I had forgotten about this cell phone photos that I zapped while driving out to Bonneville in August. It was apparent from a distance that all was not well with the Hyundai we were coming up on. The rear bumper cover appeared ready to fall off. Once we got close though, it was clear that something was actually holding that thing on. I thought it was a bungee at first but then upon closer inspection discovered it was a belt…like the kind you hold you pants up with. The belt must have been sourced from some of the massive pile of garbage that filled the passenger compartment of the car. Hoarding for the win on this one!
I think every car guy has a story of using some bizarre “tools” to fix something that would have otherwise impeded your progress on the road. I once stole a fork from a diner to use as a clamp on a hose to get my wife and I home. She was by girlfriend at the time and my future in-laws were not real tolerant of missing curfew. That fork got me home and eventually lead to me getting married to my wife. She hates that damned fork. Although I did not do the welding, I have been present for off road battery welding on the trail with coat hangers and that was pretty freaking awesome as well.
So what’s your story? What did you Macgyver to get home or at least to safety? Use any household items? Anything “borrowed” that has not been returned yet? Any of you lunatics that have been on Drag Week or spend time off roading probably have a pile of these stories. We want to hear them!
BangShift Question Of The Day: What’s Your Best/Most Borderline Hack Impromptu Roadside Repair?
Long story short – my old RV died in front of the house so I replaced the fuel pump and towed up to New England Dragway and it died again! I guess the fuel tank was disintegrating due to the ethanol in the gas I was told. Being 1/2 Scottish I didn’t want to spend a lot on this junk as it wasn’t going to be around too long so I got a 3 gallon boat tank (FREE!) and plumbed it into the carb input. It worked great except you had to pump the bulb primer every 15-20 seconds. Wasn’t too much hassle as I only had to move it 500 feet or so at a time. This was quite an attraction at the strip and for some reason nobody wanted to pit next to it. 8^)
My daughter called me from school saying she had no brakes. Upon
arrival the puddle of brake fluid by the left rear tire said bad wheel
cylinder. Topped of the MC and clamped off the offending wheel with
a pair of vise grip pliers, secured said pliers with a wire and drove it home.
BTW I had her drive in front of me in just in case something bad
happened, she was not as comfortable with the situation as I was.
Once upon a time my girlfriend ( now wife ) had a white Maverick. I bought a blue Maverick. I used her plates to get it home. A gallon of white house paint and a brush and boom, white Maverick.
Had a similar situation with a Cadillac ambulance. Driving from Cleveland to Atlanta, I exited in Cinti to meet some friends. Pedal goes nearly to the floor. Brake line on rear axle leaking. Cut it, folded over and clamped with Vise Grips until it could be fixed in Atlanta.
On Power Tour ’04, one of the tailpipes broke loose on my ’79 Coup de Ville while exiting Indy Raceway Park. Easy fix with a coat hanger. Then in Kentucky, the fuel pump quit. In a NAPA parking lot, I cobbled a Carter electric pump in line, ran the wire to the wiper fuse, bypassed the dead mechanical pump, and finished the Tour!
We used to use new housing development lots in the hills for various activities, after the streets went in but before actual houses went up. I thought it might be cool, at a T intersection, to haul ass up the one street then put my Vega into a 180 straight into a driveway and end up in the still-vacant lot backwards. All was good until I hit the gutter dip sideways and the front lower ball joint on that side snapped.
Holding the car up with the bumper jack, I pounded the broken parts out and threaded a half-inch bolt from the swaybar set through a steel bracket from same, through the ball joint holes in the a-arm and spindle and capped it with a nut. Grease from the ball joint put on the nut let it turn back and forth on the bolt when I steered. I couldn’t believe it worked, but it did.
That got me half of the 15 miles home, ’til the wheel bearings seized from bent spindle and I was finished. I wound up drinking beer the rest of the evening with the strangers who’s house I stopped in front of.
Gotta love being a kid. Indestructable.
