Whats some of the jury rig things you have done to cars?

The axle nut on my daily driver kept coming loose so after replacing it I tacked it in place... I am not proud but it's a $500 car... Cheaper than buying an axle.

How about you?

 

I know its bike related but I made it to Sturgis on a shovel wideglide with the exhaust held on with fencing wire cut from the side of the road in Wymoing (sorry Mr Rancher), a champagne cork whittled down for a timing cover plug - dont blast back up on the road with a tire covered in oil, cable tye holding the oil cooler in place and duct tape keeping the headlight in place. Boy that was a crazy trip.

 

ha well me and my dad just pulled all the dash lights and sensors and warning lights in his truck..stopped all the beeping for not wearing a seat belt and all that crap...there is a lot of things ive done but cant seem to remember right now..ill post later if i remember

 

spun a bearing in the back woods, had to getr hom before the folks killed me, took a thin piece of my belt and wraped the crank.

made it home no knocking or anything, but what ya gona do at 2am out partying

 

The last time the NSRA nats south was held in Columbia, South Carolina my gas pedal mount broke,,,,

We were sitting on the side of the road trying to figure out what to do and my wife was digging in her pocket book for the fellow pages,,,this was before cell phones and late sunday and part stores were closed.

Thats when it hit me I could use the long strap that cliped on her purse as a pull cable,,,,I worked for another 60 or so miles and got us home. HRP

 

About the only thing i ever rigged were floor pan's in shitty daily driver's i used to own..i'd buy the car's cheep because of rust etc, and repaired the floor's with anything i could find to rivet in at the time..
Kept the snow and slush out and me relatively warm....
Aside from that back then i try not to rig anything anymore..

 

The rear motor mount bolt of my Corvair dropped out on the freeway and the engine dropped down breaking off the fuel pump . This was before cell phones mind you . I walked down the freeway looking for something , anything to get the engine up off the ground . I found some rope and a small tree branch . I made a Spanish windlass which is a loop of rope with with a twisting bar in the middle . As you twist the rope it gets shorter . I got the engine up in place , found a suitable bolt in my box of junk and secured it . I then went hunting along the freeway til I found some old rusty bale wire , wired the fuel pump back on and motored home . My wife of the time was annoyed but amazed . And all before McGuyver !!

 

31 A bone 2dr first rod 1956, finally got the engine mounted [56 sb chevy] fired it up and now we wanted to drive it. So I rigged up a piece of 1/4 " stock, bent it to make a throttle to the carb. Didnt have a fuel pump so I just used the stock A method. Gravity feed! wotta concept!Threw the batt. in the passenger side on the floorboard, and we took off around the block.gads that thing was quik out of the hole!

 

When I broke the motor mounts in my '60 Pontiac, it was a daily, so I took them out and wrapped a coathanger wire around each side of it and put it back. Worked good enough until the replacements came from Kanter.

My Suburban has seen it's share of jury-rigging. It was rigged when I bought it. The only thing holding the tailgate on it was the window. Which I managed to break pulling out the rusted skin to see inside to see if I could roll it down. I had to cut two holes in the upper quarters to get to the backside of the holes for the barn door hinges to rig those on just to go home. It was February, a little cold to drive home with no back on the truck and all my shit flying out of it.

The gas tank straps rotted out and I ordered up new ones to replace it. Well, they were the wrong ones, so I only ever installed one. For a while I ran it held on by bailing wire. Finally that broke on me on the road, so I bought a roll of picture/plant hanging cable in Wal-mart that's rated for 300 lbs. I figured that if I filled the 31 gallon tank to the top it would only weigh 200 lbs or so total between the gas, the tank and the pump. I ran it under the tank until I ran out of cable, bolted it together and that's that.

I've tied up mufflers and exhaust pipes with wire plenty of times, too. Once had to buy a roll of wire in a store to make a loop to unlock the door where I'd locked my keys in. In fact showed my mother how to do it on one of the family cars (super easy to do on the boxy 77-89 GM RWD sedans) and left a piece of wire looped around the bumper shock just in case.

