Isn’t that standard practice (for second hand transits at least)? Mine are pretty lame too. Reault 25 with faulty cooling fan switch, thing was not coming on. Any speed above 10mph kept enough air moving to keep the engine temp from red-lining. A five mile drive though London at 5:30pm. 10mph? Not a chance. Pulled over with a red hot engine. Rummaged around and found a couple of feet of mains cable, pulled apart the inline fuse and wired the live side of the fan straight to the battery +ve, whirr.
Ford Escort headlights stalk switch packed up. A pin poked though the appropriate wires worked until I ran out of fresh/clean spots. Re-using old holes tended to result in arcing and melted plastic.
I guess the best true McGyver repair (I did a LOT of workarounds, like driving a couple of miles without the clutch when the cable suddenly snapped as I downshifted on the freeway off-ramp) was when my accelerator linkage went out. I used the plastic-ish twine used to tie bundles of newspapers to get me going again. It was laying right next to my car in the parking lot and was just the right length.
It worked really good except - not surprisingly - it didn’t permit decelerations. I had to plan WAY ahead to slow down and do some serious downshifting too. But hell, it got me around for a couple of days until I could get the bleeping parts and get it fixed properly.
I did that. I don’t remember if it was on the '48 Willys or the '66 MGB. I think it was the jeep. IIRC I was able to take the loose end of the cable and control the throttle with it while driving the car.
I think my best repair on the fly was an old off roading trick. I had a '71 Scout and had driving it into the brush, literally, and gotten a good sized hole in the radiator. So I popped a potato into the hole. Not perfect, but it got me home. I miss that truck.
When I was in the service a buddy had a corvette with a leak around the carburetor. The gas would ooze out of the carb and pool on top of the engine. Generally a bad thing if it got as far as the exhaust manifold. We were taking the car home to his parents house and bringing back his less of a pain in the ass Buick. (which I later totaled.)
There we are at night on the NJ turnpike in the rain on bald tires stopping for gas a couple of times. Leaving the car running we would jump out with wads of paper towels in each hand to sop up the gas.
I solved a similar problem by remounting the right-hand blade so that it swept further over into the left side of the windshield. It looked like I was trying to emulate some bargain-basement “rice boy”, but it got me home.
I remember having to scrounge through all of the ashtrays and litter bins in my '84 Voyager when the temperature switch for the radiator fan failed, to find some old twist ties to use as jumper wires to get me cooled down and safely home.
I got about 4 blocks per tie before they each melted like overloaded fuses. Why didn’t I stop at the grocery store in the strip mall where I pulled over to see why I was overheating to see if they had any “real” insulated automotive wire? Because I had a big coil of “real” wire at home and didn’t feel I needed any more cluttering-up the kitchen junk drawer! Stopped 4 times when once would have done! Went on a treasure hunt for old Baggie ties. Wasted time and took the chance that I’d run out of ties and have to be towed from the street rather than a parking lot. Really stupid–maybe I can blame it on the 95-degree heat to some extent–but stupid nonetheless.
This goes way back. My first car was a 1950 Plymouth. Of course it had a mechanical fuel pump and late one night the fuel pump diaphram ruptured—I let the air out of the spare tire, jumped on the side of the tire until the bead broke, cut a piece out of the innertube and made a new diaphram for the fuel pump.
Not a repair, per se, but when Dweezil was a baby, I once got stuck on an icy road. I’d had to stop on an uphill slant because of a traffic light, and when the light turned green the car had insufficient traction to get moving again. Frantic searching around the car turned up neither cat litter nor sand, and in fact pretty much nothing that looked useful. In desperation, I grabbed the one disposable item I could find - a box of Kleenex - and jammed a handful of tissues under each front tire.
I got into a car wreck in a 1984 Honda Accord, somebody cut off everyone on the highway, big pile up ensued. I was able to get the frond end of a 1985 Accord, but wouldn’t you know it, they didn’t bolt up the same?
But if you take the hardware off of a toilet, you can make it work.
And if you spray paint the exposed brass parts, nobody could tell…
Replaced a broken PCV doo-dad on a Jeep by replacing it with a Rube Goldberg-inspired collection of plumbing bits: screwed an iron reducing nipple into the rubber grommet on the valve cover, a right-angle brass elbow screwed into that, then another reducer thing to mate with the hose. Looked crazy, but cheaper than going to a dealer as this wasn’t a part carried by the local Kragen.
A Plymouth Horizon stretched my abilities. Patched a tire on it with shoe sole “goop,” paper clips kept the radiator fan running, a stick held the rear hatch open, and a liberal shot of 3M’s “Super 77” spray glue plugged a leaking carburetor mounting gasket.
A Subaru drove me to improvise tools. A lawn sprinkler tool was adapted to work on the Soob’s brakes, and a mega-jumbo set of Vise-Grips saved the day when the oil pump decided to crack about a 16th of an inch outside of the engine block.
I’ve no done it personally, but panty hose can be used as an emergency “V” belt in an older car. I don’t think they’d be long enough to replace a serpentine belt.