I once used a bicycle tire pump and vacuum hose to pressurize the gas tank on my 66 VW Beetle. The fuel pump had failed and it was New Year’s day driving from Valparaiso, IN to Elizabethton, TN. Drove it that way for two weeks until I could afford a new pump. Thank you Richmond KY WalMart! Thanks for being open on Jan 1st 1983.
Well it’s not a roadside fix but once while replacing a starter on a roadside, I had a homeless man come up and offer some tools. He told me that if I were to soak the distributor points in mustard they would work better. He told me he learned that trick while in the Army stationed on Mars. Still have not tried it, but I did buy him a beer.
best one so far….
Back years ago I had a 1972 Nova with a 400 small block. Everything was still v-belt. I kept throwing my alternater belt. Well at this one moment it left me on the side of the road. Chewed the belt. No tools and no belt. So what I done is I cut the bottom of my t shirt ( the part of a tee that is doubled up at the bottom ) and tied it around my water pump to my crank. Drove about 5 miles just enough time to get home.
Rusty straps caused the fuel tank, in a 53 Buick, to fall out, while I was driving. I cut the fuel line and sending unit wire. Put the tank in the trunk. Got some plastic hose from a nearby hardware store. Connect hose to fuel tank. Ran the hose down the side of the car and through a door handle, to keep it from flapping in the breeze. Connected other end of hose to fuel line and drove on. The car only ran for 3 more days. Apparently the ordeal caused enough rust to shake loose that it plugged the fuel system. Since the car had been given to me I saw no reason to spend money fixing it.
I bought a Honda CB350 for $400 off a trailer. After spending a couple of weeks wrenching on it, I finally got it running…albeit not well. Running down the road, I heard a scraping sound and realized I lost my kickstand spring. Luckily I avoided a crash, and tied the now loose kickstand to the frame with a handkerchief.
I had a fiat strands with Arbath twin cam engine. Anyhow tie bar holding front passenger side strut pulled out of its mounting so I pulled it back and used a tow rope to hold it into place so I could finish my journey (20 miles) home
had a 78 Suzuki gs400, stopped at a gas station and when I came out the bike wouldn’t start. I flipped the seat up to discover one of my fuses was blown. walked inside the gas station bought a pack of spearmint gum and the cashier asked what I was doing and what was wrong. I explained and he said itll never work. well I took that aluminum gum rapper rapped it around the fuse and drove that bike for 5 more months on that gum rapper…. I will never forget the look on that cashiers face when it actually started
Using my Nissan truck for a delivery truck, the upper bolt on the alternator broke. I wrapped a ratchet strap around the alt., hooked a bracket on the inner fender and finished my deliveries. I drove it like that for 2 days.
Not really a road side fix, because I never stopped. Driving a 82 GMC S15, the steel cable clutch link broke when I down shifted to slow for a car making a right turn. I heard the pop and the pedal hit the floor. Being about 2 miles from the house with 2 intersections between, I just slammed it back in gear. Approaching the intersection I looked both ways slowed and ran the stop sign. At my street, I went from 3rd to 2nd and made the right turn without coming to a stop. Made it to the house and coasted into the drive in neutral.
Not mine, but one that stands out to me is when I worked at the Pontiac/GMC dealership 13 years ago, our transmission guy drove a 5.0 Mustang and one day his throttle cable snapped on the way to work. So he took his shoe laces and ran a line from the throttle, out from under the hood, through the driver’s window (maybe pivoting on the wiper arm?) to get him going. Then proceeded to drive that way to and from work two more days before a new cable showed up. The car was a 5-spd on top of it all!!
Mine’s already been covered here http://imgur.com/a/L6JkB
When I was ’bout 15 years old, my family was on a trip to Grandma’s in Farmersburg, IN.
A few miles outa Terre Haute on two-lane 41, we began to smell gas inside the car (a ’59 Galaxie 4-door, 332 2-barrel).
