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

Had a rusty VW beetle back in high school. The accelerator cable broke of at the pedal. Clamped a pair of vise grips to the cable & using balling wire tied the vise grips to the backside of the pedal.

 

Here's one we just did today. My buddy bought a Super Beetle, one wheel totally seized, that's the way it got delivered into his driveway. In order to get it into his garage, we propped the offending wheel onto an old skateboard and rolled that bastard down the driveway and into the garage.

 

Not me,but my friends were coming back from deer camp one week-end when the alternator on their van took a dump. They strapped a 3500w generator to the roof,hooked up the battery charger and ran home 2 hours like that with the lights and wipers on.

 

I was departing Sacramento Ca. when the toque arm on the front drive axle of my rig broke, in the rain. I could see the axle twist every time I shifted and could hardly steer. I tied the axle to the frame using my snow chains. I knew I would be alright once I got on to the big road and didn't really have to shift anymore. Not the best/saftest decision I've ever made, but it got me home to my little lady.

 

THis was baqck in the '60s. My friend and I couldn't drive so his father drove us to a car show. On the way home the car, De Soto wagon, started running very rough. His father pulled over. I don't remember how we figured this out but if you blew into the fuel filler neck and held the pressure in there the car would run. So, my buddy was hanging out the rear window of the wagon. His hands holding the pressure. Every so often he would lean over and blow into the filler again. Worked pretty well until a state cop pulled us over on the NJ Turnpike. He seemed to think that it was dangerous to be hanging out of the window!

If you read this 40panel348, it was your dad!

Bill

 

not exactly the car i was driving but i had a mud truck a couple years ago and the day before a mud run we(I) tore the tranny to crap small block chev, anywho my pops was at the shop as istewed over what to do no more 350 turbos in the shop but i did have a junk metric tranny, we discovered if you pull the kickdown cable out all the way and put splitshot sinkers on the cable to keep it there it wont shift till you tell it to and supprizingly it held up to the 450 horse small block right up until i got the new one rebuilt.

 

My 57 Bel Air's throttle linkage broke. I fixed it with a paper clip used as a cotter pin and a piece of my Java Jacket (the coffee cup sleeve so you don't burn yourself) as a washer.

Lots of jury rigged stuff over the years, especially when in a time pinch. A refrigerator door sheet metal screwed into my buddy's 67 LeMans to replace his rotted floor. Hacked to death firewall in my buddy's 51 Plymouth with a 318 swap, then sheetmetal screwed galvanized ductwork to close the gaping hole. Tack welded a hood hinge to the hood where the bolt stripped. Flex pipe for exhaust...the list goes on.

It's cool though, I find myself jury rigging stuff much less than I used to. My skills have improved considerably and stuff works the way it's supposed to.

 

I had my engine seize in traffic a few summers ago. Lucky I had a good starter. Cranked it and got it running. By the time I stopped it wouldn't go over 1500rpm at full throttle.
When I came back it started and ran fine. So I didn't even change the oil
Think the worst would probably be welding up the crack in my brother's tailshaft

 

Crap..this reminds me i got nothing holding down my battery

 

my gas cable broke on my 65 VW, I lay on the rear bumper and pull the gas on the carb for about 80 miles till I got home ,My friend drove.

 

Ha, remember my alternator bracket we made at your house in the dark?

Was driving over to Joe's to make a junk yard run and a train was crossing the tracks, so I pulled over and shut the car off. Went to restart and it was dead. Finally got it fired and made it to Joe's. No problem we thought, called the parts store and ordered a 1-wire to replace the generator and headed off to the yard. Picked up a GM alternator bracket while we there for extra parts. We ended up cutting and sectioning the generator gracket to align the pulleys and get the tension right with the one belt we had. Took about 3 or 4 tries but finally got it. It was most definitely butchered in every way shape and form.

Joe says to me, this is only tempoary. Ha! Lasted 2 years or so until we swapped motors.

 

...was drivin a beater 69 Nova to the next town when the idler arm came apart, got the bumper jack out and jacked the tie-rod back up onto the idler shaft and used all the wire and twine I could find in the trunk to hold em both together. Got back home fine, just drove slow and made wide turns, and took all backroads. Got home and pulled one off a junk subframe I had and had it fixed
in a half hour.

 

30 minutes before senior prom-car threw off the fan belt. Called my mom to meet me with a pair of panty hose. Tied it on and made it home, and to the prom ( with a different car) Always wondered if it had happened a little later if my date was wearing panty hose.

Buddy of mine- dental floss for a trottle pull cable.

