Art & Inspiration Make do repairs on the side of the road.

I ran across this photo of a repair my fatherinlaw made on the wagon when he was out of town on a fishing trip.

It seems the gas pedal broke and as the story goes he saw a small outhouse or shed out in the field and literately pulled the hinge off and attached it to the throttle and drove the car home,it stayed like that until I rebuilt the car.

You guys got any roadside fixes? HRP

 

you should have had the hinge chrome plated and put it back in.

 

Alternator came loose. The bracket bolt into the casting stripped so it wouldn't hold the fan belt in tension. Grabbed a bolt, washer and nut from elsewhere and put it in the bracket slot in front of the stripped bolt to act as a stop. Pretty simple and it took me way too long to think of it. It is still there.

 

A fan belt broke once so I tied a boot lace around the water pump, alternator and crank pulley and made it to town without over heating.

 

At Paso we were staying out at the Barracks at Camp Roberts. We were driving the 40 Ford for the first time, went to start and the clutch pedal went to the floor and stayed. Went out to take a look in the engine compartment to find the z-bar ball on the block was snapped off. 18 miles from Paso on a almost deserted military base.
So I put it in first and hit the start button to get it running. Ran all the stop signs on base and headed out the gate.
Made it into town with careful speed shifting and actually parked it next to the park.

Now what to do? Rummaged in the bed and found a 5/8 about two inches long that would screw into the block but too sloppy for the z-bar. A little more digging I found a 1 inch for something. OK now what? Went into the vendor area and found a company selling the new, at the time, small shop MIG welders, and they had it up and running. So they welded the large nut onto the bolt and they even had a grinder with a flapper wheel to allowed me to sorta round it out.
At the 40 I bolted it to the block, slipped the z-bar in place and it sorta worked. I had just enough pedal to start and double clutch for the rest of the gears.
Made it home and I still have it in my tool box to remind me that anything is possible.

 

The fix on my 1931 Dodge coupe gas pedal....

 

Not really a repair but an Army buddy once regaled us with the tale of how he jump started another car without any jumper cables, while out in the sticks, the morning after an all nighter using nothing more than a tire iron and empty keg of beer. Said he was the hero that day.

 

Great fix, I always carry a few spare nuts and bolts and a bungee cod

 

Not really a roadside fix, but we drove my wife's late model Cadillac for 6 months with a blown head gasket. We just limited it to around town travel, left the coolant overflow tank cap loose, and replenished the coolant every week or so. It would run rough until the coolant in that one cylinder cleaned out.

 

We used a piece of scrap romex wire like used in the walls of your house that we got out of a construction dumpster as jumper cables,damn those wires got hot quick but did the job. HRP

 

I have been doing repairs in motels, on the side of the road, in parking lots, and rest areas for so long it would be hard to catalog them all.

I do remember once the exhaust fell off my little brother's pickup in the middle of the night in Podunc Center Kansas. It was too loud to tolerate for the 8 hour trip home so I cut a piece of wire out of a farmers fence and we made hangers out of it and then used some pieces to hold it tight to the manifolds.

I remember him asking what if the cows get out and I said, "Dennis there are only two people out here you and me and we're leaving, I'm sure they'll be OK."

 

My Dad's choke broke, so he ran a plastic tube through the air cleaner, through the firewall and dash to a spray-bottle filled with gasoline. To start it, he just gave it a few squirts. It stayed on the car until he junked it.

I have used a catsup bottle with a hose stuck on the end to get old cars started that had been sitting a while. It works good if you're by yourself and don't have anyone to pour gas in the carburetor while you crank it.

 

Broken throttle linkage: shoelaces tied to carb linkage to make a hand throttle out the window.
Broken clutch cable: Put it in first, crank starter to get going, clutchless shifts into higher gears. At red lights repeat process.

 

LOL find neutral and push off with your foot at red lights or just run 'em. Clutch cables and linkage when I shifted jock still were always my nemesis.

 

I my old Model A pickup I also had a throttle cable snap as I was running down the interstae,I ended up using the clip on strap from my wifes pocket book,I took the hood off and laid it in the bed,pushed out the windshield and fished the strap under the windshield to the carburetor,I drove almost 150 miles home late on a Sunday evening pulling the strap to give it gas. HRP

 

Two fixes that were on the road.
1. Points in the Accel dual point Distributor burned about 10 miles from home (after having been to the NSRA Nats in 83 or 84), the guy with me was sharper than I, popped the distributor cap, scratched the points and I ran it that way for another month before I put new points in.
2. I was about 45 miles from home on the way to a work site and the throttle cable broke (OT car), I was able to nurse it to the side of the road, walked a couple of blocks to a farm supply store and got the smallest U clamp they had, lucky I had a few hand tools in the car, drove it that way for a week until the new part came in.

 

LOL in an old Chevy pickup I managed to break the bell crank of all things on the throttle. We were about 12 miles out in the pucker brush and Mrs Beaner and I were standing there staring at it. She finally said, "what about that choke thangy, you never use it anyway." So choke cable it was. She shifted while I operated the clutch, throttle and steering wheel. My first cable throttle.

Once the missus and I were in McMinnville, OR and the top tank on our merc sprung a leak in the seam. We popped into a park for water and I went in the bathroom and dug some window glazing putty out of the glass with my pocket knife. We stuffed the putty into the crack loosened the cap and drove the 35 or so miles to her dad's house so we could borrow the torch and solder it back up. it worked believe it or not.

