Duct tape and Bailing Wire, Stories of the dangerous and wierd

Ball joints fixed by wrapping it with electric a tape. Lasted the day. Didn't want to see how long it could go until POP!!

 

Had no seat belts in my 37 Plymouth coupe...daily driver...when I picked up my 5 year old daughter from school I secured her to the seat with bungee cords.....worked like a charm......

 

early 80's when I was running my first dirt street stock (72 torino) I was at a 2 day race in the stick of KY and in last practice on fri night I got wrecked hard. Bent the nose and frame up, tore the left side body off too. Well, there were no welders to be found but I was able to borrow torches. So I had the tow truck come over. I strapped the right side frame horn to a tree, and had the wrecker pull the left side as I heated up the kinks with the torch. Managed to get it 'kind a straight'. Didn't have cordless drill back then so I grabbed a #2 Phillips Stanley screwdriver and a hammer. drove holes every 4" down each side of the drivers door and front/rear fenders and sewed the body back on with baling wire.

This is the part where in fantasy land I go out and win the race... ha, no.... But I did make the feature and made enough $$ to get home. That was one evil handling piece of sh**. But for an 18yr old kid it was the best I could do. Once I got it home to the junkyard where I kept it I stripped the cage and built a new one.

 

I don't know if it was posted but back at the HAMB Drags in 05 or 06 Shoe had his Triumph cycle there racing. Getting ready to leave Mokan in the dark we realized his headlight went out........so, we duct taped my Makita work flashlight to his bars and he rode back to the ramkota..got a weird look from at least one cop.

 

Living in Arizoma, worked at a furniture restoration shop. Left the shop one morning, driving the POS shop truck. Got about a mile down the road, and truck dies. Someone had cut the line from the fuel tank, and drained all the gas. Over 100 degrees, and didn't feel like walking back to the shop. Sent my helper to get gas from the nearby station. Boss was a dick, and had taken the radios out of all the trucks, so we wouldn't show up to a customer's house playing Black Sabbath, so I broke the antenna off the fender. Used that to splice the cut fuel line, and duct taped it in place. Worked fine. Didn't even get a thank you from the boss.

 

Some years ago I was operating my 30 foot shrimp trawler deep
in the salt water mash areas of south Louisiana. The 455 olds gas motor
was humming along nicely pulling a 50 foot trawl and I was as we say
"on the shrimp." I was feeling rather smug as there were no other boats
near by and that meant I could circle around and around without having
to contend with other nets on the same spot of shrimp I had located.
Point is one should never become smug on the water! I detected a change
in the cadence of the motor and quickly raised the cover. The single fan belt
had broken and of course that meant no cooling or charging. Not to worry
Thought I. Wrong, my spare belt was not to be found. A buddy had taken it
and forgot to tell me! Not stolen or such, as we often would shared parts and
things. I fashioned a temporary belt by making smooth splice in a piece of
Poly Dac rope. I had plenty of rope and knew I could make more if needed.
I went back to work and finished my efforts for the afternoon, which made
nice payday. It was a 20 mile run back up through the marsh into and across
Lake Borgne to my boathouse. After gassing up and selling my days catch I of
course had to offer a toast to the spirits of shrimping success! This led to an
evening of good cheers and an admission of belt pilfering! Of course all was
forgiven and forgotten, including a trip to the parts house for a new belt or
two. The next morning at 4 30 am and half way back to the marsh My head
cleared and I remembered the rope was still in place! I stopped the boat and
took a peek under the motor cover and all was well! The belt was not frayed
and seemed to be fine. The pump was cooling and the charging system was
fine, so I made another full day on the rope belt. That afternoon I did replace
it with a proper belt, but kept the rope for a spare.

 

used a socket as a bearing cap on a u-joint

 

Back in the mid 70's a buddy and I went steelhead fishing on the Little Nestucca river here in Oregon, drove down after work in my 65 ElCamino on some pretty trecherous gravel roads. Slept in the Elky, got up early and continued on to our fishing destination.
We had been on the road only a short time when the steering wheel started shaking very violently. Looked under the front and noticed that the idler arm had completely seperated. Besides being many miles from the nearest town, we had no tools with us, so had a MacGyver moment and looked in our tackle boxes and found a fish stringer and used it to wrap the idler arm together and it got us through the weekend and back home.
The gravity of how close we could have come to dying didn't really sink in until the drive back in the daylight on that curvy mountainous gravel road.

 

18 years old (10 years ago), a buddy and I decide it's a wise idea to take my 350 horsepower LT1 caprice down to San Francisco. From where we live in Alberta, this is a 24 hour drive. I didn't do anything to the car before we left other than change the oil, hopped in and left, in mid December no less.
Drive was going really well, no issues, good mileage for what it was, having a great time. We stopped at a little gift shop/road side attraction in Klamath, California to stretch our legs and wander a bit, when we came back to the car it would turn over but would not start at all. I'm thinking well shit the alternator is cooked or something, pop the hood and notice the belt is just flopping there, the tension idler had broke and let all tension on the belt loose. I'm freaking out because we are 6 hours away from our destination, and no one in any near by town has the part we need.
After kicking rocks around for a while, I figured maybe a stick jammed between the sway bar and up into the pulley could hold tension. I used a rock and the ground to grind and hammer the stick to length.
Sure enough, got it running, took it easy all the way to SF where we changed the part in the parking lot with the use of the employees tools. So thanks to Alan at the Kragen store. Made it home to Alberta in time for Christmas Eve.
I kept the stick, and a photo of the situation.