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Car repair for dummies-Darwin award edition
- Thread starter maynard
- Start date
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No kidding - shoulda used duct tape.
equiprx
Luke Skywalker
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It looks like they used Gorilla tape so they should be good.
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Seems like a fair “in bush” repair
DrEntropy
Great Pumpkin
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Whatever gets ya home!!
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I had a large bolt come out of the intake on my Spitfire while driving up to the crest. Think it was a blocked off port for a vacuum gauge. Left a gaping air-sucking hole in the intake and car would not run. I used a quarter and some duct tape for a temporary repair. It wasn’t pretty but it got me home.Whatever gets ya home!!
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Got stuck in the South African bush in my friends Toyota Land Cruiser with a flat tire. No problem, he had a spare and tools.
Big problem was that he DIDN’T have a jack.
We were a group of 4-5 guys so we pulled up next to a rather large rock, found a log and used it as a lever to raise the wheel off the ground. Tire changed and it got us back.
Big problem was that he DIDN’T have a jack.
We were a group of 4-5 guys so we pulled up next to a rather large rock, found a log and used it as a lever to raise the wheel off the ground. Tire changed and it got us back.
AngliaGT
Great Pumpkin
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I was towing my empty car trailer behind our Aerostar van.
I was going up highway 199 near the Oregon border,when the trailer
pulled loose,only connected by the safety chains.
Seems I had checked all the nuts & bolts,EXCEPT the one hold-
ing the trailer ball on.It ground the shaft on the ball at a diagonal angle.
It was then that I remembered an old ad for Vise Grips that I saw in an
issue of Popular Science years ago.
I took a pair of Vise Grips & tightened it to the remaining shaft.
I went slowly,until I got to Grants Pass,Oregon,& bought a new ball.
I was going up highway 199 near the Oregon border,when the trailer
pulled loose,only connected by the safety chains.
Seems I had checked all the nuts & bolts,EXCEPT the one hold-
ing the trailer ball on.It ground the shaft on the ball at a diagonal angle.
It was then that I remembered an old ad for Vise Grips that I saw in an
issue of Popular Science years ago.
I took a pair of Vise Grips & tightened it to the remaining shaft.
I went slowly,until I got to Grants Pass,Oregon,& bought a new ball.
Must admit that I have repaired a main leaf on a Morris Marina with a clamp plate till I could get a replacement spring. The repair held for over a week and the new spring from a junk yard was fitted. Biggest problem was getting the old spring off and not pulling the spring mount off the car. Rust was doing a number on that area.
Sold the car a few weeks later. It still had 9 months on its MOT.
David
Sold the car a few weeks later. It still had 9 months on its MOT.
David
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Swamp buggying makes for many weird temporary fixes. Steering box with fore-aft pitman arm on my 40s jeep broke in the woods. I turned the drag link around so it came out under the bumper. Pinched two steel bars with holes in the ends around the recess in the drag link, slid a pipe over the top, chained the pipe to the bumper. I sat on the hood and pushed for left and pulled for right while someone else worked the gas pedal.
Bob
Bob
DrEntropy
Great Pumpkin
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Gotta love it!
Had the throttle cable let go in the Spider about thirty yards from the driveway, neighbor "volunteered" to push. But instead, Mitsy was standing in the drive so I asked her to bring me the spool of nylon string in a drawer and tied it to throttle link under the hood, over the windshield and drove it home. Neighbor said: "I've never seen anything like THAT before!"
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OK - my story: We were in Honduras on a mission trip. Had a local guide drive us (six plus the driver) up into the countryside for a long daytrip. Along the way, the accelerator linkage let go on the Hyundai van. Driver's cellphone was of no use, so I "commandeered" a paper clip and fashioned a connector for the cable. Made it back to the hotel in time for a great supper!
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Not me, but my dad. He was on another of his cross-Texas drives, selling oils for Sinclair Refining company. Halfway between Fort Worth (home) and El Paso, the radiator in his 1950 Nash Rambler started leaking. He'd stop, fill it up, then again in another dozen miles or so. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Stopped in a rural grocery store, bought some Quaker oatmeal. Poured some into the radiator - leak stopped after five minutes.
Sold the car soon after. Buyer looked something like this:
Stopped in a rural grocery store, bought some Quaker oatmeal. Poured some into the radiator - leak stopped after five minutes.
Sold the car soon after. Buyer looked something like this:
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Don’t know how true this is but I heard it on “Car Talk”.
A guy called in seeking advice. According to the caller, he was driving in the desert when his temp gauge started to rise. Upon checking he noticed that he was low on coolant so he urinated into the radiator and it was enough to get him back. He was calling in to see what he needed to do now that he was home.
The advice he got from Click and Clack was to “Flush” the radiator
A guy called in seeking advice. According to the caller, he was driving in the desert when his temp gauge started to rise. Upon checking he noticed that he was low on coolant so he urinated into the radiator and it was enough to get him back. He was calling in to see what he needed to do now that he was home.
The advice he got from Click and Clack was to “Flush” the radiator
Don't know it its ture or not, but heard a similiar story about a pilot who couldn't lower his landing gear due to a hydraulic leak. Urinated into the reservoir to get enough pressure.Don’t know how true this is but I heard it on “Car Talk”.
A guy called in seeking advice. According to the caller, he was driving in the desert when his temp gauge started to rise. Upon checking he noticed that he was low on coolant so he urinated into the radiator and it was enough to get him back. He was calling in to see what he needed to do now that he was home.
The advice he got from Click and Clack was to “Flush” the radiator
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But your car couldn't stop sneezing!Black pepper was what some folks used for small rad leaks back when I was a kid. It worked and didn't plug up the system!
DrEntropy
Great Pumpkin
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Not necessarily as "heroic" but a rock from the Lake Erie shore once got us across the last half of Alligator Alley, using it to thump the bulkhead where the failing SU fuel pump in the MGB was mounted.
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In high school the solenoid started to go out on my pickup's starter. I was broke until payday but the starter was easy to access from the engine compartment so I just tossed a ball peen hammer in the cab and would tap the solenoid when it didn't want to work. When that failed I started using an old screw driver to jump between the bolts on the back of the solenoid to start it. I did this for about a week until I got paid.