A wood screw will get a flat tire to hold air for a dozen miles or so. A "tiger torch" propane burner stuck in the air cleaner got me home a few times when I ran out of gas. Freaked out more than one tire guy using ether to blast a tire onto a too-wide rim.
The other day I was trying to beat a tie rod end out of the steering arm and didn't want to ruing it by mushrooming the threads on the stud so I didn't want to use a steel hammer. I couldn't find my bronze hammer, so I taped a nickel onto the face of a big steel hammer. Two whacks and the tie rod broke loose. It dented the nickel, but didn't mar up the stud of the tie rod at all. Whatever nickel alloy they use to make nickels out of is pretty malleable. If you put a nickel on a railroad track, it smashes out into a nice smooth pancake.
"Use WD 40 to start a diesel..." Don,t try that on a cold day with a Dodge ***mins. The air heater element will cause an explosion in the air intake.Same goes for ether....
Okay I find most of what every one else has said to be somewhat believable. But not this one. First off the condensor is were the HOT, high pressure gas is cooled into a warm high pressure liquid, so it isn't going to freeze anything. Second, although if it was liquid leaking it would possibly be freezing,(lower the pressure of a liquid and it cools it) if the pressure didn't blow the gum off (which it will) you have now stopped the leak and the freezing, the gum would become soft again and melt away. Nice try tho.
I was going down the road in my A when I went to shift it was just "air" the cotter pin had come off and the rod was just hanging there. All I had on me was my keychain ring so I twisted it on. Worked so good its still there!
My dad told me this story that cracks me up. He was out late one night and about 30 miles from home. His accelerator cable broke on his '71 Ford station wagon. He was tired and didn't feel like h***ling with a tow truck or anything, so he started the engine and used a zip tie to pull back the throttle "until it sounded like 60 mph". Then he got in and threw it into gear and laid a scratch and luckily was close to the freeway. He said it got up to about 55-60 which was fine for the freeway. When he got close to home, the engine was racing as he was slowing down through the local streets, so he shifted in and out of neutral doing some coasting with the engine still racing. When he pulled up in front, he just shut it off without thinking, and he said it made a horrible racket with all kinds of dieseling and pinging. He was real proud of himself for that low-budget fix-it job.
Saw a couple guys on the freeway some years ago, one was broke down or out of gas. No tow rope or strap. They cut the seat belts out of both cars, tied them around the bumpers, then snapped them together and off they went...............OLDBEET
Hill jack tow strap. Had a guy try and get me to pull him out of a ditch once with his generic jumper cables, got pissed when I told him I would not do it. LOL
Sawdust works well to quiet them up too. The problem is that it will do permenant damage in a hurry. Some shady used car guys used to do stuff like that to sell cars.
umm the whole nylons for a belt is an old wives tale as well.... I tried this one day. lost my belt didnt have nylons but I had nylon string. just as good right???? so I wrapped it around and around and around. and tied a knot in it. it lasted all of 5 seconds once started. it shredded and took out the battery cables, radiator hoses, busted the neck off the radiator and somehow caught the dipstick and bent the hell out of that too...........this all happened in a half a second. the only one Ive got is if you put 8 more quarts of oil in an engine it will quiet knocking rods don't ask.
We used speaker wire for a throttle cable, lasted over 500 miles, then drove it around town all week until we could get to a jy to get a "new" one. Was with a buddy once that lost a ujoint. He dug through his tool box and found a socket about the right size. Couldn't drive over about 30, but we got home. Wrapped a rubber band around the arm on a set of points when the spring had broken once, another slow drive home, but we made it. When your too cheap ( or too broke) to get a tow truck, its amazing what a guy can come up with. Gene
my dad once fixed a leaking head gasket on a kcar with red silcone and a toothpick. He figured it would last a few day untill he had some cash to fix it, turned out it lasted a year before the gasket blew but this time into a cylinder not at the repair
did this trick a few times to get going.guy i worked for always had old trucks and gas gauges never worked. so when we ran out of gas we took a b-tank filled with acetylene put a big tip on our turbo torch and idled the truck off the highway and to the gas station
The old man had a caprice with a rotten vinyl top that was all rusty underneath and dripped like a SOB in the rain. "waterproofed" it with a couple tubes of clear silicone spread over the entire top by a squeege. It may have been hideous, but at least it still leaked. Same car ran around with a propane torch and crowbar in the backseat, it's how you got the front doors open during january, but the cops always thought they'd stumbled on a burglary ring! Also exhaust made out of swingset tubing, crazy swingset paint and all.
Was changing a clutch on a buddys jeep cherokee on a sunday night. We get it all apart to find the pilot bushing was toast, no parts stores open and he needs the jeep for work the next day. I rummaged thru the tool box and came out with a craftsman socket with the correct outside dia and it slipped just right over the input shaft, took the cut off wheel to get the correct length put it all back together and he is still driving it every day. That was over 3 years ago!
