The bane of a stored car, saw this on the MGB GT site Options

[dr914@autoatlanta.com]

[dr914@autoatlanta.com]

we once had a pristine 45,00 mile Nepal orange 75 2.0 from Colorado, immaculate in every way with original paint. Upon receiving the car, we noticed the worst dead animal smell in the world radiating from the car, the previous owner surely knew of it and probably sold the car because of it.
The car was unsalable because of it, so we started the usual things, removing the gas tank, removing the seats, removing the outer rocker panesl,searching for the smell, putting our nose to various areas, the smell was really really bad, After finding nothing we then got more extreme, removing the engine, the back firewall pad the complete interior except for the upper dash, flushing the heater tubes with a steam cleaner up through the exit tube behind the radio speaker, removing the complete ventilation system, all to no avail, the smell persisted.
Finally desperate, we got our best smeller to put his nose all over the car and the worst of it was coming from the right rear heater tube into the body. Having flushed the tube thoroughly, we knew that the smell could not be in the heater tube. There was only one other place it could be and we could not understand how it could be............. Inside the longitudinal!!!!!!! Reluctantly we only had one choice..... to cut the car open. It was a real tragic day that day, cutting a chunk out of a virgin low mile 914, but when we did, there it was, a rats nest packed with six dead rats all inside the longitudinal next to the heater tube muffler. We cleaned the inside thoroughly and welded the piece back in and reinstalled the long carpet along with the rest of the car. FINALLY the smell was gone, and every stitch of the car now very clean.
So although we felt like real butchers to cut this virgin, we had no other choice. I will add to the "damn rodent" feeling we all have here