I tried the search function and couldn't find anything on it.. but what are some backwoods roadside fixing stories you folks have had or urban legends you've heard of? (Traditionally speaking of course..) The best I've heard: If you have to fix a diff on the side of the road, drain the diff into a ziplok bag, and when you're done with your fix, stuff the bag full of gear oil in the diff. Ring and pinion will shred the bag and you can try to limp home. Clothes pins on the fuel line can help fix vaporlock and act as a heat sink to keep from boiling the fuel in the lines If you have a limited slip diff and get stuck on a loose surface, pull the E brake a bit and it may trick the diff and help you get out Hopefully this thread won't get deleted, but there may be some funny stories or help someone when they have catastrophic failure on the side of the road limp their ride home.. Sent from my SM-G975U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Years ago I had a 53 ford Anglia and the lower rear shock mount bolt snapped. I jacked the car up allowing the rear axle to drop away from the chassis and I found a house brick laying at the side of the road and wedged it between the axle and the chassis and drove home slowly.
Panty hose as a water pump belt. Thats how my grandpa told the story, my grandmothers parents were not impressed that she came home without hers.
I once had to dip water out of a creek on the side of the road after repairing a radiator hose with duct tape. It was leaking where the clamp rubbed a hole through on the top radiator connection. Several wraps of GOOD duct tape, the kind we used on Armaflex Insulation in refrigeration. I dipped the water out of the creek that ran under the highway. Put the radiator cap on loosely and eased her on home.....about another 90 miles. Made it with no problems.
I had a c10 with a 3ott, and the linkage was always messing up at the tyranny. It'd get stuck in first and I'd always have to pull it over, climb under the truck and repair real quick. I finally figured out the issue, but I spent a lot of time under that damn thing on the side of the road, lol.
Stockings, Nylons, Pantyhose. 1940's womens leg coverings ? Not being a user of the product I dont know the specific progression. If you have personal insight - enlighten us. Apparently the fix got them home.
My Pontiac 326 froze over and popped a freeze plug on a trip to the snow, the one right behind the motor mount. Didn't know until it thawed miles from nowhere and overheated. All I had in the trunk was some rubber galoshes. The freeze plug was still laying on the motor mount. I wedged it back in place using one boot twisted up between the plug and the motor mount. Filled the radiator with the other boot from a stream by the road. Made it back to civilization.
Not exactly on the side of the road but...Alcohol injected BBC blew the front pan seal and oiled in driver but won round. Carb cleaner, wipe it down and stuff red rag in gap and silicone. Girlfriend had hair dryer in the trailer? wth? lol. Anyway, won class.
Several years ago I was at Goodguys in Rhinebeck, N.Y, with my 1961 Buick Le Sabre and had a crack in my transmission line. We stopped at a closed gas station where they had an old tower type air pump. A quick cut with a knife ,and I had a piece of hose to repair the transmission line.
LOL. Just ragging . I barely remember them being available the first time. 1959! My YOUNG wife thought they were great. Ben
Changed thermostat before leaving for a 1200 mile trip as precaution. Gasket started to leak ~500 miles into trip. Had my mom w/ me, had tools . Removed thermostat & gasket, she chewed some gum, I used as gasket sealer on both sides . Made rest of trip w/o problems! Lesson, if not broken do not do repairs b/4 any trip!
1954 Chevy truck, 235" 6 cylinder, going 60mph and all of a sudden lost total power. The little carbon pad on the points completely fell off. Grabbed my screwdriver, reset the points by eye without the little pad, fired right up and drove that way for another 50 miles to get home. Gotta love simple and old.
We did that in Phx on Van Buren in the early 80's in my roomates Chevelle, lost a belt. Nothing open coming abck from Tempe. We payed a "lady" 20 bucks for her nylons to get home. Dang panty hose stayed on longer than his fan belt would...lol
I once broke by clutch pedal linkage right in the middle of busy city traffic, and had to drive it 90 miles to get back home. I started it in 1st gear at each stop light and it would shift through all the gears if you worked the throttle just right. When I would have to stop, I just put it in neutral and killed the ignition. Made it home! Breaking down on the side of the road, is good for the soul. Especially back before cell phones. It takes me off my high horse, sacks my pride and makes me look toward the kindness of strangers for help. Very uncomfortable, but good for me. There are a lot of good people out there and man the world is a big place when your a walking.
Going to the notorious "Flaming Gorge" run in '72 in the '48, engine was a fresh '54 .060 over 235 with a '60 head, Crower X-19 cam, Corvette side drafts, etc. Running great until about the Wyoming border at midnight, when the temp. starts edging toward 200. Check of belt, hoses tells nothing. Top it off with water from the cooler & head out with caution. Soon we're up on 212, and can tell something's really wrong, so we luck out & find a rest area in a few miles. Next morning, up at sunrise to pull the thermostat ... it's always the thermostat, right ? Fill up the cooler & hit the road, in 7-8 miles it blows out all the antifreeze. We're able to back into a wedge separating the 2 roadways of a junction, & tear the water pump off. It's a rebuilt with a plastic impeller, which has come loose. In the trunk we got a suitcase full of every spare part a Chev 6 could possibly break ... except a water pump. But, we got feeler gauges & a Bud cold pack box for gaskets, so off comes the backing plate & in go 2 pieces of .003 shim stock. Seems like we used a large rock to "press" it back together. Note the Ripple assembly fluid in Marvin's hand. Problem solved, still working great 2 years later when sold to buy a house.