 

Not a HAMB car but when I was in school years ago I had an 82 Plymouth Horizon. This was a car that was copied from the VW Rabbit and it had this plastic ball and socket joint attaching the shift linkage to the transmission.

The plastic socket wore out and it would pop off the steel ball and you couldn't shift the car without snapping it back. I "fixed" it by wrapping a bunch of that multicolored telephone wire around the socket so it couldn't come loose. It worked really good and was on the car when I got rid of it.

Years later I bought a MK I Scirocco and was driving it one day and it suddenly came out of gear. I looked and there was the same plastic socket. Seem Chrysler copied the defect from VW!

Other lame "repairs" in include using the side of a beer can and JB weld to fix the plastic tank on Mazda radiator, driving with broken water pump belts by speeding up to 70 turning off engine and coasting and then repeating (I drove a car 40 miles out of Mexico this way and got home without overheating it), fixing broken mufflers with sheet metal screws etc.

One time I bought a car and got a flat tire and found out it had no jack. I unbolted a speed limit sign from the side of the highway and got a rock and lifted the car by getting someone to stand on the sign while I changed the tire (yea, I put the sign back when I was done).

 

I bought a 66 Corvair that had been sitting for a while. It ran well but the gas pedal linkage was rusty and stiff. I had to pull the pedal up with my toe. I tied a string to the pedal and pulled it back up with my right hand every time I let up on the gas so that I could drive it home. It was a 4spd so there was some fumbling around shifting gears and operating the gas pedal.

 

I had a 75 Beetle, totally rotted out, had a couple pieces of chain wrapped around the tunnel and rocker channel and under the floorpan to hold the seat up. That's just one thing I can think of off the top of my head. I'm honestly shocked I am not dead or crippled after some of the stupid shit I have done.

 

had a 64' chevy truck with a powerglide and was out at mount rainier parking with my girl and poked a hole in the trans pan. dropped the pan hammered the hole closed as far as i could them jammed part of a green tree branch in the hole, re-installed the pan walked to the river nearby and filled my jug with water and filled trans up. long trip home but it worked! trans was pretty much fried and gave me a reason to put in a 350 turbo and kept her dad out of my face.

 

the fuel pump on a mid 70s crewcab about 15 miles of log road and 20 paved in the cabinets above libby montana.so i had skinny niel with a washer fluid jug and the hose from the windshield washers under the hood siphoning gas into the open carb goin backwards down the loggin roads about 2500 rpm to keep from floodin. oh yea backwards so i could see the road cause niel had to sit in the engine compartment to keep the fuel flowin.anyway the road got a little better so i started goin a little faster and leaned out the mixture .then it backfired and caught niel ,hose, and can on fire.niel pitches the can and bails out at about 15 miles per and the can and hose start a little forest fire. (mid sept.starting fall tree planting crew,hippies hillbilly,mexicans and one biker , gearhead,redneck,me).me and the mexicans jump out grab hoedads and put out the can (we NEED the fuel system still )hose and getting bigger potential forest fire.niels pal and runnin mate jumps put and puts niel out. we all go to drinkin beer and other emotional/mental health treatments(back before i cleaned up)
with the proper consultations among an increasingly inebriated crew we talk niel back under the hood pouring fuel through the hole around the stud so it wont backfire in his face. evetually to pavement ,hitch back to hotel/bar/campers out back base camp.fuel pump on next morn and back to killin all them poor lil baby trees.1k to 2200 per day per man. early 90s i think.

 

One time I was driving home from college to Corpus Christi in my OT rear engined people's car, and I broke down for diffferent stuff like 3 times, and each time this old timer sheriff would stop and come over and talk to me about cars and stuff, as he casually mentioned more annd varied violations he noticed. Nice guy, in retrospect he was looking out for me and at the time I thought i was getting hassled by "the man"! Kids!

