Art & Inspiration Make do repairs on the side of the road.

In October of this year, I was heading to a car show in Athens Ga, my accelerator broke at the weld. Luckily, I had a hose clamp and I hooked it to the throttle cable and then hooked it into the loop of a adjustable wrench that was just long enough to let me ride sitting back in the seat, giving it gas by pulling on the wrench. I made it to the car show and back home an hour away. By the way I won that day. No one looked at the gas pedal.

 

Lets see here.....
Once had a bad wire to the starter, I ended up running a jumper cable from the battery down under the car to the starter to get it started.
Once, lost the exhaust because it was rusty so I found some old coat hangers and a few pop cans and wired the pipe back up to the car and wrapped the pop cans around the rusty break and wrapped the hangers around them to hold it in place so we wouldn't fall asleep at the wheel! LOL!
Once the electric fan wiring fried on the Camaro and I ended up stripping the speaker wire out of the car and tying it all together to get the fan to work long enough to get it back to fix properly.
Once lost the collector bolts out of the exhaust and used small C clamps to hold it together till I could get bolts.
The wagon radiator blew out at the seam on the Power Tour one year so I just pulled the rubber from the cap and drove it the rest of the way home.
Once in an old POS daily I had the door started falling open when turning corners, I had a pair of vice grips and pulled the door striker pins out and switched them on the side of the road.
Same POS, the tie rod end broke on the way to work one morning, all I had was a shop towel so I tied it up to the spindle knuckle and drove a few more miles to work that way. (wouldn't recommend that one! LoL!)
My Grandpa made my Granny pull her pantyhose off one time to use as a fan belt to get home, she was none too happy! LOL!

 

i drove the chevelle from wi to tenn. for the national chevelle owners meet. the rear bolt on number one exhaust broke off at the head about 3 threads down. thats one of the bolts used to holds the alternator bracket. the alternator was flopped forward. it needed both bolts. i couldnt get the bolt out at the time so i got a pair of ratchet straps from the store. one held tension on the belt and the other pulled back to keep the belt straight. the setup made it back home. all 12 hrs of it.

 

Driving home on the 105 right around Watts, the temp started to climb. they were doing work on the freeway so there was no shoulder to pull over on and it was getting HOT! i'm looking for a place to pull over, and nothing, so i figured i'd just pull down the first available off ramp and gamble it. thankful at the head of the off ramp, the barriers opened up and i was able to pull over right under a light.

The alternator bracket had broken so the belt lost all tension. i wasn't going to wait for a tow if i didn't have to so I dug thru the trunk and found a plastic commemorative sipper cup from the viewing of Cars at the Mission Tiki Drive-In thanks to Tiki Diablo, and a sleeve of bungee cords. a little shove here, a little tug there, a little bungee cord to make it all pretty and i made it home and to work the next day.

 

About half way to the beach about 30 years ago in a `72 Vega, packed solid with everything a family of four would need for a week, and all of a sudden all I could see was a cloud of smoke. The car started to slow down, but I held the pedal to the floor, it was either going to go or blow. The smoke got worse and the car kept slowing down. Finally the car picked up a little speed, but it was skipping really bad. I looked behind me and it looked like a burning lumber yard. Cars were pulling off the road because they couldn`t see anything for the smoke. We were in the middle of nowhere on Hwy 211 in NC. I was afraid to stop because I thought the motor would lock up, but finally I got to a service station. I stopped to see what had happened and when I raised the hood there was oil everywhere. What I didn`t know at the time was that I had broken the top out of #3 piston. I checked the oil and there wasn`t any. I bought a case of oil and poured 4 Qts in, started the engine and limped down the road towards the beach.About 10 miles later the oil light came on. I stopped and checked the dipstick, SHIT, where did 4 qts of oil go so fast? It was being blown out of the PCV valve. At this rate I`d need gallons of oil just to reach our destination. I couldn`t disappoint the kids and the wife, but I couldn`t keep going like this, the Exxon Valdez didn`t have enough oil to get me there. I looked around in the car and found a gallon jug of water we had packed so I emptied it on the ground and took the hose off of the PCV valve and put it in the jug. Off we went. When the oil light would come back on, I`d stop the car, raise the hood, and pour the oil that the engine had blown out of the PCV hose into the gallon jug back into the engine. We made it to our destination, spent a week there and limped back home, about 250 miles.

