nowadays the used(preowned)car sales hucksters use warranties and credit scams to rip us off.but back in the day there was alot of shady mechanical work done on cars to make them run and look good for a couple of days. any good experiences or storys out there?
I've always heard that old legend about putting saw dust or banana peels in the rear axle. It is kinda funny to think of some desperate used car salesmen under a car, trying to stuff banana peels into that tiny little filler hole. Also, the old guy next door used to be a used car lot mechanic. He says that a quart of lacquer thinner in the oil could get a motor to stop smoking for 2 or 3 days, but beyond that he says that the lacquer thinner would wash out the bearings and kill the motor. He says this was mostly reserved for auction cars, haha.
I bought a muncie m-20 for real cheap one day. The guy I got it from had recieved it in a pile of parts in a trade and didn't know anything about it other than it seemed to be stuck in gear. I pulled the side cover and it was packed with burned greasy sawdust. All the internals were covered in rust and seized together because I imagine the thing was glowing red hot at one time. I showed it to the guy and he gave my money back. We both had a good chuckle over it as both of us had heard of it but never seen it. We figured it was done to get an old worn out muscle car off the used car lot back in the day.
Im the catagory of dont ask me how I know this... You can fit about 2 pounds of Ground Chuck in a Ford 9 inch. Quieted it down, and once it got hot it smelled like you were grillin' burgers wherever you went
Banana peels in the rearend for noise and brake fluid added to an automatic trans to swell the seals.
Pepper or egg white in the radiator. I bought a 4 year old Lincoln Convertible off a car lot. drove it from LA to San Diego had a lifter ticking. pulled a valve cover and there was a gob of white Grease over one of the rockers. it would have been an easy fix but I took it back to the lot anyway. I was pissed probaby would have lasted longer if not for the road trip
For cars with low enough oil pressure to trip the 'idiot light', I know of folks that would simply take the bulb out of the light before taking the car to the auction.
Had a '53 Chev pickup that went thru the '76 Teton dam flood. Ring & pinion had huge rust spots because it wasn't drained & just screamed ... Car Life magazine ran an article on some of the used car patch jobs being done, so I gave it a shot. Removed the diff. cover, crumbled a bunch of corn flakes, a couple banana peels, & a can of STP into the cover, then stuck it it the freezer for a couple hours. Permatexed the old gasket & bolts, slammed it back on, topped off gear lube, & drove it for years ...
cant think of any that havnt been covered, but my first job when i left school was as a car groomer for the local ford dealership. my boss was an x cop and a good salesman. he had me doing all sorts of cosmetic stuff to hide flaws in the secondhand fords. things like washing a car when a buyer was coming to look @ it. a wet car hides lots of imperfections in the paintwork!
I added pepper to stop a small leak in my radiator. 2Table s****s is good for about 100 miles. Yes it works. Got me across the Arizona desert. No repair shop for miles.
Wadded up newspapers stuffed into rust holes with a thin coating of bondo over it. Toeing out a front end alignment to hide loose and worn parts. Spraying the front suspension with kerosene to make the parts look newer and so they would stop squeeking. Retread tires.
I once seen a mechanic put a rag over the rocker arms to quiete them down.I was young then, don't know if it worked.You would think the rag would have gotton shredded.
On a used car lot, I witnessed a monkey grinding the sidewalls of a bald tire to make it look like it had a square shoulder. He had a little motor with a steel cutting head mounted to a piece of plywood. Jacked the wheel off the ground, and rotated the tire against this cutter..... he obviously had done a lot of them.
A table s**** of Bon Ami powder poured into the carb of a running engine.This sometimes will "reseat" worn piston rings and reduce smoke out the tailpipe.It's not the best for engine bearings however.
Back in the 60's, had an inline 6 with totally shot big end bearings. Dropped the pan, pulled the big ends, wrapped sheet lead around the crank and bolted the big ends back up real tight. Great oil pressure on start up and the lead lasted long enough to get a decent trade in on the old FJ, apparently even long enough for some other poor ****** to buy it off the lot and have the bottom end drop out of the engine after a couple of hundred miles. In the 60's, wet concrete packed into rusted out sub frames in an FJ ute and painted over, and in the 70's a pile of newspaper stuffed into rust holes in the subframes of a 1968 Falcon wagon and bogged/painted got both cars past rego inspections. Cheers, Glen.
A shreaded pair of nylons was favourate for shutting up an old diff. ( in fact all my memories of old style axles envolved something being wrong with them) Oil lights tied into the charge system so the light went out nice and quick, I even one time cut replacement crank 'bearings' from aluminum tube, and that held together for some years amazingly. On modern stuff you can get odd faults which can be sometimes sorted by 'fooling' the ECU, so in some ways the game still goes on. Some polyester suited sales weasel tried to tell me that modern cars could not have the clock wound back like old stuff, I delighted in explaining that now we could now do it with a lap top without even taking the dash out ! Talking of which anyone else found a sticker on the back of the speedo which says "Oh no not again" ?
round here, they don't even bother with the newspaper and bondo to cover up rust holes. Instead, they use Great Stuff - that expanding foam used in home construction - carve it down with an electric carving knife, then slap some aluminum tape over it and rattle-can it.
