The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Spark Plug Wire Induction

Gentlemen,
I have a question about electrical induction to present to the many electrical guys on the forum. The question relates to a problem that affects many thousands of vehicle owners. Namely, animal vandalism of vehicles, especially vehicle wiring, and very often silicone jacketed spark plug wires. I believe that I have a ‘mod’ that will protect my vehicle wires: steel BX armour. But my design is being rejected by Magnecor upon their opinion that I will create induction issues that will shorten the life of the wires and likely ruin my ignition system. (I am not an electrical engineer and I agree that Magnecor certainly possesses expertise about induction.) However, I know that Taylor markets a very well-respected set of spark plug wires that are steel braided. The Taylor wires are not designed with animal gnawing or chewing in mind. Their braided steel appears to be employed as part of their electrical design for spark. I would like to take the idea of sleeving wires in steel braid "up a notch," and make it a line of defense against squirrels, chipmunks, racoons, etc. that like to attack wires on vehicles. In my locale, northeastern Maine, this is a major problem.

Ok, so I want to take my Magnecor K85 spark plug and coil wires, which I bought with their Nylon Spiral sleeve added on, and I want to put them in an XLPE (PEX) tube that has a 1/8" wall thickness. I then want to take that and put it into a BX steel armour sleeve. I will keep the BX sleeve about 2" short of the plug and dizzy boots. The BX will be painted with Rustoleum, and it will be sealed at both ends to prevent moisture rusting it from the inside. The BX will be grounded with straps that are bolted down. I have no RFI issues to be concerned about. I believe that the animals will either not bother gnawing such wires, or that it would take animals a long time to cause damage to such wires. In any case, I do not believe that there is a better way out there, aside from keeping a vehicle in a well-sealed garage (which I do not have yet).

Magnecor says I can’t do it because I will be creating what is essentially a capacitor. They say that my steel armour will cause induction issues. When pressed, they seem to say that “maybe, perhaps,” if my PEX was 1.5" wall thickness I might get away with it. Of course, that size would be too impractical to pull off. In my research about this, I came upon the Taylor steel braided spark plug wires. They do not seem to have induction issues with their wires which have a lot less space between their conductor and their steel braid than I would have. And even if the Taylor wires have induction issues which might shorten their lifespan, I am not using Taylor wires. I am using Magnecor, which has no induction issues. It seems to me that the sleeves that I add to the Magnecor wires cannot create a condenser because the specifications for a dielectric condenser are not met. Or, if I do create a dialectric condenser, it would be of insignificant voltage and discharge.

What do you guys think? There are two discussions by electricians about this induction issue that might be relevant: one from Magnecor and one from a Taylor user. (The Magnecor article talks about the induction about midway into the article):
http://www.magnecor.com/magnecor1/truth.htm

http://forums.2gnt.com/dcboard.php?az=printer_friendly&forum=5&topic_id=18666

I think Magnecor has it about right, without the technical expertise and testing facilities you're wasting time, if you want extra protection put the PEX cover on your existing wires and keep a check for signs of attack .... but sounds like you'd be better off to get the garage built, if the rodents can't chew the plug wires [and they do gnaw on metal to keep the teeth from growing thru their lips], they'll gnaw on any other accessible wiring .... and get some traps out

Bill

Moth balls and rat poison are also cheap and already designed.

1951Chevy1Ton, red58, Thank you for responding. Over the last few years I have read of numerous 'folk' remedies to keep fauna away from yards, gardens, homes and vehicles. The anecdotal evidence suggests that, at best, some work for some animals for some limited duration. No remedy has been found that works well or that might be called a solution. And scientists acknowledge that no such remedy is likely to come. Obviously, a well-sealed garage is called for, but that solution is not available to me anytime soon. Taylor's braided spark plug wires are not made up of any oddball or exotic material and they are not based on some secret design. Taylor themselves say that the steel jacket must be grounded and they do not agree that anything more need be done. Indeed, their wires are everywhere and my research shows that when their wires are put in as directed, there are no issues from induction. If Magnecor's opinion should be followed, how do we explain the fact that Taylor steel braided wires are so popular and clearly working? And if Taylor's wires work, why then should mine not work? I mean, either there is chaotic induction or there isn't. (I am not saying that RFI is never a problem with a steel sleeve -but I do not have anything to be affected by RFI in my vehicle).