Its not NYLONS that you can wrap around your pulleys you idiots. They stretch too much, that's why they manage to come out of one of those plastic eggs you get in a quarter machine and still fit a QUEEN SIZE gal. Try SILK STOCKINGS..........if you can find them. Once my Chevy broke thru the exhaust straps. Dragging the exhaust on the road wasn't going to help me, so I took the wire hanger off the magnet I had rigged up to pull the rest of a wheel bearing out of the diff with and crawled under the car *hot hot hot* and wired the exhaust back up. Come to think of it, I don't think I've changed it yet. Took a piece of welding rod, broke the coating off and used it to hold my alternator to the block, after the mounting bolts broke off in the block. At least I got home. THAT I did fix. Car ran a lil warmer then normal, but not too hot that I couldn't nurse her home. Dropped my radiator cap once, on the way to Vegas. Thing came apart and then wouldn't lock down right. So I took some bandages out of my first aid kit, put the cap back together piece by piece and then bound it all together to the neck of the radiator with the white guaze bandage. Ran like that to Vegas and home. Got a hole in my lower radiator hose on a trip. I always carry water, so that wasn't a problem.....but I sure as hell don't carry a radiator hose. I stopped at some ****hole market, the kind that sells booze left over from prohibition..............bought a package of maxi pads and pulled out a roll of go fast race tape. Put the pad on upside down *sticky side to the hose* and wrapped the ****er with duct tape. I figured, the plastic coating/sticky would help hold it in place AND help stop it from ****ing up the water. Never leaked water and I managed to get all the way back home.
recently used a "tie-strap" to secure a front shock that the nut had come off of, drove from the breakfast meet to my house and it was still holding stong... course now i have a lifetime supply of 5/16 nuts ,thanks to the Anti-Donut boys........LOL
I flung a belt once in the middle of the night. Digging through the trunk, I found a 10 foot roll of primary wire and some vise grips. I wrapped the wire around the pulleys as many times as I could, and then wound the ends around as tight as I could with the vise grips. It got me home (about 10 miles) and to the parts store the next day.
Ive used wire to fix a busted throttle cable. I almost made it home with a busted clutch pedal before the throttle gave up.
My wife drove the race/street car the first time and I told her to be careful around corners as it will spin the back around faster than she can blink. Well Im enjoying the Auto swap meet and I get a call. Its my wife and she says. "Hi honey, your cars on fire". Ugh!!! Did you call the Fire dept? She said no and so I called and drove about 100+ mph to see my car burned to the ground. At least thats what I thought. Well, she extinguished the fire with my trusty Fire extinguisher I had in the back seat and what was on fire was the engine harness which killed all power to run the car. I pulled the speaker wire off the speaker and ran it from the battery to the coil and then crossed over the solenoid. I drove home about 8 miles with no electrical except for the coil. Great minds think alike. I also had a Holley flood on me after racing all day. It was dark out and in the middle of nowhere, the carb flooded out. So with a small pen light and a few tools, I took the needle and seat out and cleaned it. I took the float level screw out and proceeded to drop it, then the needle and seat nut/scew was spraying gas so I took the rubber washer from the K&N air cleaner and used it to seat the Needle and seat nut and screw then used a chunk of rubber and a stick to seal the float level plug. I set the float level a bit below the site plug and drove the 70 miles home this way. I have had so many road side repairs that got me home thanks to the Macyver in me.
Rubbed a hole in the bottom tank of a radiator, cut off the end of my leather belt, leather swelled when it got wet. Stayed for three years.
My best one was using the spring and metal clicker out of a cheap ball point pen to replace the one in a 36 HP VW distributor cap when the graphite contact went south. The little metal cap off of the clicker fit into the cap like it was made for it and since it was plated br*** it made good contact with the rotor. Ran till I sold it a year later.
66 Impala,wipers quit, ran shoelaces tied together, through the vent windows to the wiper arms. Back and forth by hand power. Got us home in a downpour.
driving my ten year old cavelier home from vacation in maine about ten years ago, the lower radiator outlet broke off a year old radiator (cheap *** chinese ****) still had 200 miles to go before home and no way was i paying that tow bill. found a little store that sold those epoxy sticks. ran it right around the joint and stuck it together. covered that with JB weld and filled it up with water 5 minutes later. didn't leak a drop the whole way home. drove it like that for 2 weeks before I saved up the cash for a quality replacement radiator. my father's 94 F250 broke the belt tensioner while out looking at a car to buy about 100miles from home. managed to re-route the belt so it took up a bit more room and shimmed up the alternator with washers until the belt was tight. All this in a feed store parking lot with an adjustable wrench we bought there.
The Jalopy Journal