I read in one of the dirt bike mags quite a few years back where a guy had stuffed a tennis ball into the cylinder of a 600cc Matchless Typhoon single. Supposed to have duplicated the high compression of a good engine. (You have to use a compression release to kick over the big singles, a bit of a learned drill, but works great.) I always thought it was a BS comment from the writer who was just trying to fill space. Any experienced single cylinder guy would realize there was too much "compression" too far down the cylinder.... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A little off the original post subject, but goes along with this motorcycle comment. The Riverside casino in Laughlin has an excellent free car show on the third story. The cars change often enough that it's a great show even if you 2-3 times a year as I do. (It's 33 miles down the hill from where I live so it's an easy trip.) Quite a few restored bikes there. An Indian, a few Harleys, but most interesting to me were the restored single cylinder dirt bikes. Scramblers and the like. Matchless 600cc Typhoon. Velocette. AJS. Ariel. BSA Gold Star with alloy tank, very close to my first bike in appearance. The 650cc Trimph Bonneville wasn't too shabby either. Good show, take it in if you go to Laughlin. The Riverside is the first casinon you hit when you turn south coming off the Hwy 68 bridge. Dollar margarita's Sunday through Thursday....
Im from the rust belt originaly. Watched my uncle fill holes the size of your head with that swelling foam in a can all over his truck. The fenders, bed and rockers. Then he just iced over them with bondo and painted it. Two months later he sold it for 2000.
It's a lot easier to do if you stuff the banana peels into a grease gun, and then just pump them through.
I helped a good friend of mine repair his tow rig, '99 F350 Power stroke, It would eat pilot bearings, clutches, inputshafts, etc. One night before a long trip he needed to fix the input shaft again, but could not get the right parts in time. SO out came the ****** and T-case, put ****** in 1st and T/case in 4 lo, and put a huge drill on the output yoke of the t-case. He welded up the nose of the input shaft and then ground it to fit the pilot bearing while I ran the drill, in turn, turning the input shaft like on a lathe. At one point he carried the tools, Parts, and whatever else to do this repair in a rest area or truck stop, parking lot, where ever. He would also put the truck up on stands take the wheels off and put it in gear, let it idle so he could grind the ridge off the rotors in order to remove and replace the brake pads, But not replace the rotors. Jeff
Damn.............now I've heard some real deep bull **** before (I live in Texas), but some of the above are absolutely full of the dumbest **** I ever heard of. I mean "corn flakes", "rice", concrete, Bon Ami,,,ROFLMAO,,,wait, wait a minute,,,let me get off the floor. ****,,,I think I peed myself.
Pepto-Bismol in the power steering pump stopped leaks there. Oatmeal in the radiator shut the leaks up, and of course other cooling system items too. Rags stuffed in shock absorbers kept the oil from showing up, and also firmed up the ride. Course you needed some radiator hose clamps to keep rags up there. These were back in the day cure-alls.
In a "28 Chev that sat from 1945, I took apart the rear end to find an old inner tube cut up in small chunks to take up the slop in the gears. Saw dust was used to seal the seals.
Ah, memories of my ill-spent time as a curbstoner to pay for college tuition. Motor Hunny will quiet down almost any engine noise and stop smoking (2 qts in a 5qt pan). Same thing for 90W gear oil. Gets the oil pressure up too. Of course once the new owner changes the oil.... Shot gl*** of brake fluid in the transmission works great. No idea how long it lasts though, the cars always sold within a few days. Guilty of the "Atlanta Journal" brand patch panels. A little bit of wire window screen works good too. Beware of cars what are two-toned black on the lower 8" or so. Sprayed a ton of Armor All on the front suspension to give that "rebuilt" look. Control arm bushings shot? Urethane in a caulk gun is your friend. Worst one ever though was a Dodge minivan I did. Blown headgasket. I dumped in 3 bottles of Alumaseal powder and torqued the snot out of the cylinder head bolts. It sealed and it sold. Please keep in mind this was all done back in my "heathen *******" days. Now I'm on the other side of the fence and working with a Mechanic's Ministry each month. But if I hadn't ever learned those tricks I wouldn't be able to spot them now.
%%%% And if you were retarded enough to have a diesel powered hot-rod you could be burning fry-oil in it and the aroma would be just right !! Ya want Fries with that burger ?? >>>>.
I've heard of people using an old leather belt to replace a spun bearing....at least it quit knocking !!!
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