Put stainless steel braid right over the existing wire. Leave it an inch short of both ends. At the distributor end connect all the ends of the shield wire together with an 18ga ground wire to the block. That will drain any induced current.

guns are more fun when dealing with pests then poison! did i mention you can get satisfaction from it also? Revenge! :-)

Magnecor is probably right, and there's a much simpler, and possibly less expensive solution to the (virtually nonexistent) problem you're describing. In 50-something years of doing and teaching auto repair, I cannot recall seeing a single instance of rodent-chewed ignition wires on a vehicle in regular service, and ridiculously few examples on vehicles in long-term storage or even a junkyard.

If you insist on having metal-armored wires, use the ones designed for aircraft engines and modify the ends to work with automotive type spark plugs and distributor caps. Shielded wiring has been in use on aircraft engines since before WW II, and on many military road vehicles for about as long. The Viet Nam era M-151 Jeep I bought in 1971 had that type of ignition wires so the engine could be run submerged in water with a snorkel kit. There's nothing new under the sun!
Jerry

ndkid275, Ok, both you and Jim Sears have put a smile on my face tonight. But I have to go with Jim. I have never killed an animal. I have never put out poison for an animal, or a trap. My conscience would likely bother me no end. I live in the forest, but I am, honestly, a city-slicker. If Waldbaum's did not have a meat counter, I would never have any meat to eat. My old lady has to clean the fish I catch. Anyway, ndkid, in the forests of the north, traps would be sprung in ten minutes. I would spend all day clearing traps, and still find my wires gnawed in the morning.

Hotrod Lincoln, the aircraft people were the ones I originally spoke with about this and, indeed, they have such armoured wire. My problem, however, is not finding or having the wire I want. Rather, it is the vendor of my spark plug wires telling me that the induction discharge is going to either shorten the life of my wires or ruin my coil. That caused me to hesitate. I was about to begin installation. Then I came upon Taylor steel braided wires, and then I came upon this great debate between the Magnecor school and the Taylor school. Hotrod, this is no 'virtually non-existent' problem. This problem is big. It is under-reported I suppose. Almost any forum concerned with country living has constant threads bemoaning the damage from squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons, etc. I just read that it is estimated to cost owners upwards of $150m a year in the US. That is additional to the fact that animals are said to be the cause of almost 40% of home fires. No, Hotrod, this is no tempest in a teapot. For the $50 bucks I spend on PEX and another $50 bucks I spend on BX, and maybe another few dollars on ground wire connections, I think I will give these furry saboteurs a challenge. I need my truck to start in the morning.
Edit PS: If you Google "Rodent damage to vehicles" you might be surprised at what is going on.

sounds like the next step is to armor the electrical system in your dwelling I think you need to quit hanging around those 'country living for city folk' sites .... as someone who's lived in a heavily forested semi-rural area for decades, with no garage, complete with norway rats, roof rats, raccoons, and the occasional squirrel, I have yet to have had, or heard of, any damage to a vehicles wiring - worst I've seen is cleaning up the mess from someones cat sleeping on the engine when I had to head out early one morning your best defense is to use the vehicle, don't leave it sitting for months on end .... OTOH, being an avid composter, I regularly have to off the rats, spring and fall, that think the compost area is rodent heaven, and currently that area is about 10 paces from where my truck is parked, maybe you just need to set up a feeding station to distract them

Bill

Red58, Well I will have a compost pile. I certainly hope it will be more appealing to the animals than my truck's wires. But since I am re-doing all of the old wiring in my truck, it is going to be BX all the way. Better safe than sorry.

Ditto to red's comments. I've lived on 100 very rural Tennessee acres for over 30 years, and both my wife and I are adept at giving various types of vermin a terminal dose of lead poisoning from several types of firearms at all hours of the day and night. My wife is particularly vengeful toward possums who raid the hens' nests, and being downrange of her .357 magnum is a really bad place for a varmint to be. We have NEVER had a single episode of ignition wire damage. Maybe it happens, but I don't need Google to tell me it doesn't happen here.

Good luck with your Quixotic quest!
Jerry

Just repaired a late model F..d that mice/rats had chewed through 4 wires going to one of the knock sensors and also to the knock sensor.

Pretty common around here to be repairing wires chewed on by rodents.

Also, if you leave a trailer parked our where cattle can get to it, and the wiring is even remotely exposed, they will destroy that wiring as well.