 

Had a run in with electronic ignition on my 56 after I had just swapped out my old points system 2 months prior.. Went to pick up the trans for my 31 when I was building it. Get to trans shop get loaded and paid, about to head home... Bump the starter and flip ignition switch... NOTHING.... checked all electrical connections... everything was fine. So tried again.... nothing till I turned off the switch... hmmmm so went through a lot of stuff.. ignition box was getting power and everything was there like it should be.. no spark though.. mind you I'm in a gravel parking lot by the road when this happens.. So I try flipping the ignition switch on and off quickly.. cough cough a few times.. Ok.. so timed my flips of the switch on what spinning a starter and the timing of the motor.. after 2 min of doing that crap and a hot starter she popped 5 times then bam fired off.. Wore that switch out doing that but fired it up.. drove the 35 miles home with no issues holding my breath.. Source of the issue was a bad connection and solder joints inside the Jegs distributor.. Pulled that junk off got MSD but have my points system on stand by at all times now.

Other roadside fixes have included... Panty hose fan belts... Brazing radiator with car battery.... brazing heat riser on exhaust manifold with car battery, ratchet strap u bolt fix, blown trans line fix with duct tape, broken motor mount ratchet strap fix... all these were 200 miles from home roughly and in middle of no where for some reason when they happened. One was on a trail in old OT truck.

 

hihihi...it seems improvisation is worldwide...and often it´s holding much more longer then a complete repair


the gaspedal of my dirt track racer was going down during a race (the fixing part under the pedal goes away)
with a plastic stripe and a part of a metal cable canal i fixed it
ähem...in this time it´s same looking...awkwared, but it´s working

 

Phew, I'm getting stressed out just reading some of these.

 

Was coming home on leave, traveling through PA (84), when I spotted a 1941 Plymouth sedan on the side of the road, hood up. I stop and at first didn't see anyone, until I heard a voice coming from under the car asking me to hand him the little brown bottle of gasket cement. I look under and there was an old guy putting the oil pan back on a Olds V-8 motor. Asked him what happen and did he needed a hand. He said that he had a rod knocking and was certain that he was going to screw up the crank, if he remained driving. He obtain some shim stock from a local machine shop and was adding a strip under the defective rod bearing. he had been working on the vehicle for 4 hours, that included walking to the machine shop and back. He got out from under the car, covered with dirt and grime, and as he was reaching in to turn the key, he said, 4 things might happen: (1) it might start and run, without issue, (2) might start, run and then lock up, (3) might start, run, and knock, or (4) I have a rope, can you tow, with your truck? Well the vehicle started right up and I follow him for about 35miles until he turned off the highway.

 

While in the service we decided to go to the women's college in Statesville, Ga. Driving on a dark 2 lane road in a '58 Ford I saw the lights of another car coming around the curve. Stepped towards the dimmer switch but missed the switch and stepped on the wire connector, that of course broke the wire connection at the switch and the lights went dark. Of course I was driving way over the speed limit but was able to get stopped in the middle of the road with no headlights. Found a piece of wire in the trunk that wasn't being used for anything and made a jumper wire to get the low beam working. Drove that car for a couple of weeks with no high beam until I could afford a new dimmer switch.

When driving home for a wedding while still in the service I broke the water pump pulley. Removed the belt and let the wind push the fan blade until we could make a parts store. No one had a pulley so we kept driving, shutting the motor off and coasting when driving thru towns, finally made it to a garage that had a junk yard and I was able to find a pulley. Changed it in their parking lot and the owner wouldn't take anything for the pulley. We drove that car over 100 miles without a fan belt and without getting it to hot to cause problems.

 

I tell everybody that want to get in to old car better be handy with tools or money, but both is better.

