Crazy fixes that worked

We had six people in my friend's dad's old late 70's beater Cadillac screwing around when we were teens. He hit something on the crest of a hill and knocked the exhaust pipe off the cat so the pipe was hanging down facing forward instead of backwards if that makes sense, meaning he couldn't just drive it that way and drag it. The solution? Get everyone else inside, roll down the windows, and wrap some clothesline that was in the trunk all the way around the car a few times and hope it doesn't catch on fire. It worked well enough to get it home.
 
Originally Posted by Char Baby
When I was 7, I poured chocolate milk on my cereal. It was great then and is still great today after 60 yrs.
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Friend broke the front yoke of the driveshaft, and split the tail housing of the transmission. The output shaft was not bent, and we found the pieces. We had a big roll of safety wire so we wrapped the tailshaft housing as tight as we could. Used a couple of big ole hose clamps for good measure. Coated the whole mess in JB weld with a new bushing and seal. Got driveshaft from wrecking yard. It didn't even leak. Ran for several more months until he rolled the car about 5 times. Good thing we wore seatbelts. No-one even had a scratch.

We sawed enough of the top off to get in, kicked out the windshield remains. Cranked it up and the stereo still worked! Delco made one [censored] of a 8 track. Then drove it to the wrecking yard. The old cars were pretty good as long as you did not hit something solid, then all the hard parts would stab you to death. The poor guy died of liver failure at 53, after hard drinking every day for about 25 years after a different accident left him in constant pain. It was a hard loss, he was a great guy, just not lucky.

Rod
 
Years ago I was out on the Chesapeake bay in a small boat with an outboard engine. I was way out with no boat traffic. The fuel line broke right at the nipple going into the engine. No tools except for a rusted frozen shut pair of pliars, a fishing knife and a beer can. I tied the rusted pliars onto a line and threw them overboard for a soak. After about 15 minutes under water I was able to get them to sorta work. I cleaned up the fuel line with the knife, inserted it onto the fuel flange, and clamped it with the beer can tab using the pliars. I sweated it all the way back just hoping the gas line would stay on. It did and I will never forget that.
 
Other fixes include using JB weld and fiberglass to make molded brake shoes. Not very successful smoked a lot. Using brake fluid to stop oil leaks. Worked long enough to trade it off.

Then there was a MB diesel that burned so much oil it just about would not stop running. They made a manual lathe to cut piston groves wider. The you could file to fit American rings. You could knurl the piston skirt or just stretch it with ball peen hammer over a JD D piston pin until it fit. New rod bearings and the thing ran pretty good, for a 2 ton car with maybe 100 horsepower. It did get almost 30 mpg during the first gas crisis, that was useful. Starting during the winter was not good, so added a heater to it. Took forever to warm up. We got rid of it because the cost of the other parts like suspension, brake, starter, was so high it ate up more than all the fuel savings. Getting smoked by a 6 cylinder falcon was demoralizing. Running good and not burning oil with a new clutch, starter and brakes we sold it for about 3X what we had in it. That made me happy. We saw it running for about 2 or 3 more years. It was a tank though.
Rod
 
Originally Posted by walterjay
Years ago I was out on the Chesapeake bay in a small boat with an outboard engine. I was way out with no boat traffic. The fuel line broke right at the nipple going into the engine. No tools except for a rusted frozen shut pair of pliars, a fishing knife and a beer can. I tied the rusted pliars onto a line and threw them overboard for a soak. After about 15 minutes under water I was able to get them to sorta work. I cleaned up the fuel line with the knife, inserted it onto the fuel flange, and clamped it with the beer can tab using the pliars. I sweated it all the way back just hoping the gas line would stay on. It did and I will never forget that.


Too funny- that is some McGiver crossed with Gilligans Island adventure ! What part of the bay did this happen ?
 
Speaking of using beer cans to fix things back when I was young, dumb and poor I had a C10 with a whole in the exhaust right be hind the cab so I cut up a beer can and wrapped it around the pipe with a couple hose clamps, it worked so well when I got home I put a soup can on so it would last longer.
 
I remember this old M-B diesel wagon came in for work with a plastic barrel in the back and clear plastic tubing for fuel line. The owner was an old eccentric hippie who lived in the woods. The contraption was his bio-diesel fuel system. It smelled like french fries going down the road.
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I had a1959 Edsel and headed to a Reno car show from Phoenix. Generator died in Kingman,Az. Put one on it at the Western Auto and polarized it and all was fine. Made it to Reno and won 2nd place in the show and headed home that night. Between Reno and Vegas the headlights dimmed and the charge light came on. Checked it out and the brushes in the were worn out. Was 2 AM and My wife was stressing. Found a pencil in the glove box and I had a pocket knife so I whittled down pencil pieces to put between the brush and the spring to make it work all the way back to Western Auto in Kingman. They gave me another one and no more problems
 
I can't remember them all. A few I've done:

The thrust bearing of the windshield wiper motor armature of my '72 Subaru (below) shredded. I replaced it with a shirt button, and had no further trouble with it.
The threads of the aluminum thermostat housing in that car galled. I drilled clear through out the other side, and installed a smaller diameter bolt with nut on the other side. Installed two aftermarket cruise control systems in the Subaru. The more successful one was supposed to work only with American rear-drive cars with automatic transmission. I made it work on the Japanese fwd with manual, although I had to buy extra magnets to attach to an inner CV joint for the speed pick-up. Same system was later transferred to the Mazda.