 

Broken valve spring: Used a small gas line sized hose clamp to hold the intake valve up so it wouldn’t slap the top of the piston.
Needed to keep idle high: Shoved screwdriver down carb to hold a choke open.
My favorite is forward gears gave out: My Dad drove a car home in reverse!

 

Was on the way to a local cruise when one of my '57 Chevys started sputtering like it was out of gas...but the gauge said half full. I coasted to a stop, pulled the filter and it was clean, checked the carb filter and it was OK. After fifteen minutes of messing, the car started and ran fine. At the cruise, it started doing it again...convinced it wasn't out of gas or the filters plugged, I had to figure a way to get across town, 35 miles to home. A tow rig was not an option cuz the car sits too low...and wouldn't get on a flat bed without damage. I decided to buy a plastic five gallon gas can and eight feet of rubber hose from the auto parts store still open. I pulled the "in" line from the fuel pump, ran the hose out the side of the hood and into the passenger window. I set the five gallon can on the floor, stuck in the hose and fired the car up. Drove home with no problems...pulled the tank and come to find out, someone had dropped a hard rubber ball, the kind that drop out of those quarter machines, into my fuel filler tube, it sank and effectively plugged up the suction tube. When I was cruising slowly it was OK but if I tried to go faster, the ball plugged the suction tube...!!!

R-

 

Had an old Datsun when I was in college- the ignition switch broke. Took the plastic cover off the bottom
and triggered it with the back of the key- drove it that way for 2 years.

My favorite story was a friend who had an ignition rotor break- made an emergency replacement out
of an eraser and a paper clip, drove it that way for 3 days till his Mom could get him one from work
on Monday- she worked at Ecklin and got it free- he is still a cheap bastard!

 

Not on car but my old Harley, carb bolt backed out in the middle of nowhere. Found some steel wire on the side of road and wired carb back on and twisted the wire to get it tight enough to run. Would not idle but ran fine at speed. Just don't stop.

Back in college on old English sports car, shifter came up our of floor when I was trying to overcome the spring lockout for reverse. Had to park it for weeks so I could go forward out of parking space. Not sure I ever got that fixed but it still ran

 

Here's one with a twist -

They have a show down here called the Hollywood Speedway Reunion. There's a Hall of Fame that they induct three or four former speedway racers into each year. I don't have the name of this guy they inducted this year posthumously, but this is one of the stories about him -

He had a wreck on his run and broke his leg. He was put into the ambulance for the journey to the hospital. Only thing was, the damn ambulance wouldn't start. The racer got out of the ambulance and they helped him to the front where he determined some ignition problem. He filed the points, the engine started, and they put him back in the ambulance for the hospital ride again.

Hard core hot rodding at its finest !

 

The heater didn't work so great in my '62 Chevy, so I fabricated some duct-work out of soda can boxes to focus all of the hot air onto the driver's side of the windshield to prevent frost-up during winter driving until I was able to replace the heater core.

 

I lost a cotter pin out of a brake linkage on my model A roadster and the pedal fell to the floor. I got under it and I still had the pivot pin and I fixed it with a hair stick my wife was using to put her hair in a bun. It was made from heavy wire. I put it in and drove the car for another year and change with it. I was under the car a couple of months ago and saw it. Replaced it with a new cotter pin and straightened it and gave it back to my wife. She was happy to get her hair thingy back.

 

We had just gotten the 270 Red Ram into my 46 Militay=ry Dodge weapons carrier. It rea and was ready to go. No gas pedal. I went in the house and got a curtain rod. Hammered both ends flat and bent one into a "U". It worked and I never replaced it.
Jacksonville to Albuquerque with shoelaces for throttle cable. The passenger had to work the gas while the driver did the rest. It was a hoot. We only had $50.00 when we left and got into the nasty news papers for the quarters cause my friend was a hood and could pick locks. We even had enough for a beer in Texas.

 

Do trailer bearings count?
This was last Friday.

 

I'm sure we've all done the green bean can wrapped around a broken ehaust pipe held in place w/wire... , or the night the starter heat shield dropped down & shorted out on the starter post , cut the cable cause the battery was smoking , pulled what was left of the heat shield , clamped the cut ends of the battery cable w/vice-grips , taped everything w/duct tape & got home..
dave

 

1982, on a trip down to florida in my elcamino exhaust pipe broke in Georgia we used two soda cans cut open with a swiss army knife [same one i still carry] and used wire to keep it tight. held for the whole trip, the rest of the way down and back home.
same trip, raced a barracuda at a traffic light, i beat him to the next light but threw a fan belt. i pried the power steering belt from the crank pulley over the water pump pulley and drove it to the condo. we had no alternator but made it anyway, got a belt the next morning.

 

F%$K Beaner!! I don't know you or know what you look like but I can see you saying that and the light bulb goes off above you brothers head as you flee the seen!! Classic!! Pete

 

Bought a 1954 Ford sedan delivery that had sat for decades.
Proceeded to tow it home and it kind of acted like it had brakes
Got on the freeway sunday afternoon when everyone else was getting out of church
Now it has zero/zilch brakes!!!
Opened the cap on the master cylinder and it was as dry the mojave desert
Took my friends long neck beer and topped it off
When we pulled into my shop it was leaking crudwieser out of all 4 wheel cylinders....

" YOU PICKED A FINE TIME TO LEAVE ME LOOSE WHEEL"