 

When I was about 16 I was driving my Gramps 65 ford PU back from a cattle sale in Oklahoma when I went to downshift and the clutch peddle went to the floor. The clutch rod had come loose from the bell crank and fallen off somewhere down the road. After some head scratching I got out all the combination wrenches in the tool box and found one the right length. Put the box end on the pin on the bell crank with some bailing wire in place of the cotter pin and stuck one side of the open end in the depression on the clutch arm. The spring held it in place. Drove it like that a week before finding a replacement.

 

The Place Fort Hood Texas. The time after duty on friday. The People involved One Soldier from New Jersey , One dumb ass Plow Boy from corn field Indiana, three Mexicans ,two American Indians And one of those Hey fellows watch this. Mix in a gallon of Spenyata Wine, and a hand full pyoty buttons from the indians. Need less to say It took two weeks to get my 1963 chevy back . The mexicans dumped me at Fort Hood And took off to Mexico I guess they had some repairs to do on the road but never told me. Do not ever I mean ever party with mexicans or indians or those trouble makers from New Jersey Don

 

As a 16 yr old apprentice in the far north east of South Australia, station (ranch) people have long distances to cover in very isolated places. Coming on summer and the temps up in the 100 deg mark, one of the local station managers and his wife were bringing a load of prime stock in for a show in Adelaide (400 mikes away). In the middle of the road, the Bedford truck backfired and ground to a halt. This was 1965 or 66 and nothing like mobile phones etc existed. Checking out the trick, he found the blade spring on the contact points broke and no spare set in the cab. Bit of head scratching and pinching a hair clip from his wife and a bit of toilet paper for insulation, he opened up the hair clip and jammed it between the distributor case and the movable point and started the truck. Managed to get the 80 0dd miles into the shop where I replaced the points and gave him a spare set to put in the glovebox. I had never seen that done before and was amazed by the resouceful thinking. Kept the point set & hair clip for years and often think about what our bushmen do to get out of trouble.

 

It must have been a Northstar Caddy.

 

I loaned out my '68 roadrunner to a shipmate, he brought it back complaining about the steering... he'd run it off the road, sheared three studs off the left front wheel hub and broke the brake hose.... I pinched the broken hose off, unsuccessfully, and then drove it fifteen miles using the parking brake to get to an open parts store for a new brake hose and studs/nuts.... I never loaned another car out to a shipmate after that. Replacing broken studs and a brake hose, and bleeding the brakes, in Western Auto's parking lot was NOT what I had in mind for a liberty Sunday afternoon.

 

In 1968 my buddy and I were about 60 miles from home in his 57 Chevy that we put in a 283 w/hurst mount. The weld broke on one side and cracked fuel pump I would not do this ever again. But we came up with a dog and suds gallon glass jug. Put hole in cap and a brass tube with hose to hold in place. Run hose to carb. Hung out window cracked cap for air ever few miles. Stopped to fill from tank when needed. And we made it home some crazy times when you are young for sure

 

The wife and I were on our way to Daytona Turkey run a few years back, Her 38 had an old SW heater, well we were driving through the mountains near Beckley WV and there was about a foot of snow. The fan blade decided to part company with the motor. Went into Walmart and bought one of those small 12v accessory fans. duct taped it to the vent door on the wife's side and it blew threw the heater and created just enough warmth to be able to see out the windshield........made it to Florida and back to Canada with that set up.

 

I remember my dad telling me the story when he and mom rode down with some friends in their car to a university game. In those days everybody drank, (at least passengers) and scotch and waters or whatever was flowing freely. "They kept filling my drink but never saw any bottle or anything and I couldn't figure it out, so I asked them where do ya got the booze stashed?" Turns out they had filled the windshield washer reservoir with hot runnin' torpedo juice, and ran the hose inside under the dash for use in mixers.

 

Not my story but one of my favorite ones that my Grandpa tells.

When he was a kid, this would have been in the 40s. He was out with his dad and uncle in their "old ford". I think he said it was a stock Model A. A piston came apart on their way back to the farm from a trip to town. On the side of the road, they dropped the pan, removed that connecting rod and piston, then sawed off the top of a fence post at the side of the road and whitled it down to fit in the damaged cylinder bore, then bolted the head back on, refilled the fluids and drove it home on one less cylinder.

