Of course we all have our baling wire and duct tape stories. And I’m sure the more creative ones will make good reading, How about even more ambitious emergency or temporary repairs? Time to dig through the memory banks, and share yours.
Is That What They Call Chip Tuning? How Have You Improvised Repairs?
– Posted on December 11, 2011
Just wait ’til the intake suction compresses the pringles can like a straw and actually reduces the amount of air coming in vs. a stock intake! He’d be better off putting a K&N cone filter right on that joint just above the manifold. As far as ambitious mods on the level of fuckery in the picture, I’ve never done anything this bad.
Split coke can & two jubilee clips, sealing a leaky coolant manifold by the roadside.
Rescued a holiday and kept the car going for three weeks, until I had time to go scrapyard diving for a replacement part.
Nice one!
I never heard of a Jubilee clip, looked that up and it’s what we call a hose clamp. But I’m glad I looked it up, there’s a good story behind it.
😀 Thanks for providing the translation Mike!
My accursed Rover 2000 had one place on the engine where water was transferred through a short, sharp-cornered molded rubber hose. Since all the hoses on the car failed during a five- or six-month period (because they were made from natural rubber), that went too. I took a piece of heater hose and made a loop in it thus avoiding a trip to the dealer only to find out that the part would have to be ordered from the UK.
Then there was the time I had my gas-station guy swap a Chevy V8 engine into my 1960 Chevy pickup. I’d let the hydraulic clutch assembly go with the old six-cylinder engine when I sold it, so he had to improvise a clutch linkage. When I got the truck back I discovered that the clutch wasn’t quite disengaging with the pedal all the way to the floor. I was working at a metals lab at the time, the sampling room of which was equipped with an end mill, a metal lathe, and a couple of drill presses. I used those tools to fabricate an angle-iron extension for the clutch arm to solve the problem.
For many years I was a construction contractor. I had an employee many years ago that had a Dodge van, mid 60’s vintage. The fuel pump went out and he was unable to get a new one right away. The solution was to take a gas tank from an old pickup he had and mount it on the roof of the van. He then drilled a hole in the roof and ran a rubber fuel line to the carburetor of the engine which sat uncovered between the front seats. I guess the gravity feed thing worked because it did run, and really was a sight to behold. He drove it that way for a few weeks until the California Highway Patrol figured out that the gas tank wasn’t a storage pod and gave him a ticket. I really miss those days sometimes.
Yeesh! Potential Darwin Award winner.
My fudges are limited to vintage British motorcycles. Cut up beer cans make excellent exhaust pipe gaskets into the mufflers.
The exhaust started banging on my 94 Club Wagon. The rear exhaust hanger had rusted and broken, so I dummied up a piece of metal and a fastener and made a replacement. I hoped it would hold until it was time to replace the exhaust system. Both the exhaust system and my homemade bracket survived until we got rid of the car at 165K miles.
I had a floppy door hinge on my 71 Plymouth Scamp. You had to slam the door so hard to shut it, that I was afraid I would break something. First, I lowered the striker to meet the lower door, but had a gap at the top of the window. Plan B was to buy some big flat washers to use as shims between the lower door hinge and the door. It was still floppy, but now the latch and striker lined up perfectly.
The last one I can think of is on my 59 Plymouth Fury. There was a bad electrical connection to the fuel tank sending unit, so whenever the underside of the car got wet, the gas gauge indicated a full tank. I discovered that the pipe from the fender into the tank was a straight line, so on wet days when I wanted to know how much gas I had, I could just run a long wooden stick down the filler pipe and pull it back out to read it like a dipstick. Don’t the guys at the gas stations do the same thing on their tanks?
One more – best “I locked my keys in my car” story ever: In 1977, friends and I drove my 67 Galaxie 500 convertible to Indianapolis for the 500 time trials. 100 miles from home and I locked my keys in the car. No spare. After some discussion, I hit on an idea: I got the oil dipstick out of the engine and wiped it off. Then, as my friends pushed up on the side rail for the top, I fished the dipstick down (loop first) and popped up the door lock post. I will admit to being kind of pleased with myself on that one, as it saved me the cost of a new convertible top that my friends wanted to slice open.