Maybe others haven't had this problem, but it does happen. One of my customers burnt up an engine after some rodents chewed up a heater hose. he didn't realize anything was wrong until the engine stopped.

I don't know of any remedy, though one friend of mine is using some kind of sound transmitter to keep them at bay. Almost a year now and I haven't had to do any wiring repairs on his old trucks since he started using it. (Voodoo to me) LOL

Good luck keeping them away.

My neighbors have a bunch of barn cats and we seemed to have stopped having any rodent or snake issues around our house.

My pal George is a rust farmer here in So Calif. He has no end of troubles with Cottontail rabbits, chewing any and all wires in his collection of old vehicles. Recently they chewed the ignition wires on his wife's Mercedes, cost him big bucks. He has a constant war with the toothy little critters, one thing good about this is, he makes a wonderful stew out of them. (The ones his Rottweiler Abby doesn't get first!)

RoyRodgers, well we will have two cats and a dog. Over the last few years when we have spent summers up at the property I have never noticed mice or rats or evidence of them at all. Our closest neighbors say it is only the squirrels that have given them grief and they had vehicle wires chewed some years ago before they had their garage put up but no damage to the car since the garage.
Capnduane, I have seen rabbits on the property, but they do not seem to come near us when we are there. The moose walk around the property like they are the owners, and a couple years ago a moose walked right past me as if I was invisible. The troublesome issues with the moose are on the highways though. In general, it seems that the silicone that has become common in automotive wires is an attractant for the chipmunks and squirrels. So, I am hoping that the few bucks I spend on the bx will save me spending a lot more down the road. I suppose this issue is somewhat amusing to anyone who has not had the experience of getting into their car in the morning and experiencing the Christmas lighting of their dash warning lights. But for those living near or in the forest, it is a well-known and expensive headache.

I have been restoring antique mechanical equipment for a while and working on old stuff for 40 yrs longer.
I can honestly say I've seen damage from mice to porcupines. Chipmunks are probably the worse.

Chewed primary wire insulation, seats, body insulation, hoses, corrosion from urine and nests and seed stashes everywhere you could think of and more that you never would.

I have never seen a spark plug wire with a tooth mark on it.
Exactly what do you have living with you?

Jim, Nooo. The squirrels don't get to the spark plug itself. But they like the wires going to the spark plugs. If we get to a point where they start pulling spark plugs, well, then it is time to move somewhere else, lol. Edit: Oh, the squirrels love spark plug wires. I think it is the silicone.

Alden, if you want to make your millions, you need to isolate the ingredient in the wires which is attractive to rodents. I have called upon to eradicate a muskrat which walked 100 yards away from the water to eat the insulation of wires in a car in the middle of a parking lot. Must be something in the wires that is irresistible to them.

52Carl, Well, anecdotally many seem to opine that it must be the silicone but, in fact, this is an age-old problem. Scientists in the wildlife arena say it is simply the animals tending to their teeth. I think they will chew almost anything, and maybe they just find that wire is effective for them. It is not unheard of for rubber lines to be chewed too. I guess every region has it fauna's preferences, lol. Anyway, I believe that once I resolve the issue of induction discharge in armoured high voltage wires, I will have the ultimate challenge to those furry trespassers. Vandals. Saboteurs. My lady does not permit cussing in the house. If you see my initial post above, I really wanted to hear from electricians about the competing opinions from Magnacor and Taylor regarding whether spark plug wires may be armoured with steel without ill effect. Then we all got off on a tangent about the animals. But it has been a nice discussion!

...pic...

Dads50, Thanks for responding. Over the last few years, ever since I began my unscientific research of the issue, I have come up with a long list of items and the anecdotal support for the effectiveness of each. What I have found out from the numerous people I have spoken with, and from my own reading, is that some items work some of the time for some animals. As for the tabasco sauce and general line of capsaicin based repellents, I have been assured by more than one wildlife conservationist that it will not work for squirrels. And that is because, if I recall correctly, squirrels gnaw without needing to taste that which they are gnawing. Something they do with their cheeks to keep taste away from their tongues while they nibble. I really crossed the hot pepper line off my list a long time ago, and what with the use of silicone nowadays in wire insulation, the squirrels seem so attracted to it that I surmise they would tolerate most any taste anyway in order to pursue it. In any event, again, based on my own unscientific research, squirrels cannot be decisively stopped. They can be deterred somewhat. For example, during the warm months of the year, squirrels will have more options available, so to speak, in the field and thus may leave your vehicle in peace. But if a squirrel is intent about it, it can even chew through a bx cable. It will take time though and hopefully I will have good notice of the work in progress. Note that the only sure remedy for squirrels is a sealed garage. That is the consensus from everyone in the scientific community.

