At one time or another everyone has had to limp a car home with make do repairs. I think my best one was, don't hate me, a VW story. I sold a friend an old 36 horse motor out of a '59 bug for his beater Baja. He installed it and a bit later moved to Colorado. On a trip home (Oklahoma) he came knocking on my door early one morning and said the car had died about thirty miles north of town and he hitched a ride on in. This was way before cell phones. We drove out to the dead bug and after determining it had no fire, popped the cap to find the little carbon contact had worn out and dropped the spring into the rotor which of course ate it. After surveying the options, knowing no one would have a 36hp cap in town, I took a ball point pin, used the spring and the little chrome cap that you push to click out the point for a contact and got it running. The cool part is he made several trips back and forth from Colorado with that set up and as far as I know it was running like that when he sold it two years later.
Driving back to ROC in NY from Great Lakes in ILL. Bent a shift fork around Cleveland (Late night entertainment on the interstate)and before I got to PA I removed the 3-4 rod and had to reach through the floor to shift between gears. It was just business as usual in 1985.
dead of winter Northern Idaho driving the '50 Ford one ton out on an ice covered dirt road coming down hill the ice had created a very bone jarring washboard surface, the battery jumped out of it's box and landed on the distributor, knocking the cap off and snapping the rotor in two. no tools, no parts, woulda been stranded if not for the roll of packing tape. the rotor had broken clean through the shaft so I taped it back together and drove it into town bought a new rotor and a bungie cord.
Mindin my own bidness, coming down Echo Canyon in eastern Utah in my slammed 68 chevy pickup. I was headed west to attend "hot Salt" at Bonneville when I musta picked up a rock from oncoming traffic in the other lane. Coming down the hill, antifreeze began emanating through the hood louvers and collecting on the windshield. I immediately whipped into the rest area to survey the situation. My son was driving his flat black 70 chevy shortbox and pulled in behind me in the rest area. There was a cute little stream of antifreeeze ******* right out between the grille bars, onto the ground. I turned to my kid and said, "Gimme a cigarette---no, make it 2 cagarettes." With a quizzical look on his face, he surrendered a pair of Winstons to my outstretched hand. I opened the radiator cap and began putting the tobacco from both cigarettes into the radiator while the little 292 idled happily. The little piss stream began to falter and stopped completely to his amazement! That was a good 10 years ago and I think the tobacco is still in there.
I've heard black pepper will do the trick too. my favorite one was when I was driving the '56 Bug (sorry) and ran out of gas on the ferry to Tacoma, I could see there was still about a half inch of gas at the bottom of the tank and I just happened to have a half box of stubbies in the car, the gas caps on those old bugs are plenty big enough to take a beer bottle so I carefully put a half dozen or so full ones in the tank the bottles displaced the fuel raising the level enough to get it going and I drove off the boat with the deck hands just shaking their heads and laughing. Paul
I was coming home in my 70 model Chevy truck from buying it last year. Basic truck with a 250 inline 6 cylinder. The alternator light on the dash came on. I figured as hard a I was running it (3.73 gears, old tired truck) I probably just threw the belt off. I pull over and pop the hood. My wife was following me home in her car. She, of course, pulls over too and comes walking up carrying something wrapped in a rag (it was hot). It was the ring off of the harmonic balancer had fallen out from under the truck as I pulled over. The 6 cylinder doesn't use a pulley on the crank, just the balancer. The rubber in the balancer had given up and allowed the ring to sling off. I took my pocket knife and cut a long strip out of the rubber floor mat in the truck. I wrapped the rubber strip around the balancer hub and hammered the ring back over it, making it a tight press fit. I put the belt back on and left it pretty loose. It held together until we made the next town and unbelivably, Autozone had a balancer for a 250 in stock, I bought a balancer puller and a hammer too. Changed it in the parking lot.