But anyway my best fix was the to the gen pulley...they're in two pieces with hooks that hold them together, you take it apart to change the belt right? well the fan behind the gen was rubbing against the shroud, causing the hooks to get chewed up and basically torn off, the two pieces would start to wobble...not a good sound to hear as you know they'res zero chance you'll find a replacement for 100 miles! So I go to a gas station to think about what to do...and I see a guy moving stuff in his truck with cardboard boxes in it..so I get some cardboard from him and wedge it between the two pieces of the pullely, thinking hey maybe it'll do something...I don't know why but it worked perfectly, and fused the two pieces together so well I had to cut the belt off cuz I couldn't the pulley apart! I think it's still in my toolbox, just in case!

 

After riding in the desert out side of Reno (I'm talking dirt road no-mans land desert), the fuel pump went out on the El Camino so we straped a gas can to the hood and ran a syphon right into the carb, found the sweat spot on the throttle and made it back to town.

 

Hair sprayed the inside of a cracked dizzy cap with hair spray to drive from the James Dean back to Iowa one time. Made it all the way without a miss.

 

In high school me and a buddy were in his '64 Ranchero when the the muffler and exhaust fell and was draggin down the street. His dad was a cop and we used a set of his handcuffs to hold the pipe up. Hey, we couldn't find a clothes hanger.

 

My nasty tempered old great-uncle gave me a 52-3 Plymoth fordor. Me and my buds decided to sell it for scrap and buy gas for our cars. Made it about 3-4 blocks and discovered that the steering box was held to the frame with bailing wire. The discovery came when the car turned left into the oncoming traffic all by itself... we couldn't figure out anyway to fix it so we continued on our way. I was towing the Plymouth and my two friends trotted along beside it kicking the tires back and forth to simulate steering. It was about 4 or so miles to the junk yard and we arrived just before closing. The guy gave us $5.00 for it and we were too tired to haggle. Took the money and went and got a coke.

 

Replaced an auto with a stick in a 54 Ford. This was around 1963, didn't have a shifter so my neighbor went everywhere with me and reached thru the floor to shift.

 

Vise grips for steering wheel & shifter, cat leash for throttle, poured a 58 Vette gas tank full of concrete to add weight to move down to F/Gas, poured a roll cage full of lead to move an H/Gas 51 Anglia down to I/Gas

 

had no jumper cables, but i had a peice of #4 copper wire, so i pulled up bumper to bumper with a friends truck for ground, an put the cable + to + . that wire burned the shit out of my buddys hand, but his truck did start.
ive used electrical conduit and connectors to temporarily repair broken exhaust on my chevy.
ive used honey as fix-a-flat, i was surprised that worked
i had to tape a couple flashlights to my fender at night in the mountains, found it odd that both headlights light burned out within minutes of eachother, but they did
last weekend i used a furniture dolly as a wheel so i could park my busted up car in the driveway.
im sure everyone has used a coathanger to hold up exhaust in an emergency
used jb weld to temporarily fix an eroded intake manifold, ended up leaving it for a year, never gave a problem
good old paperclip fuse for my starter
but the best ont was when my smog pump on my blazer seized. the same belt ran the water pump, alternator and smog pump, so i couldnt cut the belt i took out the smog pump, and and pounded the shit out of an old washing machine tranny bracket i had in the car to make a bracket that would extend the alternator out, and take up the slack from the missing smog pump. left it that way until i had to smog the truck again, almost two years
the list goes on and on.
the things we do when broke, or despairate!!!!!

 

Used a piece of string as the throttle. run from the carb, out the back of the hood, and through the vent window on my '66 Starfire, ran it that way for about a month. Same car before the engine transplant, had straight 50W in it and could only be driven in 15 minute intervals, before the blowby got so bad, you couldn't see out the mirrors.

Tha last time me and my stupid buddies took my Mom's old '69 Chevy wagon out (was being parted out the next day), we ran it into a few things. After a rather violent encounter with a road grader, it wouldn't start so we went and took all the trailer hitch wiring and yanked it out, twisted it together and made a starter cable that we used to start it and get us home.