 

We had just crossed the highest peak on our way to Pigeon Forge and had traveled through the Cherokee Indian Reservation and Gatlingburg was less than 20 miles when all of a sudden I heard a very unnerving noise,the sound like a fan scraping the radiator or like the scraping of something hitting a flywheel,,I killed the engine and pressed the clutch and eased of the side of the road.

I extracted myself from behind the wheel and opened the hood,half expecting the noise I had heard was the fan,,everything was intact so I ask my bride to crank the car,,I see no problem so I ask her to rev the engine,then I saw the problem and it's not a quick roadside fix.

The bolt holding the alternator had broken off flush with the block so my only choice was to remove the alternator and belt and continue on my merry way assuring my wife the whole time we could travel the last 40 miles or so on the battery,turn off the air and radio,,we didn't need the GPS so everything would be fine.

We made it to the hotel and I decided not to worry about it until Thursday,,besides we had friends that would be coming and I placed a call and ask for a drill and some easy outs.

Thursday my friend Dave showed up with the tools mentioned earlier,,we tried in vain to remove the broken bolt so a decision was made to find a large box hardware store for a larger bolt and some spacers along with some flat bar,,we already had the drill and bits.

After consulting the yellow pages we came to the conclusion the closest big hardware store was almost 40 miles away,so we settled for a small mom & pop hardware store.

Pigeon Forge is a tourist town,obviously not a DIY town.

They had very little,,I needed a 7" 5/16" bolt,,the largest thing they had was 5",,so I opted for a 4' piece of all thread,,the didn't have any flat bar so a piece of 4' angle iron was purchased and then a hacksaw,,the only one they had

So 34 bucks lighter we return to the old Ranch Wagon,, a mere 3 1/2 hours,we had made the temporary parking lot repair,,we were hot,bleeding,hot,ill temper,hot,hungry,hot and did I mention ill temper,,I have used a years worth of cuss works,,Dave has used probably 3 years worth! HRP

 

My most memorable roadside repair happened on our way to Nats North in Kalamazoo. We drive about 200 miles to get there and try to b e there before registration closes on Thursday night. Besides my wife & I, we had a son of a friend with us. Just south of Grand Rapids and about 50 miles to go, we had some wiring go up in smoke. I quick turned off the main kills switch and we coasted off the espressway. A quick assessment of what had happened, a young lady stopped and asked if we needed a ride. So Jimmie (our passenger) went to the parts store and picked up a list of wiring needs and she brought him back. We rewired the car on the off ramp and got back on the road. We missed registration that night, but we were there safe and sound. This is a picture my wife snapped, while I grumbled about not needing a picture..... Guess she didn't listen. While at Kalamazoo, I bought a new wiring harness from Haywire. We never put in the new harness, sold the car a few years later with our repair still working.

 

Back in '87 I was in my O/T '76 LTD after dropping a friend off at the main bus terminal in Tijuana. The weather had been stormy earlier and the roads were in bad shape; soon the oil light came on. Amazingly I saw an auto parts store right then, so I stopped and got a couple quarts; I must have hit a submerged rock because as I poured them in someone pointed out the stuff was coming out almost as fast. By now it was 10 P.M. and the store was about to close so I bought four more quarts, locked myself in the car and attempted to sleep (yeah, right). About 7:30 the next morning it was light enough to see, so I started it up, immediately put the right side wheels up on the sidewalk, killed it, and slid underneath in a puddle of mud and oil. Looked at the oil pan and found a little 1/2" gash near one corner like a fingernail mark in a bar of soap. Spent a good chunk of the morning under that heap with a few tools (ball peen hammer, pliers, center punch, chisel and flat screwdriver) tapping and bending until I had overlapped the edges and closed the hole up as tight as I could. Crossed fingers... poured oil in... not one drop leaked. (Geez - did I actually do something right?) Keep fingers crossed, split for the border watching the oil light all the way - still running fine. Cross over, can't believe the Federales didn't pull me for being so nervous and grimy. Check oil in Chula Vista - still full. Made it home to Pasadena without leaking any oil; in fact I didn't have to add any until I traded the car in six months later.