I have quite a few but this is my favorite. My pregnant wife and I were out in the 64 GTO convert. Just hanging out with friends at the Wednesday night drags. Its about 11:00 and Mac and me decide we need to find some pizza. The only place he knows of that is open that late is over in oak (real bad part of town) park. Anyway we pull up on the side street next to the place and I hear gl*** breaking under my very small front tire. Ofcorse being the dumb *** know it all I am, I have no spare and nether dose Mac. Tire is going down real fast, holy **** all I can think of is get moving. Got to find an air hose with friendlys and there it was about a mile up Stockton a FedX yard with the gate open. After seeing the ½ long gash in the tire and trying to put all kinds of bolts and screws in the slash. Nothing was working then it dawned on me I need some rubber. Pealed off the windshield wiper blade stuffed it in with a screw driver cut it flush with my buck knife put in 45lbs and halled *** 20 miles home. The next morning it still had 30lbs in it.
Used to work in Summerland just south of Santa Barbara and commute from Ventura about 30 miles away. Running a trip 2 intake on a flatty in my 50 Ford coupe. The less than cheap non-progressive throttle linkage broke. Strung a piece of cotton string through the firewall and ran the throttle with that. Was ok long as my friend didn't yank the cord - which he did now and then. Shortly afterward, dad taught me how to make rod & Heim linkage and that was the last of the cheap linkage. It's probably still lying out in the lemon orchard where I threw it.... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Moving from San Bernardino, the fuel pump on my 59 Ranchero quit during the last trip. I had a roof rack in the bed as well as a Moon tank and lotsa hose & some fittings. Mounted the Moon tank on the roof and let it gravity feed the carb the remaining 50 miles. A bit scary due to the fire hazard, but I figured if I got in a wreck the tank was gonna go sailing anyway.... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Runnin Wilshire Blvd. in my friends beautiful 51 Olds coupe, limefire green, white TJ T&R, 56 Fiestas, blackwalls, built 324" Rocket motor with trip 2's and two beautiful young women with us when the shift arm on the sideshift Lasalle trans started slipping. The shift arm was a Chevy clamp on arm that was part of the home-made floor shift setup. Drove the right side of the car up on the curb, friend crawled under and clamped the shift arm with a pair of vise-grips. Got back to Ventura with no more problems. At least not with the car.... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Far out in the Dez, my bud fell and broke a hole into the side case of his wet sump Honda 305 Scrambler. The hole was above oil level, so I wiped off the oil, washed the case down with water and liquid soap, sealed the hole with duct tape and we finished the ride with no more loss of oil. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Back in the forest above Gorman on an other dirt bike extravaganza, one of the guys fell and broke the left handlebar completely off. It woulda been a tough ride back down the mountain trail one handed. We got a branch off a tree, carved it to fit inside the handlebar, pulled the bike's kickstand and tie-wrapped it and taped the heck out of it and it was fairly solid for the ride back. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gotta couple, but not all Hotroddish: was wheelin' at Tellico and a guy was trying to make it up to Helicopter Pad in a Jeep(Ima Toyota guy). He romped on it a little too exhuberantly and the tell tale "Clang!" of serious breakage resounded over the hills. After surveying the situation he had broken the driver side axle on his model 20 rear end. Now those are a c-clip rear end and he broke it right at the flange, thus losing his rear wheel alltogether, when I say losing I mean it; it took of down the hill and jumped off the cliff into oblivion. But it didn't stop there. In his mad seesawing of the front wheels to gain traction, the poorly braced steering box left it's home on the frame. This guy was SCREWED, and in a very precarious position, about a third of the way up the rock face. We winched/dragged him up to the Pad and set to work. Three trucks and four jumper cables linked all their batteries together. I tore apart a coathanger(who knows why it was in my truck) and with some flat stock I always carry, spray paint(on the coat hanger for flux), and about 5 pairs of borrowed sungl***es(and alot of squinting) I was able to "weld" the steering box back sorta into place. But what about the rear axle you say? Now the funny part. Took my chainsaw(very handy trail tool!) and cut a bowed chunk of cedar from the countryside. 4 or 5 ratchet straps later we had the Jeep sitting on a cedar "sled" attached to the frame and rear axle. Only took a couple of stops for re-adjustments and the poor ****er was able to drive back to camp. Many beers were consumed. #2 My buddy Ralph Whiite had just acquired a little BSA. I heckled him about the fact that BSA stands for Bolts Shook Away. Shore nuff, we were on a little ride and I blasted ahead throught the Mt.Bonnel corkscrew on my 82 GPZ, I looked back at the top and no Ralph. I was genuinely afraid that he had lost it in the bumpy corkscrew. I circled back to find his bike parked and him face down scouring the roadside. Seems the little dilly at the bottom of his float bowl had backed out and his carb no longer would carb. After a few minutes of searching I did find a hunk of cast off constuction worker fajita wrap tin foil. Stuffed that **** in the carb hole and off we went. I got more, someone stop me....