Nice, I used my antenna once on auto lock doors. But the dipstick with the loop end is even better.
The gas gauge on my dad’s 1950 Packard quit working before the car had gone 75,000 miles, so we used the stick method for the rest of its days with us.
The car had a whistle in the gas filler pipe…when it quit whistling you knew it was almost full. Of course that was long before click-em-off nozzles were in use.
I know we got some miles out of a carb “rebuild” on a 74 350 Gutless that involved plastic straws from Cumberland Farms (a 7-11ish joint we’re plagued with in New England).
Figures it would be on a Jeep.
1984 VW Rabbit diesel: plastic grille was smashed when I got it. I cut it out with sidecutters so only the outer frame remained. Went to the department store and bought a plastic laundry basket, cut the sides out, and fitted them to the opening. Then I got some silver spray paint and painted them before fitting them in permanently.
Later the exhaust rotted out ahead of the muffler. I found a long chromed metal tube that had been part of a vacuum cleaner hose. I made a “straight pipe” out of it. Drove it for over a year like that. Let off the gas whenever I saw a police car to keep it quiet.
1988 GMC Suburban diesel: A friend and I went on a road trip to the east coast. While away, the downpipe from the exhaust manifold one one side of the engine blew out right at the seam at the 90-degree bend. I drove the wheels on the affected side up onto a curb so I could slide underneath from the front of the truck. I cut up a steel soup can and wrapped it around the pipe, held it on with 3 or 4 worm gear clamps. I alternated between tightening the clamps and tapping the can with a hammer to form it tightly around the pipe. That fix lasted for over a year, and it was a failure in another part of the exhaust system that ultimately required it to be replaced.
1994 Dodge RAM2500 diesel: throttle position sensor started to act-up. I replaced it with a potentiometer on the dashboard (which is apparently a fairly common fix). After some sleuthing I discovered that the PCM was actually reading the sensor incorrectly sometimes. I soldered a capacitor in parallel with the TPS and hooked it back up. On my first attempt the cap was too big so there was delayed upshift to 4th, lockup and unlock. I replaced it with a smaller cap and it’s been fine ever since.
In the cab there are “reading lights” in the small overhead console. You turn them on/off by pushing on the light itself. The plastic framework behind the lights broke so they’d push way into the console before turning on. I removed them and backed them up with a couple layers of some styrofoam sheet that used to be part of a food tray.
A 62 Pontiac with most of the rad cooling fins rottten. It worked great in the winter, in the spring? Not so well. So four of us young fella’s found our selves searching for some sort of fluid or water to top up the rad.
We did have a case of beer…..so lets just say….? We kinda used the beer in a creative way.
You drank the beer, then peed in the rad?
“We did have a case of beer…..so lets just say….? We kinda used the beer in a creative way.”
Sounds like ALCOHOL ABUSE!
1971 Ford Econoline van, that I bought used, for a song, on a buying trip to Atlanta 1991. Thing started, ran, and rode better than would be expected; had what I wanted; and the price was a dirt-cheap $500. SOLD!
The fun part was, driving it back. I made this trip solo, okay? With my Datsun King Cab with its towing bridle. I figured the 240 six should be able to handle the tow…and I was mostly right.
What it couldn’t handle…was a frayed accelerator cable. About an inch off the molded-lead end on the butterfly crank. Right about where the cable disappears into the outer guide. SNAP! On a Sunday, yet…twenty-year-old van, even a Ford dealer wouldn’t have the item in stock (as I later learned, once getting home) let alone Auto Zone.
Well…after swearing a lot, and weighing my options (I seriously considered abandoning the van; it would have been cheaper than a tow and ticket for fictitious plates) I stuck my head into one of those bottom-feeder parts stores. Emerging with a couple of clamps, I was able to jury-rig enough slack to overlap enough to get ONE clamp on there, and the throttle would mostly move through its travel.