 

This could turn out to be the largest thread in Hamb history

 

well lets see..i redid all the brake lines on my car and i used teh old brake cable and a brick to hold the battery in place for awhile...the emergency brake on the same car stuck so i could drive in reverse but not forward so lucky i was just takin it on a test drive(its a project) so i was just down the street..i drove all the way down the street with no plates, lots of rust and a horrible spray can paint job and no factory reverse lights either haha...oh and straight pipes..man was it loud..lmao it even had a bad clutch at the time and the battery tied down like above...passed a couple people wonder what they thought haha

a had a brake cable off a old bike goin straight to the carb as my throttle

no brakes and a bad clutch driving home once...that didnt work out well..no e-brake either...couldnt shift into first or reverse unless stopped...yah it was kinda bad

heater core was bad on my car and it started pouring out on the way home once....i cant remember exactly what we did but i think we just rigged up a walmart bag to catch it

my dad has some stories too...he had a chevette that burned oil like crazy..drove around with cases of it and dumped it in as he went along...him and is brothers had a old fury...no battery so they popped the clutch on it on a big hill in pittsburgh...lucky it always started or they would have been screwed

im sure theres more but ive said enough

Jmmy

 

I was with my brother in his old POS Cutlass. The exhaust fell and we pulled into a parking lot. There just happened to be a parking brake cable laying on the ground. We ran it under the car and pulled both ends inside the car and slammed the doors.

 

I crewed for an early Mustang that ran the Targa Newfoundland two years ago.
We stole some stock pushrods out of an abandoned Ford pick-up that was slowly dying in a field. On the day the outer bands of a hurricane were drenching the island. And the wind was whipping 40-65mph.

But the real rigging we did was on the driveshaft: His "mechanic" back home didn't think it would be a problem to use the stock driveshaft's 8-inch rear u-joint on the 9-inch center section, and simply cranked the u-joint straps down extra tight. By the time we found it to be a problem, the u-joints were trash, and there wasn't another to be had anywhere in Newfoundland. So we found a u-joint that fit the 9-inch yoke perfectly, and some caps that were really close to the driveshaft yoke, and tack welded the caps into the yoke.
Got us through the race! And the balance wasn't too bad, either--no death vibrations at all.

-Brad

 

I sold a Dodge D50 a a guy and the guy left to get the money.... I am driving it home and there is a loud noise from the engine compartment... I open the hood and there is a hole in the valve cover.... It seems one of the rocker arms broke off the rocker assembly! I tossed it out, threw another junkyard valve cover on it and sold it CHEAP... The guy drove it like 12,000 miles until the cab mounts rotted off and the cab fell on the exhaust.

 

Gator clip to replace a C clip on my trans kick down on an old ford truck.
It got me 370 miles.

 

me and some buddys went to mexico for a week just after high school in a piece of shit vw van one of my friends was in a electric wheel chair, well the middle of nowhere , litterally couldnt see anything , thing stopped running when we were crusing down the road, so we think we ran outta gas, some federallys stop about an hour later m16s and all, they were nice enough to siphon some gas outta their truck in the van, dude got a mouth full of gas so we gave him a beer to wash it down well we got about 2 gallons and gave em 20 bucks, still didnt run shit. so i check spark at the plug. no spark, shit pop the cap the rotor had broke, i look on the ground right in front of me and i see a paper clip. AWESOME i rigged the paper clip to to get spark to through the cap, on the way home a week later we lost 2 cylinders on the drive so we just kept going, REALLY SLOW AND SMOKY.

 

what does "jury rig" mean?

do you mean 'JERRY RIG",,i am strongly offended by that since i'm half black...

 

Well, my name is Jerry, and I'm honored.

 

Had an old chevrolet pickup, the stud broke in the exhast manifold where the pipe attached, used a small "C" clamp instead of removing manifold and drilling out etc. it was still on the truck when I sold it 5 years later.

 

In high school I bought a 65 Chev 4 door biscayne for a $75 winter car. The frame rails rusted completely and the tranny crossmember dropped down. I used 2 exhaust clamps and clamped it to the floor pan. That held for a few months until the lower control arms dropped out of the frame... I had just filled the car up so I cut the gas straps, lowered the tank, cut the line and dumped into my brothers car....

 

funniest one i seen was my buddy sold an old late 70's f-150 to some gardeners. it had a bad fuel pump and they only had to go a couple blocks,so they took off the hood and aircleaner and one of them sat on the cowl with a couple tall cans of gasoline, and dripped it into the carb. dont know how far they made it, but they did make it out of our sight.

 

Used a milk crate for a seat, I've used a window squeege for windsheild wipers, with an old vw squareback I broke the throttle cable so many times I used shoe laces, bailing wire and once had my friend lay back and run the throttle, just tapped his foot when I needed to shift. flash lights for headlights.

 

Weak case........if you are half black, you are also either half white,hispanic or Martian or other. This shit is getting old.

 

Broke the throttle spring on my first car - so used a paper clip & rubber bands - wrapped it around the pedal and my foot.... drove it ac ouple weeks that way until my dad found out!
Repaired a split top radiator hose on the way to work one morning by smearing on monkey-snot, wrapping it with clothes line, then covering that with duct tape. Made it most of a 100 mile round trip that way with no leaks - replaced the hose when I got home.
Drove a 4x4 Chevy truck to town out of the desert with busted front axle held together with an old come-along.

 

Plugged my front tire with a wiper blade at 2am after running over a bottle in oak park,( if you know Sacramento you know the how nice that place is.)
Made 25 miles home and only lost 5 lb’s of air. Big thanks to the fedex guys with the air hose.

 

drove a friends truck up north to pick up my coupe oil cooler line got a pin hole from from rubbin on steering box kept addin oil till i got to a parts store bought a ft of rubber hose split it down the side put it on the line w four clamps we drove it 300 miles home and he drove it two more years that way