This one's not mine-- Guy's driving his 392/2x4 Hemi-powered '51 Merc Custom home from a show a couple years ago, and only runs drag race gas in the car. The gas ate the plastic rotor vanes on the fuel pump about 60 miles from home, and it's in the middle of about nowhere. He and his friend start looking in the ditch until they find a plastic soda bottle. Disconnect the fuel line from the carb, siphone enough gas out to fill the soda bottle, screw the lid on so it isn't tight, poke a hole in the bottom of the bottle with a Buck knife, then set the bottle in the big bowl of the original Edmunds air cleaner so it drips gas into the carb, shuts the hood and drives home. If Don Garlits wasn't the car owner, I'd never believe it. His old crew chief TC Lemons was laughing as he told me about it, and there on the bench was the fuel pump, and the old Pepsi bottle was still sitting in the air cleaner. -Brad
i got one i can think of. i was a cruise night with my old 72 riviera. the damn 455 kept over heating in the traffic. so me and my buddy popped the trunk looking for something to lock up the thermo clutch on the fan. ended up putting two hose clamps around it. all was well then and got to keep cruising. untill i starting trying to get some kids in a mustang to race me. started reving the motor at em at a light. then took off like a bat outa hell. all of a sudden heard the horrible noise of metal vs metal. the high rpm's had caused the hose clamps to fly off the fan blade. and of course they just happend to fly off at the right time to shoot thru the oil filter! big puffs of black smoke and the smell of burnt oil on the headers insued. luickly this happend in front of a k-mart parking lot. ran inside and got 5 qts of a oil and a new filer and headed home. last time i try putting hose clamps where they dont go! bryan
Hmm, another VW story (gasp!) But once driving home from grandmas house, where I had been doing yardwork my throttle cable snapped in the middle of traffic. Luckily since i had been doing yardwork I had some weed eating string in the trunk, so I ended up tying it to the throttle itself and running it through a hood vent, and up into the sunroof. I drove about 20 miles home pulling the string for gas... -Another time driving our old 67 chevy stepside the clutch cable broke on the way to school, so I ended up clamping it back with some old rusty vice grips I had in the bed, and I ended up leaving it like that for about 2 months.. I know they can't compare to most of you guys stories, but I'm 16 and only been driving for less than a year, so I wont have that many stories!
One time the ignition switch went out on my old S-10, I was far away from home and the truck had an automatic so I couldnt push start it. Of course I had no tools and it was late so I couldnt borrow any from the gas station I was at. I thought I was screwed but my antenna saved the day. I unscrewed it from it's base and used it to jump the solenoid, presto, back on the road.
On a road trip a couple of years ago from Houston to Pleasanton for Good Guys and Hot Rod Week, one of the roadsters in the group sheared off a lower rear coilover shock bolt on I-80 right as we were coming into California. Danny, HOTRODPRO, took a long 3/8 extension, some flat washers, and a couple of hose clamps and stuck it through the shock and bracket. We stopped in the next town and fixed it at a local parts store. The guy that owned the store had a couple street rods and was very helpful and let us use the equipment in the back to make a new sleeve for the lower shock bushing.
