While walking to the Pilot Travel Center, aka Truck Stop, in Wendover last night we saw this Honda Civic with packing tape holding the trunk lid shut. Seeing it made me instantly think of times that I have used duct tape to hold a fender on or a hood closed. Or fixing a broken rearend yoke with ubolts, extra washers, a small flat blade screwdriver and the nerve to drive it 250 miles home. Then I started thinking of some of the other times that impromptu items have been used to fix one or another of my cars. Since it is clear that as a BangShifter you have done the same things, we want to know…
What is your greatest makeshift vehicle repair?
liquid steel to repair a radiator that a stick went through. As far as I know, that “temporary repair” is still there 15 years later.
other
silicone on 24 ga galv to seal a gas tank crack. I saw the truck, completely repainted, with that repair still there (now with undercoating on it) 8 years later. It went down like this, was wheeling, and landed on a log; that cracked the tank right at the strap. In desperation, I grabbed the only thing I had available – 24g galv – loaded a tube of silicone (from a gun) onto the top of it, folded the metal into an S shape (to take up the distance between the bottom of the tank and the strap, loosened the strap, put the “repair” in there, and tightened it up. I got home, parked it, and someone offered me stupid money for it….. he was dying from cancer so I suppose he cared about that repair as much as I did…. for all I know, it could still be out there waiting for a TV show to proclaim how stupid that repair was….
I had a 1969 SS396 Camaro a bunch of years ago. I had changed the stock steering wheel to one of those chrome spokes with wood rim Grant steering wheels. Anyway, I took my kids to the mall to have lunch, go shopping and see a movie. When we got back to the car, I got in the drivers seat and something didn’t look right. I seemed to have a lot more room between myself and the dash board. And then it dawned on me . . . someone had broken into my car and stolen my steering wheel!
I kept a small toolbox in the trunk which thank God had a big pair of Vicegrips in it. I clamped it to the steering shaft (below the threads) and slooowly drove home which also thank God was less than 2 miles with the kids in the car. Dropped them off then slooowly drove over to the nearest auto parts store and bought another steering wheel.
Then I let er rip on ther way home – LOL
Oh . . . by the way . . . I forgot to mention that the Camaro had a 4 Speed in it. Try driving a manual trans while holding onto a pair of Vicegrips with your left hand – just three fingers, for fear you will dislodge the Vicegrips.
I was driving my grill-less MG midget from Sacramento to visit my girlfriend (TLD) in San Mateo. As I was getting ready to cross the several miles long San Mateo bridge, a rock holed the radiator. Unfortunately the rock made a big enough hole that I knew that bars leak wouldn’t be able to stop the rapidly exiting water.
I walked over to a store and bought a whole economy pack of Juicy Fruit gum. Chewed it all up (those were some tired jaws by the time it had all been masticated) and stuck it in, around, and on top of the hole in the hot radiator. It quickly dried up, forming a pretty hard mass.
I poured in the bars leak, a couple of the bottles of water and capped the radiator. Then proceeded without issue to finish the drive. I drove it like that until I pulled it apart to put a V8 in it. A project that was sold when I married TLD.
back in my misspent youth(when dinosaurs roamed the earth),i was out in capital forest with my 61 ford-lost a radiator hose,and almost all my coolant—duct tape to the rescue!!!no water,and miles from anything,so i filled her up with nasty rain puddle water(muddy),and drove her home!–i can’t remember if i ever replaced that water,but i can tell you that is the only car that i actually blew up(street racing,and it still got us home!)
My 95 Nissan truck. The upper bolt for the alternator broke. I took a ratchet strap and wrapped around the alt. and hooked to a bracket on the fenderwell. The belt squealed a little, but I drove it like that for 2 days.
My late brother John did this on his ’50 Plymouth Deluxe with the stock flathead six in it.
He had gotten run off of a two lane country road late at night and punctured his oil pan,all he had in his trunk besides his toolbox was some Bondo and some shop rags, he used that to McGuyver his oil pan closed, added some oil to it, then drove it home. John was a true Bangshifter before he passed away from cancer.
I found out about this when we pulled the engine out a year later.
Had a fuel pump die on a 6 cyl Falcon many years ago, the day before I had to go on a work trip in a work car. 1st fix was getting the car home with a dead fuel pump – used my washer bottle held to the windscreen by the wiper blade, filled with fuel with the 1/8 plastic hose taped into the carby fuel inlet…actually worked faultlessly and you could see when you were going to run out too – just look thru the windscreen!!
2nd fix was getting the fuel pump itself – on the work trip, had to drive to Ceduna in South Australia – sort of getting toward outback sort of area – and found an old Cortina on the way on a dirt road. (Aussie Cortina’s were also fitted with 6’s.) The thing was so deep in dirt that I had to excavate down the side of the block about 12 ” deep into the dirt to reach the fuel pump. Unbolted it, didn’t have much hope for it, but hey worth a shot… That night in a motel in Whyalla I took it apart , cleaned it all up and rebuilt it using all the original seals etc (had nothing else with me) then tested it by holding the inlet under the tap in the motel and cranking the lever – shot dirty water across the room and all over the curtains at the far end of the room! Anyway, got home, bolted it up, worked fine and was still on the car years later when I sold it….
I had a small block ford with an Accel “blueprint” (stock rebuilt/recurved) distributor. I had dropped it in when I did a head swap the year before, and a couple of times I had lost spark and had the engine die.
I was half way between Florida and NC when it cut out and rolled to a stop next to an exit. I walked to the auto parts store and since I thought it was the connector, I bought a flat four prong trailer light connector, cut out the both ends of the old plug and twisted it up.
As I’m finishing, I noticed the the new distributor hadn’t come with a small screw that held down the ignition parts inside the distributor. Since that was what grounded the thing, it was the cause of the spark loss. All I needed was a screw, so I fished around in the tool box and pulled out one that would tap itself into the aluminum.
Soldered the connections when I got home a few weeks later, coated all the splices in liquid electrical tape and that was that.
JB weld on an aluminum racing rad… Reduced it with some mineral spirits, so it would flow into the fin of the rad better. Still working a couple seasons later.
reading others posts, alot of the same stuff happens. I also the top alt bolt, radiator hose or radiator.. and the rear end broken. I used steel rods that were in my car for another welding job. I also used winch straps to hold the torque side of the tug, let it flop around otherwise. only 18 miles. I did break a rocker in a subaru, used a hardwood chunk of pallet, left it there until inspection sticker time..fixed it right.