Mostly. It wouldn’t open all the way (which was hard with a car in tow) and it tended to hang up when opened as far as I could step on it to do. After one such panic on a busy Atlanta surface street, I made the decision: travel with the doghouse off; so that when it happened again, I could just reach over and yank everything free.
And that’s what I did, for 800 miles. Actually it was a pretty easy reach; the bracket was right there by my knee. Trouble was…that six was LOUD! And there wasn’t any fan clutch on it; it was like being inside a jet engine.
I probably did a fair amount of damage to my hearing; but I got it home to Ohoho; spent a week’s worth of spare-time perusing boneyards looking for a cable. Finally I found one that wasn’t a perfect fit, but after six hours of cobbling, went in and did the job.
Had a similar problem in a CA Bedford van throttle linkage clip broke as soon as you lifted to shift gears or slow down the linkage came apart so open the dodhouse and use hand throttle noisy as but it worked. fascinating linkage on that van a cable would have been so simple in comparism it turned 3 right angles to reach the carb rhd and carb on the left side of the motor how they worked it out was a marvel.
Once got out of being stranded by replacing the throttle cable on my ’72 Fiat 124 wagon with a low “E” guitar string. Drove it like that for nearly a year before it died from other causes. I did have to tighten it up at first every few days (guitar strings stretch so it would get too much slack), but after a few days it worked and I didn’t have to think about it anymore. It was lucky I keep needle-nose pliers in the glovebox. Those, vice grips, and a screwdriver kit can fix almost anything, at least for awhile.
🙂
Well it isn’t a curbside classic, but the fuel pump went on my 2005 Mazda 6 back in 2009. The Mazda dealer (who’d serviced it since new) said “the fuel pumps don’t go on those, there’s nothing wrong with the car”, but it would periodically refuse to start. The solution, as suggested by the AA breakdown guy, was to buy a rubber mallet, and each time the Mazda wouldn’t start, whack the bottom of the fuel tank a few times. As long as there was a second person to wind the engine over while the fuel tank was being whacked, it worked a treat! Obviously lying under a car on rainy days wasn’t the nicest thing in the world, so we took it to Mazda dealer #2, who said “the fuel pumps often go on those 6s, you can tell it’s the pump if it starts when you hit the tank with a mallet”… You can guess which of the two dealers has serviced it since!
Reminds me of a disintegrating Morris Isis I had, the points on the SU elrctric pump were on the way out and it would stop pumping untill you gave it a few taps or you pulled over onto the rough going on the roadside and shook it into action. When it finally quit altogether a rumage thru the parts in the boot produced a Hillman fuel pump with hand primer a 20L drum and enough copper line to jury rig a tank on the passenger floor just use the hand primer to feed fuel to the carbs that worked well for several weeks until I scored a high pressure SU pump from a Jag as a replacement.
I sold a ’61 VW bug to a friend who drove it into the ground, and on the way he broke the accelerator linkage.He drilled a hole through the rear seat and strung a length of fishing line from the carb to the front seat area. He drove for a few weeks pulling on the line to accelerate and wrapping the line around his fist to cruise somewhat steadily.
My high school best friend’s sister had a pretty worn-out 2nd or 3rd-gen Corolla which we used one hot South Carolina afternoon to make a soda run or some such trip. The upper radiator hose burst on us a few miles from home, and rather than hoof it to go get help (pre-cell phone days!), we ended up tying an old sock around the burst area, and added some water to the radiator. It was enough to get us home…
I’ve had to crawl under more than one vehicle to remove portions of rotted exhaust systems in the middle of a trip. In fact, my current daily driver, a 2000 TDI New Beetle, has nothing past the catalytic, as the welds finally succumbed to winter road salt. I had to use a “jubilee clip” (grin) to hold the back end of the cat to a crossmember until I can get a new exhaust in place.