Another VW story. First you gotta understand how the reverse light circuit is wired on a 67 VW. They hook up to the positive side of the coil then it runs down to the switch on the trans and then off to the lights. Well I was cruising home from college one day when the VW sputtered and died. After giving the motor the once over, I found that the distributor had loosened up and spun around. I had a 10mm wrench with me so I could tighten the bolt but I had no way of timing it. Then I got a brainstorm. Clicked the motor over a couple of times until I had 12 Deg. BTDC lined up on the timing mark. I turned on the ignition, put the car in reverse and then moved the power wire from the positive side of the coil to the negative side. Bingo... the reverse lights became an instant static timing light. Tightened down the distributor, moved the wire back and drove the car home. After that, I'd do it every once in a while to amaze my friends.
One of my students, who is now a journeyman machinist, had a rod come out the side of his 261 in a 58 Pontiac. He took the rod off and replaced it with a rod and piston from another junk motor he had. He made a patch for the block out of two pieces of sheet metal sandwiched inside and outside the block with some kind of sealer. That was in 1990. He last had plates on that Pontiac in 2002, and put on over 120,000 miles on that same motor. This same guy put a 318 wide block Dodge in a Willys pickup, mated a Borg Warner overdrive out of a Studey to the Willys ****** somehow, and made it all work. I wish I had half as much ability as he has
Four hour trip from Cin city to Canton, coming back from the Pumpkin run last year in Ohio. Late at night, stopped on the last leg of the journey to get gas at about 10:00. Filled up 7 gallons in the 10 gallon tank. Went to hit the ignition. Deader that a doornail... A New battery before leaving and a checked alternator had us wondering.... Threw a meter on the alternator and the internal exiter would start but then went right off with no charge. After making it this far carrying spares of.. a water pump, fuel pump and head gasket and no damn alternator..We weren't going to give up and call the flatbed. One of the guys had one of those portable battery jump boxes, so I hooked up a jumper, ran it from the battery through the window to the portable inside the coupe and made it on the 45 minute trip the rest of the way home with the headlights off on just battery juice!
One of,if not the first, street legal vehicles I ever owned was a stock 37 Ford 85hp PU. Back in about 62 or 63. Gas tank rusty, carried a bar of soap and sheetmetal screws & faucet washers. Would notice a new leak in gas tank, if rubbing bar of soap over hole didn't stop leak would put faucet washer on sheetmetal screw, screw it into rust pinhole. Had a dirt bike late 60s, riding in woods, hit something, kick starter went into side cover, crack about 1" long, chewing bubblegum, cleaned up pushed used bubblegum into crack, stopped leak. Sold it, saw it years later, gum still there, still not leaking.
We have had a couple. Coming home from the races one night the alternator gave out.We just Tye Wrapped the Race car charger( A lawn mower motor with an alternator belt driven ) to the grille and bumper and came the two hour trip home with only one refill of gas. The best one was when I used to flat tow the race car. After hooking it up in the driveway I forgot to release the emergency brake. By the time we got to the track the rear brakes had cut the drums up and the wheel cyl had been so hot they were leaking fluid. The tow van also had a Dana 60 so we took the backing plates ,all the brake hardware and drums and put on the race car. We happened to win that day and afterwards had to reinstall all that stuff on the van to tow home. Well the track crew just told us to lock the gates when we were done and left. When I was moving to Oregon I had the tow van and the race car on the trailer and was in the middle of Idaho somewhere. I knew I should have stopped for gas but it was daybreak and everyone was asleep and I was making miles. About 60 miles later the gauge read double empty plus so I stopped along side the road at a rest area. Proceeded to take the fuel line off the race car and pump some fuel into a can and then put it in the van.After several trips and me now smelling like gas a truck driver walked over. He said how much gas does that van use?. Well I told him I didn't fuel up when I could and so it was now necessary to put enough in to get to the next truck stop. He stood there a couple of minutes and said ,"you know the next truck stop is right down the hill ,about a half mile?" Oh yeah I knew that.!!