Two stories about my '29 Model A coupe. 1. Working as a surveyor for KCMO and following the crew truck in my coupe. Stopped for lunch on a deserted city street and then couldn't shift when ready to leave. Had only a pair of pliers and a long-handled screwdriver. Used the pliers to remove the shift tower and found that the pin holding one of the shifter forks had gone MIA. Looked around for a solution, saw a utility pole with lots of nails from people posting billboards and such. Pulled the thickest nail with the pliers, slid it into the fork, put the tower back on and was on my way. 2. Two buddies and I were creek romping, driving up and down gravel bars on my grandad's farm. When we'd had enough, tried driving back up the dirt embankment out of the creek, but it was too steep to get any traction and getting more slippery each time we tried, no matter how fast we approached. Finally took off the spare wheel, which lacked a tire, changed out the right rear tire on a gravel bar, backed the coupe as close to the bank slope as we could get, grabbed a looong rope I'd kept in the trunk, wrapped it once around the rear wheel, tied the other end to a scrawny tree up the path, threw a log through the spokes of the other rear tire and backed the car slowly up out of the creek. The rope came off the tire a couple of times before we grabbed a limb with a fork and used that to thread the rope continuously onto the tire as we backed up. Just three drunk but clever teenagers solving a problem, laughing our asses off in the mud.
On a SBC in a Pontiac, the heater hose fitting had rusted through and was leaking. We could remove the fitting and plug the hose with a screwdriver handle and clamp., but what to plug up the other hole with? 1/2" female plumbing thread- found a garden tap somewhere, and screwed it in, and turned the tap off. No more leak, and no more heater.
Coming back from a visit to Texas in 1981 we had detoured though Yellowstone National park to see Old Faithful and be able to say that we had been there. Stopped at the Grand Teton Park HQ to fill up with Gas at their gas station and I drove off forgetting the gas cap. The road out the other side of the park and several miles of road had just been or were in the process of being chip sealed and the 48 filler neck in the side of the bed sucked in some sand and small gravel that worked it's way to the fuel pump. The truck died right at the top of the Continental Divide on 90 and we coasted to a stop and figured out that it wasn't pumping gas. I pulled the pump off, pried it apart and cleaned the gravel out of the valves and put it back together and sealed it up best I could. I fired it up and got up to speed on the down hill western slope and shut the engine off and we coasted down hill for a lot of miles only having to fire it up to make it over a couple of hills and then coast down the other side. We coasted into White Hall and got to a gas station/garage just off the highway where a young guy was packing up his stuff for his 55 or 56 Chevy To take it all home because he was going into the Navy the next week. Told him that I was looking for a fuel pump for a small block Chevy and he said he had the one that he had bought for his car project and sold it to me for 15.00 and helped me put it on and then found me an old gas cap to put on the 48. Away we went west on 90 until we pulled off the road at Bute and in traffic the push rod from the clutch to the fork fell off and we limped through town and back out on the highway with no clutch. Made it a lot of miles on the highway before pulling over in a rest area for a nap and finally got the clutch fixed when I stopped at small gas station and borrowed a jack to raise it up enough to block it up and get under it.
Coming home from a cruise in one night, 64 c10 pickup, deer ran out in front of me and destroyed the front of the truck. Used needle nose pliers to bend over the busted cores in the radiator and crimp them, poured out my pop bottle and used it to get water out of the creek. Left the cap loose and ran it on home. Same truck would kick out of 3rd gear on a regular basis. I took one of my old belts, cut it to length, used zip screws to secure it to the trans tunnel, and when I'd hit 3rd gear I'd put the buckle end of the belt over the shifter to hold it in gear. It was still in it when i sold the truck
Had one of those alum non-flex 6 blade fans. One blade left the fan. Fortunately went down and not forward into radiator or up into hood. I was on freeway, pulled into rest area just a mile or two up the road. Didn't have my regular road trip tools, but did find some diagonal cutters which I used to remove blade opposite the missing one. Continued on trip down freeway another 300 miles. Once home replaced the fan. Sent from dumb operator on a smart phone
We were cruising down the road and the car just quit running. I coasted to the side of the road and did some checking. No spark. Pulled off the cap and could see the spring that closes the points was broken. We dug through the glove box and came up with a rubber band. I must have wrapped that rubber band around the arm and the post 20 times to get enough tension it would pull the points arm to the closed positing. I put it all back together and it started. We could only get to about 30 mph before we would float the points, but if we kept it around 25-30 mph, it worked OK. That was a long 30 mile trip home, but we made it. I was with a buddy that had just bought a new hot rod. We were out "field testing it" and suddenly got an awful vibration. By the time he got it stopped, the driveshaft rolled out from under the car. Apparently, just before he bought the car, someone had changed the rear U joint, but didn't get the holding straps tight. We had just enough tools with us to get the straps off and sort of pound them back into shape. Fortunately, the drive shaft wasn't damaged too bad, but one of the end caps from the rear u joint was gone. We looked, but couldn't find it. I dug through his tool box and found a socket that was about the right OD, and would slip over the end of the U joint. We stuffed the socket in place, tightened the straps as best we could, then wrapped the rear of the shaft with some electrical tape for good measure. It was a pretty slow drive back to the 1st place we knew we could catch a ride from, fortunately only a couple miles from where we were. We caught a ride to my place and I brought the truck and trailer to pick up my buddy's new hot rod and took it to my place and fixed it. Gene
