

[DavidI]

...a dead one somewhere inside the passenger compartment of the single cab 2001 Chevy S10. I did not hear it, I did not see it, I did not feel it, I smelled it. It's decaying body, dead for a long time but not long enough for the smell to dissipate, was festering and decaying within the bowels of the very small cabin. The smell nearly incapacitated us, not at first.

Let me back up a bit. My son is 29-years-old married man with a profession I don't quite understand, Software Engineer. He is a gentle giant (6' 225 lbs compared to my 5'06" 180 lbs) and loves almost everything. He is a car enthusiast with a taste matched to his income. His dream car is a GT3RS which he hope to purchase one day. Last May, I was very fortunate to purchase a 1999 911 C4 that I detailed in bringing her back to life in a previous thread. My son would like to borrow this machine, but unfortunately does not know how to drive a manual transmission. I attempted to teach him in the 911, but it did not quite work out. To save the clutch and transmission, I ended the school session.

In talking with one of my friends, he told me about a 2001 S10 he owned and offered to let me borrow it for free. I told him that in exchange for allowing me to borrow the truck, I would tune it up with new spark plugs and an air filter. We agreed and I picked up the truck. I had possession of the truck for a period of two weeks last December, but could not successfully schedule a day for my son to come over to learn and in addition, a new form a pain called "sciatica" visited me on a level 8. After the weeklong pain subsided, I decided to tune up the S10. First, I should have researched the difficulty level of this operation before readily offering to do it. The engineer designers must have intentionally developed this truck so only a self-hating person would attempt to change the spark plugs. After a full day of grappling with the beast, removing front wheels and a inner wheel liner the S10 ran fantastic. I could not make my son's schedule work during this period, so I returned the truck to my friend, explained the situation and asked to borrow it at a later date. My friend agreed and thanked me for the tune up. I did not tell him how difficult the job was and kept my promise and completed the work.

Earlier this week, I borrowed the truck again after learning my son was available. The windows are crank style, so I rolled them down prior to making the 15 mile journey to my home. The weather in SoCal had been very dreary and cold this week. No rain, but gloomy. On the drive home I smelled the faint smell of something I could not identify, but smelled horrible. I locked the truck up in front of my home and waited for my son to visit.

When he arrived, we were both very excited! I promised him that he would learn within one day and would be driving a manual transmission on his own soon. We drove to a local parking lot and the session began. The weather was very warm this particular day, so like Ice Cube said, "It's gonna be a good day!"

My son quickly began understanding the fundamentals of the clutch engagement and disengagement when the foul smelled slithered from somewhere within the cabin. At first, it poked it's head out somewhere and must have seen us. It must have flicked its forked tongue out a few times to taste the air. Both of us recognized the smell, but could not immediately identify it.

Until I did.

Disgusting, decomposing, dead rat! Once I identified it, there was nothing else I could smell. I felt like Wile E. Coyote chasing the Roadunner off a cliff not realizing there no longer was solid ground beneath his feet. Once he does, the plummet to the bottom of the canyon floor began. The hot weather had "cooked" the rat and made it ripen.

My son and I exited the S10 as quick as we would have if we had run over and IED in Iraq! We both began volcanoing our previous meals onto the asphalt.

Now we had a dilemma. How to get the truck back to my house with our stomachs intact? We had no choice. It had to be driven. We made record time with both windows wide open and fresh air purging the truck cabin. When we arrived at my home, we had a repeat of our volcano-type actions.

After peeling off the clothes in the garage and a long shower we celebrated my son's accomplishment into the world of "old school" driving. We made a life-long memory with so many emotions and what the youngsters would call a "sick story!"

Rock on, David

[masraum]

Ouch! Great story, but disgusting. If the smell took a while, makes me think/assume/wonder if the dead critter is near the heater core.

I've had some mice in the boxster, but not dead. I managed to exorcise them without any bad smells or chewed wires.

[Sooner or later]

That stinks.

[speeder]

The last one entombed in one of my cars was on top of the transmission tray, between it and the transmission. Terrible smell, like piss but worse. Let me see if I can find the photos.

[Arizona_928]

Try the Egyptian method of turning up the heat to speed up decomposition (or find the sob)…