A coworker had a Pinto stuck in a parking lot suddenly unable to shift. We went out on lunch hour with a pocketful of pliers and screwdrivers to survey things, and eventually discovered that the clutch cable housing had pulled through the rotted firewall, and whatever was meant to hold it was gone, probably in a cloud of brown powder. It was rush hour in New Jersey, impossible conditions for my thoroughly non-mechanical friend to learn clutchless driving from my two minute lecture, and a proper repair would have required fabrication since nothing repairable was left. We were both young and impoverished, and this was beginning to look like maxoutthecreditcard time. Out of ideas of my own and too far from home to browse my own tool and junk collection, I pooled our money, which was considerably less than ten bucks after cleaning out the change in the ashtray, and went for a stroll in a nearby Kmart. VISE GRIPS!! ON SALE!! A TWO PACK!! The smaller visegrip, set on "kill", nestled right up to what was left in there where the car was rotting in half and held the crusty remnant of cable sheathing in a death grip. It held and worked until it went to the great melting pot with its car, and I took the bigger grips as my pay.
on the way home from road trippin to cali to buy trip in 87,,,, exhaust started falling apart,,, pulled over,,,pulled out my knife,,,cut my jeans into shorts,,, crawled under the car and tied everything back together,,, drove the rest the way home,,,, that trip was a story all its own,,, crazy ****,,, hugs and kisses,,,,
This was my first hotrod, a '60 Falcon Ranch wagon with a (dad) built 289 and afour speed. I was driving home when the throttle linkage broke. Rush hour traffic no less. I popped the hood and cranked the idle screw up. Drove slow but got it home. Another one, same car (figures). I'm blasting down the hiway and take this exit to go home (12:30 in the morning). At the end of the eigth mile exit is a stop light. Needless to say an exit that long is just crying for speed followed by a power stop. Got speed, find out I have no pedal though. Light is red. Only one car at the green light to my left, yeah, it's a cop. I blow through the light incon****ously, down-shifting all the way, barking the tires each time. I make the right turn in front of the cop and ride the curb to a stop while the cop falls in behind me, lights flashing. "Do you know that light was red?" "Yeah, and I would have stopped had I had some brakes." I have him check them, he lets me go. I limp the car home with no brakes by down shifting to slow and then turning the engine off to stop the car at all other subsequent red lights. Gave my p***enger a heart attack though... This stuff was common place when I was a teenager in a hot rod... r
MacGyver reading: Here's a link to some of the chronicles of Gus, the undisputed greatest mechanic of all time. Gus ran a garage, but many of his stories involve desperate repairs to ambulances stuck in blizzards or cars broken down beyond nowhere in the woods: http://brakecylinder.com/GusWilson/index.htm I read every Gus story I could get my hands on in the late fifties, and learned a lot. Another great series: The vise grip people themselves ran a little monthly column ad in the front of Popular Mechanics or Science in the late forties and early fifties, always near the front of the magazine. Each chronicled a desperate repair made by a customer with vise grips--some amazing stuff, with broken frames on the AlCan and such. Some were homier, like the kid with a Cushman who did ALL repairs, including Engine overhauls, with absolutely nothing but a mediun Vise Grip. He had modified it by grinding a screwdriver tip on a handle... I used to do most of everything with a "Whale Tool", a vise grip compe***or with a complicated sliding jaw. The slider made it a real ******* to adjust and get locked on, but once it was on there that part was gonna move or die...still have it as my last hope backup for anything I can't figure out how to move.
on my way to the swap meet in mecungie pa (may be spelled wrong) with 2 other friends in a ratty 69 camaro getting onto rt 80 no more then 10 miles from home. a tractor cuts us off. i goto lock up the brakes and blow out a front wheel cyl . i grab a vise grip pinch off the front rubber line and head out figuring ill get a new cyl there and fix it befor we head home. thank god the car was stick and could slow it down that way . 150 miles and every time you touch the brakes it would hook to the left badly . ohhh i forgot the rear brakes did not work either. to be young and stupid again
my transmission on my '56 went out in Downtown L.A.. I should have just called a tow truck, but I had been suspended from AAA for abusing my towing privledges. I still had reverse so I backed up all the way to Highland park. . . it's about 10 miles through the city.I had this moment of genius where I figured it was safer to go with the flow of traffic than against it so I just drove backwards in the right lane. I still remember driving by a school and all the kinds yelling "you're going backwards!". In hindsight it was really, really dumb but it made some kind of wierd sense at the time.