 

Well I had to do a quick "roadside repair" in the Nomad to make it home from the Stray Kat feed in Dewey, OK last night. I made it about 45 minutes from Dewey and into Coffeyville and the rear brakes were sticking when I left the stoplight there. So I pulled over into a parking lot and put it in reverse for a bit in hopes they would "unstick". No such luck, but I wanted to drive it to see if they would get better. Next stop light, no such luck again and now they're actually sticking BADLY so I limp to another parking lot. I sit and ponder what could be the problem and think it's either the master or distribution block that came with the disc kit 10 years ago. No fixing that at that time. So, since it's a dual reservoir I figured what'd hurt to pop open the bleeder to relieve the pressure and if I need to do it more on the way, then I still got the front brakes. So, that's what I done. Released the pressure and mosey'd on home another couple hours. Coasted thru towns and such so I wouldn't have to get on the brakes and it did just fine till I turned onto my "road", but that was only 2 miles from home so I limped it the rest of the way.

Boring story, but made it for an interesting night, that and watching for deer since they are moving now.

 

I do but they are big truck related not car, only car related one I have was after rebuilding my old O/t Chevelles 350 we decided to take a trip to Petoskey Mi where we have some property nearby ,
I have confidence in my vehicles as I build them and try to use the best parts in doing so , well all was going well till we got to a spot which was abottle neck in years gone by ( the I-80/94 /294 juncture is at ) and it was a friday so traffic was stop and go , well looked at the temp gauge and it was 210 , thought no problem it will stay there , well at 230 hit the buzzer went off ( a thing I put in since it was wifes car ) so I got it over and popped the hood , no steaming yet all the belts are on fan in place ( steel factory fan with clutch and it was not spinning .. ,
threw the heater on high to pull the temp down get off at torrance ave and try to get to gas station and then it puked . let it sit a little then popped the cap fluid was down a little .. hmm very odd . let it run and notice the water barely moving , started going thru my checklist then all of a sudden it started to puke again and it stopped , as it was running the water was like dryheaving , and the flow was low out of the radiator tubes ( brand new radiator as I accidently stepped on the old one and ruined it ) I thought it odd that it would have a air bubble in the system after a weeks worth of daily driving , so I grabbed the upper hose and it was cool not hot , and had no pressure on it . Bingo !! thermostat not opening , well with no parts stores in sight , and the Kmart was closed up and gone , I realized what I could do , I gutted the heat bulb and valve out of it and put the outer ring back in and made a gasket from some cardboard , sealed it up bought some antifreeze that must have been made from gold from the gas station and topped it off , and had no problems for the rest of the 8 hour trip up there , gauge stayed around 170 degrees ( put some cardboard in front to help keep some heat in it when we hit some snow ) next morning I changed it out , looked at it very carefully , my cousin bought me a no name garbage one instead of a stant thermostat like I wanted . needless he caught some hell when I got back .

 

I had gone to Ridgeway to get some rocker stud girdles and spent a little too much time BS'ing so now almost late for work. Ran out and jumped in car and hit starter. Nothing, zip..Was fine when I shut it off and had no prior problems..By accident i found that the neg battery cable had lost continuity at the post clamp..All I had was an adjustable wrench so I thought I'd pull the wire out of the clamp, strip it back some and use the clamp to hold the barred wire to the post..I couldn't pull the wire out, wrench wouldn't fit on clamp nut...Now I'm closer to late..I wedged the adjustable wrench between the clamp and the radiator support..Car started and off I went, three days later I fixed the cable..

 

Buddy drove down to Oklahoma from Colorado in a 36HP VW. The graphite contact in the distributor fell apart and ate the spring. We took a click type ball point pen apart, stole the spring and the metal cap on the clicker button. We set the cap on the rotrr and shoved the spring into the cap, gently lowered the cap into position and he drove it back to Colorado like that.

 

Now that is thinking outside the box. HRP

 

Did You Keep That Hinge HRP? Would make a nice wall hanger with the story!