Whats the most rigged up repair you have ever seen?

General Discussion
21

Back in the early 1990s, when I was driving a 1985 Buick Skyhawk, I locked the keys in the car while on my way to a party to watch a football game. For those of you who might not know, the Skyhawk was a rebranded Chevy Cavailer, both of which were the Honda Civics of their day. This was probably the highest rated used car at the time that my mother bought it, and it lived up to its reputation.

After realizing I locked my keys in the car, I found a large rock and broke one of the rear windows. For several years, I drove around with a plastic garbage bag duct taped over the hole. Eventually, I would buy a thin sheet of plexiglass and a hot glue gun at the hardware store and install a new window, but it wasn’t pretty.

Shortly after moving to South Florida in that car, it got totaled by someone who pulled out in front of me. The frame was bent, and the air conditioner didn’t work anymore, but it still ran, so I continued to drive it like that for several years. I used dog chains to keep the hood from flying open, but it was really an added safety measure since the hood still latched. Only the secondary latch, which is the one you open after you pop the hood, was missing.

Later, the marker lights stopped working in that car. The headlights came on when I turned them on and the turn signals and brake lights worked, but no other lights would come on when I turned on the headlights. My dashboard light was also burned out. I went to the auto parts store, where I bought two amber marker lights for the front and two red marker lights for the rear. I also bought a dome light to mount facing the gauges and two switches, one for the marker lights and one for the instrument cluster light. I mounted the marker lights on the bumpers and wired them to the battery and the switch, and they helped keep that car legal for a couple more years.

The latest repair I have done like this was in my '98 civic. One night, when I was driving home from a weekend trip, I noticed my brake lights were on when I wasn’t pressing the brake pedal. The plastic piece that pressed the button by the pedal had somehow broken off. I bought some electrical tape at a gas station and taped a penny in place to press the switch. The next day I picked up some waterproof adhesive and permanently affixed that penny in place.

22

I ran into a POTENTIAL disastrous repair a few years ago. I was in an auto supply store when a young Scotsman asked me if I knew how to rig up an in-car pre-heater (120 volts AC) to the cigarette lighter of his old style air-cooled VW bug. These cars had notoriously poor heaters and the lad thought that by buying a $19.95 heater (used for pre-warming the car’s interior) and plugging ot into the cigarette lighter he would be home free.

I took some time to explain the difference between AC and DC and 120 volts and 12 volts, and all the hardware necessary to make them compatible, and why it would be a really bad idea to even try. The heater was about 400 watts and would have quickly worn out the alternator even if it worked.

I don’t blame the kid for trying to find cost-effective solutions, though!

23

Here’s a motorcycle story.

About six months after learning to ride in June 2005, as happens to most novice riders, I had an accident. I was riding shortly after the rain had stopped, so the roads were still wet, and I had just left my girlfriend’s house on a Sunday afternoon to head home. I was going around a curve and realized I was going too fast. When I hit the brakes, I accidentally locked the rear wheel, and instead of straightening out the motorcycle and keeping the wheel locked like I should have, I let off the brake while still in a curve. The motorcycle and myself were both flung to the ground, but the motorcycle bounced and flipped over, while I stayed on the ground. I walked away with a bruised hip. I was lucky, but I was also dressed appropriately in jeans, a crash jacket, and a full face helmet.

Most of the damage to the motorcycle was superficial, but I had the bike looked over my a competent mechanic, and I repaired a lot of the cosmetic damage myself. The front brake lever was bent, some paint was scraped off the front fender, and the windshield had taken cosmetic damage. I replaced the lever, used some touch-up paint on the fender, and replaced the windshield. However, I discovered further damage later when I was installing a forward control kit.

The bike is a 2005 Honda Shadow Aero, a small 750 cc bike that is great for those who are vertically challenged. It has a low center of gravity and comes with “mid” foot controls. In order to make the bike better fit my 6’2" body, I purchased a forward control kit that would allow me to move the foot controls forward a few inches. It’s amazing how much those few inches can improve ergonomics.

While doing the job, I discovered that the foot pegs had taken some unseen damage in the accident. The new bolts didn’t line up very well with the holes in the motorcycle frame, and sure enough, I cross threaded them. After sizing up the situation, I decided to make the best of what I had. I tightened the cross threaded bolts as much as I could without stripping them (there were two of them, and they were actually in there pretty tight), and used a two part epoxy resin (similar to JB Weld) to make sure the cross threaded bolts stayed in place.

I’m still riding this bike, and the hackish repair is holding up.

