We had an old Lauson single cylinder engine on a rototiller when I was in high school. The engine wouldn’t start and we determined that there wasn’t any spark. We pulled the flywheel and found that the magneto coil was defective. I found an old coil from a 2 stroke Lawnboy 2stroke engine in our junk box, but it physically wouldn’t fit in the magneto of the Lauson engine. However, since the points and condenser were still good, we rigged up the coil outside the engine and used a 6 volt lantern battery as the power for the primary side of the coil. It worked–we were able to run the engine. It worked just like the battery ignition system on the car.
@db4690 the deal for the Alfa was with a friend of his who agreed to give Keith the first shot at the car if and when the car came up for sale again.
Just as an aside i have an old Lauson that i can’t find any info on. I have tried all the sites that come up in a Google search any ideas?
I once used the floor of Chevy truck bed to replace the floor of a 1968 Jeepster it was close match. Put Chevy one wire alternators on Fords and Jeeps. Used rope and bungee cords as belts to get home.
By the way I was in Cuba in 2001 the last time. I did see a few old cars, but most of the cars were late models. Mostly Honda’s and Toyota’s. I have video of a guy using a Sears shop vac to clean out a new Honda Accord.
Being a car guy I though I would see all these old cars, But they were just not there. I was on the south coast from Cabo Cruz to Santiango . I did see a lot make do fixes. Like belts laced back together with wire. The bus I rode from the airport to the hotel was a Chicago city bus with a 1984 and 1985 inspection plate on it. So much for the embargo.
I am the one who posted about the hose bib. I have also used a bicycle tube around the steering column for a clutch return spring. A monstrously large starter from a 56 Desoto hemi on 4 subsequent cars, one a 318 and the other 3 were slant sixes. A wiper motor from a 66 Valiant turned upside down with a stack of washers under one bolt hole fit my 81 Horizon perfectly.
I also had a drainpipe under my kitchen sink fail on an Easter Sunday when we were having 13 for dinner. An old 66 Valiant radiator hose from my junk pile worked and lasted 20 years.
Yes, they can buy new cars in Cuba. But, I was reading something a few weeks ago, that the government decided to mark up the selling price by an unbelievable amount. Like two or three times the normal selling price.
Of course, if they are still making like $20 a month, there won’t be many sold.
Again not car related, but a friend in CA who owned an auto shop a long time ago had an old Rupp motor scooter there with a trashed Briggs engine. Just for kicks he yanked the Briggs engine out and mounted an automotive 12 volt battery along with a Chrysler gear reduction starter to power it with. A toggle switch was mounted on the handlebars to turn the starter on and off with.
It only had a top speed of about 20 or 25 MPH but one had to be leaning way forward when flipping that switch because the top speed was almost instantaneous.
An electric vehicle long before talk of such things became common… 
I agree that there is no reason to limit this discussion to cars. Any motor vehicle should be appropriate with the exception of aircraft where non standard parts are a huge No! No! One of the 2 chain tension adjusting bolts on my 1981 Yamaha 650 twin was stripped. My policy is if one of a pair fails the other is getting close. I went to the local Yamaha dealer. Of course the bolts were not in stock and the price was $18 EACH! I don’t mind paying a fair price but have an aversion to being cheated. I thought about trying the salvage yard then remembered a fastener distributor in another town 20 miles away. I walked in with both bolts. They measured the good one. They had a box of bolts that were 1/4 in longer and cadmium plated instead of chrome. That was not a problem for me. They cost a whopping $1.80 for the pair!
Dad repaired a Ford tractor carburator with a condom once-Kevin
An older Subaru I owned about 20 years ago had the notoriously bad Hitachi carburetor on it. Those carbs were horrible when new and downhill from there. One of their faults was a tendency for the carb sections to warp which then caused them to suck air and not idle correctly or flood.
Filing them flat was a stop-gap measure at best. Poor, poor design.
I went to a Pull A Part yard one weekend and gave 10 bucks for a one-barrel carb from a 200 C.I. Ford 6 cylinder. I then made an adapter plate out of 1/4" steel plate and installed the Ford carb.
The results just stunned me. Hot or cold, the engine would just bust right off and idle smooth as silk with acceleration much snappier. The first road trip threw me for another loop when the fuel mileage was about 36-37 MPG and I brushed that off as miscalculation on my part somehow as the normal mileage on those cars was about 27.
Keeping tabs on the mileage in the future I discovered that the mileage actually had increased by 10 although to this day I can’t explain how or why. The Ford carb should have actually been overkill for that engine and my expectation was that mileage would go down, not up.
I was camping with my first car, a 52 Plymouth and had had a blowout on the way there. My fuel pump diaphragm ruptured while I was camping and the nearest town was about 7 miles away. I took the top off the fuel pump with a screwdriver and took out the diaphragm and spring.
I cut a piece from the blown inner tube and with my ice pick punched holes for the screws and two tiny ones to hook the spring through. My father in law said “that will never get you the 80 miles home.” I told him it didn’t have to, only to the nearest parts store. Didn’t even have to buy a new pump, the Western Auto store had diaphragms.
@OK,you found Serendip-Kevin