The list of ‘creative mechanical solutions’ required when driving vintage Volkswagens over a 14-year period is substantial. I once lost reverse and 1st gears in my ’71 bus on a long road trip, which I completed by mainly planning ahead so I never had to back away from anything. My ’64 Beetle had the clutch cable break, and the Idiot Guide was correct in that you can get home by carefully following the Procedure. Same when the brakes developed a bad wheel cylinder leak.
Lost the alternator in my ’66 Tempest on a road trip one night, and completed most of the trip running in blackout conditions, relying on a stop at a late-night garage for a half-hour on his charger, plus a full and bright moon to guide me along the back roads of South Carolina.
My ’71 Vega (first car) provided a fertile training ground for these kinds of repairs as well. Hot starts were just one of the problems common to any GM product that had the starter located right next to the exhaust downpipe, and a remote relay was the fix for that, at least until I repowered with a Buick V6.
More recently, we ran our old ’98 Grand Caravan through some deep slush some 5-6 winters ago, and enough chunks splashed up in the engine compartment to pop the serpentine belt off, stopping us “cold.”. A friend happened along who took us on to church, then back home afterwards. I borrowed my neighbor’s *huge* farm tractor to go retrieve the van, and after putting a space heater under a tarp around the van to melt the ice, popped the belt back into place.
I have experienced the serpentine belt thing myself a couple of times. The first was mine, and the second was one of the kids. Only after the second time did I come across the tip that you can slip the box end of one combination wrench over the open end of the other to make a long enough wrench with a jog in it so that you can get enough leverage on the tensioner.
When I was first married my wife had a 1990 vintage Legacy (subie) with odd electrical issues. Things like pound the dash to get the AC on or turn key three times shut of for 30 seconds then turn the key again to start. Well one day the car stopped running and wouldn’t start but the lights would all come on. I noticed that the fuel pump wasn’t making its usual little buzz when you turned the key. I pulled out the trunk carpet in hopes that subie had installed an access port which they had. Luckily I had a test light in my little boat repair kit that happened to be in the truck. I had my wife turn on the key while I checked the power lead going to the pump. Nothing the dashboard electrical gremilns had taken out something. Looking around i saw the tail light cover popped open and a little pit of exposed terminal. I shoved the test lead into the terminal for the lamp and clamped the other end on the terminal on the pump. Simple solution turn on the running lights fuel pump clicks on. Got us to the subie independent shop 4 towns over where some bad relay solder joints were found and repaired. allowing the car to be used another few months before once again crapping out for good.
This thread is scary Ive been bodging cars for years especially back in the day driving bombs a passing NZs 6 monthly warrant of fitness inspections.
Worn steering and suspension? no problem mix up bog in a grease gun and give your heap a grease tightens up all trhe loose joints lasts about a week long enuff to pass a W.O.F.
Hiding rust was always a challenge thoug inspectors BITD could only inspect visually tar covered newspaper looks just like chassis rails if enough dirt is on them 1/2 inch chicken wire and bog can reproduce nearly any panel a press can stamp but the real skill is hiding the repairs thats what sorts the amateur from the real sculptors.
Ive seen some clever stunts like a friend who bought a tidy MK2 Zephyr iy ran well no noise or smoke for a week then it started blowing clouds of blue smoke pulling the head showed someone had centre popped all the way around all 6 piston crowns to spread them back into the bores and cut the oil consumption that car was from a car yard too.
After pulling our tent trailer across the border into Maine for a camping trip, the flex pipe on the exhaust on our 2002 Mazda MPV decided to blow a hole into itself. Needless to say, it was very loud.
The fix was some muffler tape, a metal clothes hanger to hold the pipe up, and a Coke can as a patch. That was enough to get us across the border again without catching the eye of the customs agents. The patch actually held for a couple of weeks, until we got it repaired.