24

@jtsanders–I thought of another Triedaq flaming moment of glory. Our 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon did not have a rear window defroster. The Salon model had a slope back the rear window really needed that defroster. Triedaq was in Big Lots and saw a fan that plugged into the cigarette lighter. He cut off the plug and mounted it on the shelf in front of the rear window and somehow wired it to a switch he mounted under the dashboard. It did work, but it only cleared half the rear window, so he went back to Big Lots and bought another fan. Unfortunately, it didn’t match the first fan, but that didn’t matter to him. He mounted it on the other side of the rear window and the two fans defrosted the entire rear window. It looked a little goofy, but it worked.

Mrs. Triedaq

25

I have a 1978 Jeep CJ7 that is too rigged to describe! It came to me this way and repairing it correctly seems to be an almost hopeless challenge. Something is always wrong including the first engine that blew. Well, that engine had a .45 ACP casing on the PCV valve as well as the PCV inlet port on the intake.

I was dating a girl once and we were sightseeing in my 2000 Chevy S-10 truck with the 4.3L V6 on like the 3rd date. We were in the country on a rural road in the middle of nowhere without cell phone service and it had been raining. There is a spot where there is always water on the road so I didn’t think much of it. Well, it was a little deeper this time and the truck stopped dead. The engine was clearly hydrolocked and I figured it was probably toast. But, I took my jeans off and stepped out into the deep cold water and began removing all the spark plugs. I cranked the engine over and water shot out of the plug holes. I then replaced the plugs and the truck started up after extended cranking. I drove it home, changed the oil and filter, and the truck still runs great today with no obvious damage to the engine. I figure I must have been shifting gears in the manual transmission so the momentum of the truck didn’t destroy the hydrolocked engine. I understand this engine is also an older design without all the aluminum and plastic common today so maybe that helped too! The woman was quite impressed with my ability to repair this in the field although I felt like a dumbass.

I was on another date with this same woman and we came upon a small pickup (Ford Ranger or similar) that had gone off the road and overturned. This had just happened and the stunned driver who was OK was just getting out of the door which was facing upward. I was looking at the truck and it looked like it was pretty much ok besides being beat up. I was staring at the underside of the truck and none of the drivetrain or suspension looked damaged. He had a large toolbox in the bed which appears to have made the truck roll funny so the glass wasn’t even busted. He said he had a town on the way and it would be there in an hour. I told him all the fluids would leak to where they shouldn’t and that we might be able to turn this over. Several burly loggers had showed up and we all rolled it back over upright. I told him it would probably start right up and that he could drive it out in 4WD. It fired right up and smoked some from the oil getting into the cylinders but was fine.

26

While reading some of these rigged up repairs…I just thought of another one that came to mind. I parked my old pickup down at the lake when my brothers and I went fishing. I had just installed a nice custom steering wheel on the pickup just a few days prior. When I got in the truck to pull the boat out of the water…I saw that the steering wheel was missing.

I looked behind the seat and my emergency stash of tools had been untouched so I grapped my trusty Vicegrip pliers. I clamped it tightly on the steering rod and I retrieved the boat and we made it home about 20 miles away with no problem. I’m sure others have done the same at one time or another utilizing a pair of Vicegrips. I put the old steering wheel back on and no one ever attempted to steal it.

27

@missileman–It’s too bad that Ricky Riccardo on “I Love Lucy” didn’t have a vice grips with him. Ricky, Lucy, Fred and Ethel were traveling to California and stayed at this terrible motel. They were going to slip out early in the morning without paying, but when they got in the car (a 1955 Pontiac), the steering wheel was missing. The proprietor of the motel came out and just happened to have a steering wheel he would sell to Ricky. That is one “I Love Lucy” rerun that is worth seeing in my opinion.

28

Thanks @Triedaq. I’ll look for that episode.

29

A couple I’ve enjoyed

Air conditioner repair:

Flat tire repair:

30

Toyota frames used to have (and probably still do) a transverse tubular member between the framerails humped over the rear axle. After many years of NH winters, mine on my '79 rotted out.

To pass inspection, I wfilled the tube with rolled up metal fabric, glopped plenty of plastic body putty on it, wrapped it with a thick plastic sheet with zip ties, and let it cure. I clipped the zip ties, removed the plastic, and visually had a nice smooth tube from framerail to framerail. I then coated the tube and surrounding frame with rubberized undercoating to provide consistancy to the surface.

It looked like a real, intact, transverse member. I passed inspection for a few more years…until the siderails rotted out.