Dad pulled off to the side of the road and raised the reverse-opening hood.
I stood by the passenger fender and watched while he started the engine. Low and behold there was fuel squirting outa a [vent] hole on the fuel pump.
I picked up some kinda wood branch and plugged the hole. Voila! No more gas pissing!
There was a [glass-top pump] gas station up the highway and we stopped to refuel.
Dad told the gas station guy what had happened. He musta shaken his head and told Dad the Ford needed a fuel pump and an oil change. What?!
Plugging the vent hole had routed the gas into the oil pan! Engine failure and a fire could’ve been next!
‘Glad that station and a mechanic were there. Later in life, I realized I went from hero to zero real quick.
I think the station musta had the new pump in stock, ’cause I don’t remember waiting that long.
About 25 years ago I was pitting for my brother who was racing in the Baja 500 and I was pulling a trailer which was full of pit gas and as I was driving thru the back roads I hit a rut in road with my 1971 Chevy van with a 40 gal aftermarket gas tank and ripped the tank off the van, it was pretty full of gas and was spilling all over the ground, I had nothing to empty the gas into so I used my bottle jack under it to raise the tank into the proper position and used 3 of the motorcycle tie downs to hold the tank in place, I was covered in gas but got it fixed and we drove on to the pit stop. Those tie downs were never taken off the van.
Well, I have a couple, my rear exhaust pipe broke on my van going down the interstate, no tools, so took off my belt and used it for a whole day. Another time my muffler came loose from exhaust pipe on my van on the interstate, only had a pair of wire cutters, so cut a piece of barbed wire off some farmers fence along the road, tied muffler up with that and went on down the road.
I broke a fan belt one time on vacation. Stopped and got out the duct tape twisted it around the broken belt several times . Put it back on with not much tension and it got me to a service station with out the vehicle over heating. Love that stuff. LOL..
Street racing for the money with the ole 67 Dodge R/T 440 and sprung a leak in a freeze plug in the cylinder head . Leak was right in the middle so I took some ole yeller 3m sealer and glued a quarter in the center of the plug . Head was hot glue dried quick and repair lasted for years to come ! $200 night after dark whippin Chevys !
Ooh, had a few of these… I remember having a fuel pump fail on a 6 cyl 1971 Falcon – took the windscreen washer bottle off, trapped it using the wiper blade to the windscreen and ran the pipe into the carby inlet. filled it up with petrol and away we go! you could even see when you needed to top up because the tank was in front of your eyes as you drove!! I had to go on a work trip the next day…middle of nowhere in the far north of South Australia and there was a Cortina (6 cyl) half buried in the dirt by the side of the road. Excavated down a foot into the dirt, found the fuel pump and unbolted it, and that night I rebuilt it in the motel room I was staying in. I tried it under the tap in the room and fired a stream of dirty water across the room!! If you want to see some brilliant fixes like this theres an Australian series called Bush Mechanics – you tube it – lots of Aboriginal people outback come up with their own fixes – check this one out for an example – very clever stuff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsswIRkAjfU
I dropped an idler arm on a 70 Nova and I was stranded in the middle of nowhere roughly an hour and a half from home. I stuck it back on the pivot ball and wrapped a chain around it and the centerlink. By the time I made it to a main road it was dark. Wouldn’t you know it, I popped a belt. Drove all the way home with no headlights. Made it.
On the way out of town on a camping trip our group of 5 cars stopped for lunch and ice. Came out and realized, as everyone was getting in their cars, that the shifter linkage on my 78 Cougar had fallen apart. Couldnt get out of park. Crawled under it while everyone was grumbling about my car breaking down. “We should be gone by now, blah blah, Buy a better car blah blah. Probably blew the tranny, blah blah blah” I holler out “Somebody give me a shoe lace!” “A what?” “Some one give me a frickin shoe lace” Tied the linkage back together and hit the road. Put a thousand miles on it that trip and it never came apart.