On another trip to Maine (bad luck) the steering column in my 98 Saturn started smoking badly. There was a short in the signal light switch, that caused a small fire which melted part of the column. My wife and I made it to the hotel for our anniversary, where I parked it until morning. Our anniversary dinner that night was at a truck stop. The dealer was closed on the weekend, so I just pulled the fuse and drove without signal lights for the couple of days we were down there. I don’t think anyone even noticed. 🙂
That was fine until the muffler detached itself before we left for home. The trip back was pretty loud and hairy, as a state trooper followed us for a few miles heading back to the border. I had a few turns to make, but luckily he passed us before I had to use my non-existent signal lights. Luckily the stretch he followed us on was mostly downhill, so the car wasn’t too loud. 🙂
I welded an old piece of a scrap metal onto a Ford Tempo to repair a rust hole.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveseven/2772768773/in/photostream/
then used the rest of the same piece a few years later to make a Lada Niva dash functional.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveseven/4737742728/
I used the skin off a 1966 Chrysler trunk lid to fabricate a new floorpan for my friend’s Jeep Grand Wagoneer.
When I was in high school, a friend drove the family’s 63 Newport. When it came time to repair the floor, somehow they latched on to a big red stopsign. This always got a doubletake whenever some mechanic was working under the car.
Most recently, my J bodies muffler retaining straps had broken at different times, but both in the winter. On the Cavalier, I was trying to be cute by purchasing the biggest worm and gear (hose or jubilee) clamps I could find and by wrapping the large one around the muffler and a smaller one around the remains of the factory mount, after having threaded it into the larger one. It lasted about six months, but that got me to fixing it in warmer weather.
On the Sunfire the driver’s side resonator did the same thing, only I was at work when it happened and I needed to secure it before I drove home. On a then 13 year old exhaust system, I didn’t need something cracking and breaking off of the freeway. Same deal as the Cavalier, when the factory clamp gives out, the mount, essentially a steel rod bent into the shape of a hanger, remains, the rubber insulator and the clamp fall off. Since I didn’t have access to Home Depot, I found several old wire coat hangers, and fashioned them into a clamp-like device that held the resonator on until I would be able to get to the parts store. Unfortunately for me, it was dealer only part. Fortunately, they were relatively cheap ($17 each) and went on in a snap.
Something Bryce said about a little bit of dirt on the chassis: We did the same thing when a friend of mine and I raced cars at the local dirt track. We weren’t supposed to weld the rear end into a locked rear, but we did anyway. We werent supposed to change the heads or the intake manifold on the car, but we did anyway. Thank God for black Permatex gasket and the fact that we could run our car out in his family’s farm field to get some dirt on our recent ‘upgrades’ to our race cars.
Not like we weren’t doing anything that anybody else was doing. In racing, it’s all about how you interpret the rules. Or don’t get caught interpreting the rules… 🙂
One night I got inspired to swap on the cheap junkyard headers I bought for my ’68 Cougar. I threw the headers on and bolted up what was left of the rusty bolt-on collectors.
The problem? My main pipes were 1/4 smaller in diameter than the collectors. My solution? Took the collectors off, wrapped the pipes with Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil, and twisted / shoved the collectors back on.
Worked well for about a year until the rest of the rusty factory exhaust ( downstream of the headers ) started to disintegrate.
That car was a textbook example of Murphy’s Law, but I loved it. I still have it sitting in storage. It hasn’t moved in 12 years though :)) .
I had an old H-Lux (’70 or ’71). It was a DD for a few years of college, but eventually got relegated to “Toy” status. Once it died while out in the woods. A quick check of under the distributor cap showed that the rotor had a notch that fit onto the shaft. That notch was broken, so a judiciously applied wad of 100mph tape shoved up the rotor hole held it in place long enough to get to a parts store. After a few years of the driver door sagging, it was about to fall off (the passenger side was getting bad too). The solution was a sawzall and a case of beer. We used some of the recently removed roof steel as plates when we welded the doors shut. The end came when I was up in the hills again and noticed it was pulling to the right (obviously a flat, right?). When I got out to check it the right wheel was not pointing in the same direction as the left one. I think it was the control arm that had detached at one end. The bolt was still there, but was stripped so it wouldn’t stay in place. A piece of nylon strap was used to tie the part back in place. It got down the 30 miles to pavement. It was still tied together when my local Michael Freeman type came and took it off my hands.
nice lol !