31

Man I’m thinking but honestly, most of the time I do the proper repair if it gets repaired at all. @Docnick did remind me though, I made it through a Minnesota winter with a plug in heater. It was with my diesel Olds with head gasket problems. It was ok on the highway but in traffic in sub zero weather, I didn’t have any heat. So I did get a 12 volt plug in heater to try and take some of the chill out and to keep the windows clear on my 50 mile commute.

32

Early 80s Subaru GLF, I had the safety latch for the hood give way while travelling about 60 km/h. Of course the hood ended up smashing into the roof of the car and after I changed my shorts I realized I couldn’t get the hood to close properly. Took out the drill. Drilled a nice big hole in the hood and proceeded to tie it down with rope. Ugly but it worked.

Mike

33

It’s motorcycle related rather than car and I was the recipient rather than the cobbler but in the late 70s I bought an old Harley custom chopper. Per the usual, the frame had been cleaned up and molded in with Bondo to clean up the lines before the paint applied.

The ride was spine jarring, per the usual, due to a rigid frame, thin seat, and springer fork front end.
One night about 10 o’clock while on the way home and about 15 miles from town I noticed the ride suddenly softened so the red flags went up.

The next day I noticed a separation in both front downtubes of the frame right underneath the steering head. This means the softer ride was due to the frame flexing. Bouncing up and down on the seat I could see a 1/8" gap spread out to 3/4 of an inch. It was a death trap.

Using a hammer and chisel to remove the Bondo I found that both front downtubes had been extended with a couple of pieces of 3/4 plumbing pipe. Not only is that shoddy material but the builder had even left the pipe threads in place and welded on them…

Needless to say the bike got torn down and the frame dumped.

34

A customer came in with a 70’s Caddy and once I lifted it into the air the lt rear frame had broomsticks, bailing wire, chicken wire and packing tape wrapped around it to strengthen the rusty portion.

35

This is not so much a repair but it was a ‘fix’ of sorts.
Where I used to work, we had an off shore manufacturing facility in the Dominican Republic. One of the managers there had a Peugeot 505 that would not start if it was left alone for longer than 6 hours. He claimed it was a crack somewhere that would stop sealing as the engine cooled off. Car parts are really expensive and difficult to get in the DR, apparently.
6 hours was the magic cut off time so he’d come out, day or night, every 5 hours and restart the car, let it run for five minutes and return 5 hours later.

When he was visiting us in the US, he actually paid someone to restart the car every five hours.

36

Mrs. T, you have a wonderfully inventive husband. You are indeed a very lucky woman. The dryer fix is magnificent.

37

@remcow Thats the way it was with my 59 Pontiac in school in the winter. If it was near or below zero out, I couldn’t let it sit for more than four hours or it wouldn’t start. So I’d be up at 2 or 3 in the morning to drive it around a few miles and back to bed again. Pain in the neck but it worked.

38

My store bought insulated coffee cup went missing, so I made up a new one with an old glass Folger’s coffee jar I wrapped with aluminim foil, then bubble wrap, and finally duct tape. I drilled a couple holes in the plastic lid for sipping. Works great. Looks funny.

There was a thread here a while back about this same subject. I think it was titled “Who is the cheapest here”. Something like that? It was so hilarious! One poster said he dried out his spark plug wires one time by building a small wood chip fire in the engine compartment! My favorite was one poster who had a problematic heater temperature control, so he piped the pipes out through a hole he punched in the dashboard and installed a garden hose bib valve to turn and adjust the passenger compart temperature. Now that’s my kind of repair. High style!

39

years ago, (Late 70’s) I was attending a car show with friends. A couple of old gents came by and engaged us in conversation. The discussion turned to working on cars back then vs today. One of them exclaimed his opinion that all modern cars were worthless junk and too difficult to work on. “Why back in my day, I replaced the head gasket on my Model A with cardboard, and it worked just fine!” The other one rolled his eyes in disgust and said “Yeah, but you had to redo it once a week because you were too cheap to just go down and by a new gasket!” The other one waved his hand dismissively and said “Ah, all those parts stores were run by crooks! Still are!”

We all go quite a chuckle out of it.

40

“My favorite was one poster who had a problematic heater temperature control, so he piped the pipes out through a hole he punched in the dashboard and installed a garden hose bib valve to turn and adjust the passenger compart temperature.”

Why didn’t I think of that. Whoever had my 59 Pontiac before me had cleaned out all of the heat temperature controls except the fan. So the heat was on full blast all the time. I looked for the parts once in a junk yard but looked so complicated I gave up. I used to just clamp the heater hoses shut in the spring and then of course I’d have to spend a couple dollars and replace them in the fall. At least it shut the heat off in the summer.