First and foremost

Thank you for your service and come home safe.

Mothballs work very well for rodant, I usually buy a few and put them under the item being stores (in my case mowers and snowblowers) also on top of the engine. In addition, mouse bait works well also to try and entice them to go elsewhere over your engine.

 

First of all -Thank you for you service and please come home safely! I'd like to add, make a checklist of all the things you do. If you decide to add steel wool to the intake or dryer sheets to strategic locations or whatever you do, make sure to keep that list right on the driver's seat. This way, you won't forget to remove anything or forget to do anything prior to initial startup upon your return. As far as battery tenders go, you can pick up one like this I've been using one for many years on my tractors and they never fail to start when it's time to snow blow. I also use one on my mom's car since she's been in hospital and a nursing home since April. Mothballs in my shed keep the rodents away from my power equipment as well. Goodspeed and safe return!

 

Concern #1 for me would be mice, chipmunks, etc. having 9 months of free range time on wiring, hosing, and obviously running amuck in your cab. My uncle had a vehicle totaled out by insurance because a mouse destroyed wiring harnesses. Unfortunately, the only way to 100% prevent that is to put your truck up on metal stands (not blocks) about 12" off the ground and grease the snot of the stands so that mice can't grip on and crawl up. Make sure no food bags, crumbs, old french fries (RIP), etc., are left behind. Throw a handful of sticky traps around the storage unit too. Good luck! Thanks for your service, and be safe!

 

Don’t know about these current gens, but my 03 sat 6mos+ untouched on MANY deployments. I never did anything special. I disconnected the battery the first couple times but didn’t even bother with even that much on the rest. First cold start, it wasn’t the smoothest running for the first 30secs or so but always smoothed out to normal very quickly. The first few miles you could feel all the sitting in the tires as well, but it also returned to business as usual after that. Nothing to note other than that, even the later deployments after the truck had nearly 15yrs under its belt. Some gas stabilizer prob wouldn’t be a bad idea, and would be a plus to get the tires off the ground if practical, and disconnect the battery since all the electronics in these new ones would surely drain it, is prob about the most I would ever worry about.

 

I would suggest NOT using a trickle charger, just unhook the battery and consider you may need to replace it when you return. We use trickle chargers al the time on my dept. and I have seen numerous ones go bad and cook a battery. You run the risk of a fire since it will be completely unattended for the duration.

Put some stabil in a full tank of non-ethanol and let it run long enough to be sure its through the system. Otherwise just park it and leave it.

 

Again thank you all for all the help! Ill definitely make a checklist because knowing me my *** would drive away with a sock in the exhaust. I’ll also look into just unhooking the battery as far as the new gens are concerned. Again, thank you all for the ideas and most of all the well wishes. Thankfully its still a ways off so i have more time to plan. The unit will also be climate controlled so
unsure if that changes anything

 

Also as for unhooking everything. What about a possibility of a movile
jumper in the event the battery is dead on return to just rehook and then jump
myself?

 

If it is cold where you will be leaving it I would not just disconnect the battery. I did that once to my GT500 and it cost me a battery in the spring after one or two starts. I would leave it on a quality tender and not worry about it.

 

My last deployment I stored my vehicle in my garage, took the negative battery cable off, added stabil and a full tank of gas to prevent condensation, put steel wool in the end of the exhaust pipe, and put moth ***** on the ground around the vehicle to keep critters away. 7 months later I came back from the desert, hooked the battery cable up and it started right up without issue.

 

Awesome thanks guys!