Air injection pipes rusted off the exhaust pipe of the '81 Mazda, and also off the 4 air inlet ports in the exhaust manifold. I covered the resulting hole in the exhaust pipe with a screw-type hose clamp, which was barely wide enough to cover the hole. Replaced the threaded connections to the 4 manifold inlet ports with 4 oil drain plugs (which used the same thread size and pitch). It never leaked in several hundred thousand additional miles. A coolant bypass hose rotted on that car. Replaced it with silicone hose from a coffeemaker, which lasted much longer.

When a shift cable for the rear derailleur of a bicycle breaks far from home, the derailleur shifts the chain to the smallest sprocket, which isn't conducive to getting over hills without undue strain. When that has happened, I've jammed it to run on a larger sprocket using a coin, small stone, or other random roadside treasure (i.e., litter).
 
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I used JB Weld and some flexible electrical conduit to fabricate an air intake line on a 84 ltd v6 with a cruddy Holley carb.That carb had a metal line that fed into the base of the carb from the intake.That line had broke at the fitting on the carb.So I had to fabricate something to make the car drivable.It was still in place when I sold it a few years later.I has changed an electric fuel pump on that car in the July heat in a graveyard using a P38 can opener.
 
This one's hot off the press. My 05 prius with 288k miles was having an absolute conniption in the drizzly rain. It kept demanding that I park on a level surface with the e-brake on while tooling down the highway at 70 MPH! It also dinged and turned on a bunch of scary lights.

The fix was finding "pin 13" of the transmission computer and giving it a constant +12 Volts by splicing one wire into the cigarette lighter.

Admittedly, this is more of a sedate fix for a crazy symptom.
 
Stud broke off on my '61 352 CID Ford engine exhaust manifold. Was able to use a heavy duty C clamp to get it back in place. Worked fine and didn't leak for several thousand miles.
 
Not a mechanical fix but my mom started to complain to my dad that her legs were getting wet in our early 60's automobile. The floor had rusted out.

He took a 5 pound Hills Brothers coffee can, cut it and flattened it out. It was laid out over the hole. Wires ran thru holes punched in the can and the floor and were tightened up. The last step was to apply roofing tar underneath to cover it all.

That repair lasted for many many years.
 
Rubberchicken....I was somewhere in the middle between Millers Island and the Western shore. It was in the 70's a weekday. Not a boat to be seen for miles.
 
Broke a hard plastic EVAP line on my Durango while doing spark plugs. Got a piece of fuel hose, some hose clamps, and a roll of electrical tape. Cut out 6" of cracked line, replace with fuel hose, clamp it down, and seal it with electrical tape. Never threw a code!
 
Well after I ran over a rather decent sized tree with my car... And it ripped out my right side fog light. I did what any good redneck would do.... Tape it back in there... The light bulb was replaced and it worked...

Used Gorilla tape .. that did not hold hardly 3 months...Used regular duct tape. Barely held 3 months...

Well bring that I had access to hospital tape with the string in it... Used that... Held perfectly for a year... And even after a year it just needed a bit of reinforcement... Then I think to myself... We actually use that on people.

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I had all but one of the bolts holding the distributor cap on a 2000 Civic (yes Honda was still using distributors that recently) break off, so I used a worm drive hose clamp around the whole thing to hold it together. It worked for months, maybe over a year, before I had it in a shop and they got the bolts out and replaced with new ones. One of my early lessons that most automotive work isn't that hard until you encounter a stuck fastener.

jeff
 
While headed west on rt 90 in Mass on our way to the Big E in a 66 VW bug when it came to a stop across from a Zayles store. The throttle cable broke at the carb so I ran across 4 lanes bought a small set of vice grips and clamped the cable together. The engine idled around 1500 RPM but we got there and back. One year later the wife and 7 year son had the Volks come to a complete stop at Long Sands beach Maine. Went over with our second car to find the engine seized. Grabbed the he back bumper and yanked forward and backed until the engine broke free. It then started with a very loud knock so I added a quart of 20-50 oil and a bottle of STP and drove 50 miles home at 20 miles per hour. Got a rebuilt engine at a junk yard and several other adventures before we sold it.
 
In my old blazer going to work one day rear u joint got loose. As I got on the off ramp to limp home it came off the rear yoke. Pulled the shaft out and threw it in the back, found a styrofoam coffee cup alongside the road and taped it on with ductape. Put it 4wd and drove for two weeks with front wheel drive.

Learned that trick in high school shop class. Guy with an old full time fwd Chevy broke the spider gears out of the diff. They cleaned out the broken parts and locked the transfer case in and drove it till it died. I laugh now when I see those big dumb jacked up trucks sitting along side the road with the driveshaft hanging there.
 
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