Those are the things that can usually be restored using an emory board from the purse of a handy female.
My best was on the car (early bronco, fairly beat already) of a fellow hang-glider pilot. He launched, and his girlfriend broke a key (wrong key) off in the ignition switch.
By removing one farly exposed speaker wire, splitting it, and splicing it, I made a wire long enough to feed the hot side of the coil. I then started it (three times, she kept killing it) using a shorter piece on the starter solinoid.
I don’t seem to recall seeing Gordy with that girl again.
Heh, I have a good one.
The place: US Route 1 in Stafford, VA.
The Time: Noon, middle of July.
Conditions: Brutal. About 98 degrees, no wind, 99.999% humidity. No AC, power steering, or reliable cooling system.
The Car: a 1977 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. Primer gray. As in primer, no paint.
The Problem: Engine starts to run rough. Hear sucking sound coming from vincinity of the intake manifold. The engine was hot, the overflow tank contained water at a rolling boil. The heat from the engine had caused the old carberator gasket to crack. This caused the engine to say: “Fuck it, I’ve had enough of this shit!” and cease to run.
The Solution: Walk along US Route 1 into Stafford proper. To the NAPA parts store.
Purchases:
(1) Carberator gasket for an Chevy 308. [I know it’s an Olds, but we took the V6 out and stuffed a bigger engine in there, sue me.]
(1) Line wrench. To remove the fuel lines.
(1) Gal. Anti-freeze, concentrated.
(2) Cold Drinks. [Free] The guy behind the counter gave us each a cold beer he had in the back. Best damn thing I have ever tasted in my life.
Gee, that Submit button is awful close to the Preview post button isn’t it? :o
Anyway, walk back to the car. Replace the carberator gasket on the side of the road, fill the over flow tank with radiator fluid, and pour a bit down into the radiator too. Start her up and she ran like a dream back home. After a brief stop for some more beer.
I had a friend once who ran out of gas during a drive from Monterey, CA to San Angelo, TX. He claimed to have poured a bottle of vodka in his Jeep’s gas tank, getting about 30 miles out of the deal and making it to a gas station. Once the trip was over he had to get a new engine put in. I don’t know enough about engines to call bullshit on this. Possible?
Mine involves a race car. It was a season championship race and I needed a good race to finish in the top 5 in the season point standings. A couple of cars crashed at the start of the race and I cut through the infield to avoid the mess. When I came back on the track the gas pedal fell to the floor and my car would just idle along at 10 mph. Luckily the race was red flagged and would be restarted so I ducked into the pits to see what was wrong. Opening the hood I found the throttle linkage was broke. I grabbed a roll of bailing wire and ripped off about 5 feet, hooked one end to the carburator linkage and fed the other end through a small hole in the firewall. I hopped back in the car and fashioned a loop out of the other end of the wire. I had to restart the race at the back of the pack so I knew I was in for a long day. I steered with my left hand and controlled the throttle with my right hand and ended up with a 6th place finish in the race and a top 5 spot in the point standings. The race was 100 laps long and ran from the restart to finish without any other caution flags. The wire broke where it had been rubbing on the firewall about 1/2 a lap after I took the checkered flag.
I’m totally useless at vehicle repair, which is why I buy a new car when my warranty runs out. My dad, however, is Mr. Fix-it. My favorite repair was the time we were off-roading in our totally awesome International Harvester jeep-y thing and the bumper was ripped off by some rocks. Dad hopped out with his chainsaw and felled a nice 12" round tree and lashed it to the IH with barbwire. He liked how macho this set-up looked and drove around looking like Fred Flintstone for the next three years.
Was driving along the highway, I-65S, from Indy to Ft Campbell mid-January 03 right before I deployed to Iraq the first time, when all of the sudden my seat just started to slide and lounge back soo much that I couldnt even see where I was going. So I sat straight up until I could pull over onto the shoulder. Once I pulled over, I took a look underneath the seat to see that one of the bolts had broken. I had no hardware anywhere in the car, but I had remember that I just purchased some zipties to use as handcuffs in Iraq. I fixed up a couple of these zipties and continued my trip home. I never replaced the zipties as they worked fine for the next month. Oh btw Subaru issued a recall for this purpose … …
While hunting in the mountains, miles away from any repair shop, one of the rifles discharges in the cab of the truck. The bullett goes into the engine compartment doing lots of damage. Specifically, to the radiator. with the aid of duct tape, clothes hangers and surfboard wax, most of the damage was mitigated. After the radiator was plugged, every liquid from beer to human urine was used to fill the reservoir. (I warned you)
My friends and I were riding around on a hot summer’s day in an 80’s vintage Ford Fiesta when it started to overheat. We pulled over and found the thermostat was no longer turning on the electric fan when needed. A little experimentation showed the fan worked fine so we took the wire from the horn and hooked it to the fan instead. Whenever the temperature gauge started to creep up all you had to do was push the horn button for a while to cool things back down.
This worked so well we didn’t fix it right for months.