Tabasco is delicious on George's rabbit stew!

Capnduane, I have indeed heard of the tastiness of the rabbits and the grouse, especially when done over hardwood coals. But, and as you perhaps read above, I am not a hunter. And how does one even butcher these tasty animals? I do fish, and as soon as I take one, I call it a day. My guns are more to protect my property from humans than from animals. (Theft of solar equipment is on the rise everywhere.) But I do have some friends who say that if I let them do some hunting on the land, it is 30 acres, they will give me a few steaks. I can get along with that! I wish that squirrels were considered a delicasy.

squirrel meat is a delicacy, it's fatty and high cholesterol, so very tasty if you're going 'back to the land' you should learn to eat local .... and a way to keep them away from your truck would be to plant nuts trees for them out away from the homestead, harvest some of the nuts yourself and dry them properly to store, scatter some near the trees in late winter/spring when their stash is getting low

Bill

Red58, I will definitely keep that in mind. Sounds like a fair deal. There are already plenty of nut trees on this wooded property -I guess that explains why there are so many squirrels around. As for dinner, I will probably at least taste roasted rabbit and grouse. But squirrel? I don't know. They remind me of rats, though I am sure that somewhere in the world, probably both are eaten regularly. The best hunting I have done so far has been taking brook trout from the stream. They are real good. I dropped a line and like five minutes later an 8" fish came in. Not huge, but a meal.

Fry the young ones. Older squirrels are tough as an old boot, so pressure-cook them until the meat can be deboned and make a roux of flour, bacon drippings and water, then add the deboned squirrel meat and a little red wine. Simmer the mix with dumplings made from flattened-out canned biscuit dough cut into 1" wide strips about 2" long, for about 30 minutes.

You'll be headed out to shoot more squirrels in no time!
Jerry

Hotrod, your squirrel stew sounds great. Here in So Calif we are not allowed to shoot tree squirrels. We can hunt ground squirrels and they are good eating also. Most people don't eat them, as they consider them vermin. Alden, I think Brook trout are the best trout to eat. an 8in brookie with eggs, for breakfast is a fine meal, especially cooked on a Coleman stove on the tailgate of a pickup beside a stream.....

Hotrod, that squirrel recipe might be on the exotic side for me. I am no survivalist. If it were not for there being a Walmart like an hour away, I would be losing weight quickly up there.
Capnduane, yes, and what with the beavers constantly building dams on the stream, there are plenty of spots to just stand and wait for the fish to go by. One could probably just scoop it out of the water with a net. I do the trout on a hardwood fire. An 8" fish takes very little wood that, once down to coals, does the fish perfect. I hear that once in a while a salmon can be pulled from this stream. That would be nice. I could live on salmon. Northeastern Maine has received good snowmelt and rainfall in recent years so the rivers and streams are really running.

Our diet includes a fair amount of venison, particularly since it's available on the hoof right out the back door, free, and the overpopulation in our area allows us to take a limit of three does a day over a 3-month hunting season. 3 bucks are allowed all season, but I can't seem to find a recipie to make those horns taste good! Of course, I don't have freezer space or the need for anywhere near that much meat, so I usually take 5 or 6 deer a season to keep the freezer filled. We process our own meat, and keep the local scavengers fed with the leftovers. Nothing gets wasted. Venison is a LOT healthier than beef, especially for am old cardiac cripple like me. Other than running out of some of the medicines we need in a few months, we would barely notice a total breakdown of civilization in the urban areas around us. The neighbors are nicer to be around than city folks, also!
Jerry

Hotrod, That peace and quiet is exactly what I was looking for when I acquired my land. My mental sanity has been crippled after a life in the city. Taking my marbles and finding another game. And you are right about your food being right out the back door. I am constantly surprised when I am walking with an experienced person and they are pointing out all of the food and medicine on the land. Wish I had gone there sooner. Years sooner.

we've been here 30+ years, and our children and grandchildren have been able to experience the advantages of growing up around stable, caring people. It would take a D-9 bulldozer to push me back into an urban environment, kicking and screaming all the way!
Jerry