Hello, When we were in our 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery, we did get a flat. I was wise enough to follow the advice of a neighbor that had a 40 sedan and used a scissors jack. Our bumper jack was too shaky and not sturdy enough. We were on a long road trip into the San Diego area and had a flat. Luckily, I had just purchased a scissors jack and promptly brought it out to raise the car. It was like being on the road without a jack. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...u-have-ever-done.1183164/page-4#post-13464277 So, from that point on, I had several 2x6 pieces of wood secured in the back area, out of sight. We never encountered another flat tire for the next 4 years of ownership. In comparison, the scissors jack fit nicely in the sedan delivery and worked easier than those tall lanky bumper jacks. Jnaki For our 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery, it needed a boost to get clearance to remove the tires/rims. Ahhh, the trials and tribulations of a Cal Rake hot rod and its adventures. At least the tires were all the same size and rotation was possible, as well as it being a common tire size and model, found in any gas station garage section. At home in Long Beach, during our teenage days, we were spoiled with the addition of a rolling hydraulic Walker Jack. If any work was to be done under the hot rod, the black and silver Walker Hydraulic Floor Jack came rolling out. But, we all can’t drive around with a hydraulic jack in the trunk…the sedan delivery could, but it took up too much space and was heavy.
Water pump went out on Chevy 1 ton pulling 24 ft horse trailer with 3 horses in heart of Alanta on a Sunday eve . Hitched a ride to a pep Boys which was locking up as I walked in door, told them needed water pump for 454 , had 3 different ones in stock ( according to them) took a chance picking one , bought a few extra cheap wrenches, coolant, went back and replaced the water pump on roadside mostly by flashlight, got all done and was bolting the fan on and new pump had metric studs for fan , old one did not, Walked to a exit and luckily there was a store/ garbage, store was open and the clerk ( with some convincing) allowed me to rummage thru the garage and I found several nuts walked back to truck and 2 fit so I bolted them down and went on home to SC. Total time on road that day driving from Kentucky to SC was 17 hours, oh and had to fetch water for horses as well.
Summer came early that June, when a friend and I loaded up our Corvette roadsters and set out for a 6 hour drive to the "Tri Cities" and the Cool Desert Nights cruise in. The 427 in Tim's car started acting up outside Bigg's Junction so we pulled into a rest area off Interstate 84 in the middle of no-where to tend it. Seemingly a vapor lock or a fuel pump gone bad, we had seen plenty of both in out time. Carb bowls were dry upon inspection. We cracked opened the fuel line, cranked it with the fuel line off the Holley, pulled and inspected the pump, reassembled everything and tried it again...absolutely nothing. Figuring the fuel pump had gone completely tits up we called the closest NAPA a one hour's drive away in Umatilla. Against all odds they had a pump that we could make do in a pinch. We sat about re-packing the car that we unloaded earlier to get to the tool box which as you know is always on the bottom, we would then take my vette to Umatilla abandoning his at the rest stop when out of the blue enters a mysterious woman. A kindly featured, middle aged woman dressed in a white billowy dress, looking very "earthy" with her nearly waist long blondish curls she listened to our lament and then asked if she could "pray" over the Corvette. With a smirk on our faces that we unsuccessfully attempted to hide we agreed and relaxed under a tree to cool off with a cold one before heading out for what was turning out to be a long, hot day. When she had concluded we thanked her politely and we prepared to hit the road. But before we did I told my buddy to give it one more try just for the hell of it. The vette fired up instantly and not only ran the rest of the way to tri cities that afternoon but ran hard all weekend long and then made the 6 hour trip back home without so much as a murmur. In fact he still has the same fuel pump on the car and it never again has given him any issues. To this day we have no idea from whence this lady came nor where she went for that matter once she was finished. Oddly, there were no other cars in the parking lot and we witnessed no cars leave the very secluded rest area. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe that our dearly departed Zora Duntov dispatched one of his angelic pit crew to tend to us that day but every word of this account is true so help me HAMB and Tim and I remain somewhat mystified and in awe by what we experienced that hot, humid day in the Columbia River gorge.
Had an electric fuel pump quit while on the road. We were able to make the pump work by making the pump pulse by making/breaking contact with the power leads. The wires used were by the backseat passenger until they became tired and another one of us would take over. When coming to a hill, one would have to increase the rate of pulsing the pump to keep up with the need for more fuel! The car was sold soon after our return home with the warning about Lucas electrics.
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