I've got a ton of these but one of my favorites happened in the summer of '70 while riding a greyhound bus through the smoky mtns in tennesee. I was in the army and on my way from north carolina to arkansas on a 30 day leave before going to vietnam. Anyway, the bus is going down the west side of the mountains and all of a sudden the motor revs up and the driver gets real busy. Turned out that the turbo deisel motor in this thing has dual throttle springs, one pulling it open and one pulling it shut so they balance each other out. I guess it's to make it easier on the linkage. Anyway, the spring that was supposed to pull it shut broke and the motor was having a runaway. Well, he gets the bus down the mountain and over on the shoulder where he shuts it down and informs us that he will have to radio knoxville for another bus to take us in and to expect about a 4 hour delay before it even shows up. So we're all outside walking around stretching our legs and I go over to where the driver has his head buried in the motor checking it out. He shows me what the problem is and I have him get my suitcase out of the cargo compartment. I just happened to have a front brake ***embly for a '66 honda 160 dirt bike in my suitcase and one of the brake shoe return springs is a perfect replacement for the missing throttle spring. Well, we pop on the spring, cancel the other bus and proceed to drive the rest of the way in without a hitch. Next week I'll tell you the story of how I carved a rocker box cap for a 650 triumph out of a stick on the side of the road. Or if your real good I'll tell you the one about when I made a coil wire for my '65 vette using a piece of wet vacuum tubing.
Went to visit my girlfriend's(now wife)sister up by Chicago. She just had a baby. I do some trading with her husband and end up pulling a rather large boat and a motorcycle in the back of the 76 1/2 ton Dodge van. We do fine for awhile while it is night, but when the sun comes up the throttle linkage breaks. I take the engine cover off, flip what is left of the linkage from the front so it now is pointing to the rear of the engine and use my right ankle to push the throttle linkage. It is the end of February, so it is getting really cold inside the van. I stop again and use a screwdriver to place a hole in the engine cover so I can run the throttle linkage back through. We are now somewhere in Iowa when the van starts overheating. Radiator was not leaking, cap had recently been replaced, water pump was flowing. I pulled the upper radiator hose and gutted the thermostat. Started driving 26 miles at a time. Drive 26 miles, then sit for 30-40 minutes to let 318 cool off. Drive another 26 miles, etc. Am going through Kansas City at 5:15 p.m. on a Tuesady. Stayed in the middle lane and was stuck there until I got out of KC. Made it home (near Topeka, KS) I get it home and do not even look at it for two days. On the third day I go back, unhook the boat and unload the bike. Decided to pull the van around to the garage and have a look. Van will not move, forward or reverse. Pull the dipstick on the ******. Black + burnt fluid, motor was fine. Put another ****** in and drove it for 7 months before selling it. =========================================================== My buddy comes over one day in this little Ford Courier pickup he just bought and decides to check the compression. #3 cylinder is 0. I get out the flashlight and say "man there is something in there!" He runs up to the local parts store while I pull the head. I pull the valve cover to find no valves on the #3 cylinder I then pull the head to find a block of wood pressed into the #3 cylinder. Not, loose but very tight like it had been hammered or pressed into the engine block. Pull the oil pan and sure enough there is a nice cut block of wood completely filling the cylinder. No rod, no piston...just wood. My bud comes back and is freaked out. He asked me what to do, I told him it ran fine before so put it back together. We did and he drove it like that for 2 more years until he wrecked it. =========================================================== Another friend We went to a Hank Williams Jr. concert(not for the music, but that is a different story ). We come out of the concert and it is VERY late. Flat tire, no spare. I say what do we have? Fix-a-flat, cool put it in. Leaking out fast, but we see the hole a split down on the tire(not up on the raised tread, but down in the pattern). We look in the glove box to find superglue and a condom. I put the condom on my finger and cover the end in superglue. Press it into the crack and when it dries we put in the rest of the fix-a-flat. No gas stations open so we drive home about 65 miles. Got up next day to find 22 psi still in the tire.
The Jalopy Journal