I kept a bag of screws the same size as the ones that held the top of the Weber carb I had on my '76 Rabbit, they would vibrate loose and fall out, I know to check them when it would surge, that meant that 2 were gone, one was loose.

I had a '75 Granada 6-3sp, that I couldn't afford a new starter for, so I took to parking the front wheels up on the parking bumpers, so I could pop the clutch in reverse to start it... luckily it ran good... Did that for 2 months.

My Corvair had a bungee cord holding the drivers side muffler onto the exhaust pipe. Same car didn't have the conv. roof fabric for about 9 months when I bought it... Had complex strategies for tying a blur tarp to the top frame with bungee cords in bank drive-thrus. Same car, the orings for the pushrod tubes were shot, just put a quart of oil in it every other day to keep up, and parked in a different spot at work everyday.

Right now, I can't touch the A/C button in my daily, it's got a short, I can only turn the A/C off using the fan, and I have to shut it off after I kill the engine, otherwise the compressor won't start when the engine does.

 

This was from a demo derby i did but... My front end was smashed up of course and the tranny coolant lines had been broken and were leaking. Then one line had about a 3 inch section missing out of it. so i went into the fair and got a straw from one of the vendors and made it fit between the lines then ran duct tape all over the ends of the straw and all over the rest of it. it worked before the derby but i dont know how long it lasted during cuz my car stopped running before it stopped moving...

 

had to use a bunge cord to pull the brake pedal up cause the spring brioke.......it was enough to keep the brake light off............oh shit its still there ...time to buy a new spring,thanks for the reminder guys

 

65 chevy truck. these always had issues with the bad carrier-bearing design, they get weak in the middle of the support structure and break. I used a motorcycle ratchet-strap (the kind with no hooks, just forms a loop) and drove it home, in heavy city traffic. Still have the strap (used it yesterday) and I bought it at walmart when the truck broke down in the middle of the street, and that was 12 years ago.

 

One time, with my old 6 cyl, the carb float sprung a leak and sank, so she was flooding like crazy. Luckily, my old F100 still has the gas tank right behind the seat, with the outlet on the driver's side. Mine had a rubber hose coming right off the tank. I C-clamped it and regulated the fuel by hand to get home.

 

Forgot this one. Fusible link died in a Pontiac wagon I had, ran a couple wires up over the brake booster and back down. Two, because the wire I had wasn't quite as big as the wire on the car. Plan was eventually to put a fuse in the top, where you could actually get to it. Never did. Car still started and ran the day we scrapped it. Was fun driving the last mile home with no headlights when the thing fell apart on me.

 

Three of us on the way home from a week at the Mardi Gras $0.00 money & a Texaco Credit card. Fuel pump went out during morning rush hour traffic in Dallas. Brainflash..... Siphon gas into windshield washer bottle, insert washer outlet hose into top of carb pump winshied washers turn key runs!! Get us mile or so down road off freeway to TEXACO staition w/mechanic. Fixed and gone 60 min.

 

I've used chewing gum wrappers to wrap blown fuses, also used spent 22 cal. bullet cartridges, or an old screw. Fix flat tires with
some gorrilla snot glue on a screw. Welded the starter in my 49 merc
after it fell out with a chunk of bellhousing. I busted the belt on my
67 Chevy p/u and got hot. I stopped at a farmplace and asked a lady if I could get a pail of water and asked did she have an old pair of
pantyhose? She said "yes,but why?" I said to tie around my pullys
for a belt so I can limp home. She never heard of anyone doing that
and wondered what made me think of that? It did get me home, but it was only about 5 miles. I took the inner fender and battery tray
out of my 67 poncho to fix a big ass dent. I had to drive it before I
was done so I bungeed the battery on the frame horn and took off for home. when I went over a set of RR tracks the battery fell out and I ran it over. I could see in the mirror it wasn't worth going back for. I also learned a car will run on alternater only.