Unusal auto repairs - re Smallfoots drive shaft spacerr

[23crate]

so Ok Smallfoots driveshaft "adaptor" didn't go so well with some....


Im thinking weve all done some wild creation or constructed some auto part that got us home, to the auto repair shop, out of crap with the missus on a wet day. home at all and not stuck on the side of the road or highway .....

as ive said I have fence wire holding parts chaser exhaust system in place, ive used a "does not fit the studs properly" loaned a spare to get the car some 10 miles home and numerous other dastardly tricks when all else failed ....


the floor opens ....[P

 

[Torchie]

1956 Mercury that had a single reservoir Master cylinder on it. Blew a rear brake line and ended up driving it around for a week with vice grips clamping the line off. For added safety I duct taped the handles of the vice grips so that they wouldn't pop open.
I had to go a week because that's how long it was before I got a paycheck.
Young and dumb.......
Torchie

 

[Yankee Transplant]

torchie I did the same thing on my 65 f -100 about 60 miles from home .. i beat it flat with a hammer and taped it up ,,,, on my dune buggy.. I stuck a 6 penny nail inside the front brake lines and srewed them back on. and that kept them from sliding the tires ...line didnt break they just worked to well

 

[junker39]

JB weld on a spark plug when the threads in the head mysteriously got stripped, a flashlight out the window, for headlights, when the generator belt went away, a paper clip black taped to a distributor rotor, string for a hand held throttle, string thru both windows, out to the wipers, (teamwork involved). I didn't do this one but, I did have to fix it: A guy had a rear u-joint let loose and used a whole roll of tie wire to wrap the two pieces back together and made it 40 miles so I could replace the joint. It took forever to cut all that wire off. There's a bunch more I've done I'm sure. My remember is running a little slow lately. Oh yeah, silicone a couple of lug nuts in place to get an inspection sticker. I discovered that siliconed lug nuts are only good for 30 MPH. Any higher and they come off. Later.

 

[Yankee Transplant]

OMG !!!!! if we had inspection down here we would have a bunch of parked cars , thats for sure .. but I worked with a man that drove his truck about 20 miles round trip to work for about a month with wire hanging out of his tire ..before he replaced it and it was still holding air ...... I couldnt have gotten 20 foot before it would have blew out , and tore up the rim on the highway ..

 

[earthman]

'56 Chevy sedan delivery 235 6. The column shift linkage was so worn out you had to shift very slowly and let the parts kind of fall into place. Best to close your eyes and just feel with the force. Otherwise it would jam and you would have to stop where you were, get out to raise the hood and jiggle it back into neutral. The friend i sold it to restored the whole car and left the linkage as it was. Not everyone was capable of driving it and he liked it that way.
When i owned it one intake valve didn't open and i was too ignorant to know it was probably a simple fix. Since it had heavy blowby coming out the road draft tube and into the car i took the sparkplug out and used whatever was laying around to convert that cylinder to a crankcase ventilation pump. (pat pend). A short piece of threaded copper pipe screwed into the plug hole. A piece of tubing from it to a rubber toilet float modified to fit over a short piece of sink drain downpipe tapped into the draft tube hole. As i look back i don't understand how it worked but it did work perfectly. No smoke under the hood coming inside. The smoke went out the tailpipe with the rest of the smokey exhaust.
So it was a 5 cylinder with a crankcase ventilation pump.

 

[21willys]

Duck tape holding drive shafts together, 1/2" drive extensions for heater hose plug, wiper squirter pump with gas in it to carb for a bad fuel pump, chain and binder holding a broke strut together, I have others but can't think of them.

 

[Sam_Fear]

2" Water pipe for exhaust and 3" union to fit in the header. C-clamps on batter cables. Block of wood between aircleaner and hood to keep the aircleaner on - lost the hold down bolt. Coat hangers to wire anything on. Soup can with holes punched in it as a muffler - works about 2 days for city driving. Crimped rear brake lines. Wire run through the firewall to the throttle. Electrical tape for a water pump belt. 3 Of us sat on the hood of our friends car as he drove because his rear wheel came off. Many more I've forgotten.

When you're broke or in out in the country, you have to get creative.

 

[Willowbilly3]

I was working with a Mexican in Texas and when the fuel pump went out on his S10, he filled the windshield washer with gas and hooked the hose to the carb, drove it that way for a couple months.

 

[Neto]

It wasn't my car, but I had done an engine swap on it earlier - A 64 Ford Fairlane, column shift (standard). The shifter socket was so worn out that it would come clear out. My friend's wife got a kick out of laying it on the dash in between shifting. Same car had a gasoline tank from a different car in the trunk, because the original one fell off on the road one day for her. (The whole structure where it is fastened in the front was rusted away.)

 

[smallfoot]

Disclaimer....

Not Smallfoot's driveshaft spacer

I Drove 105 miles to my Pops to pick up a boat we scored. Left his place and made it 20 miles before going around a curve and losing the passenger side tie rod end. Ball slipped out of the socket. Got it off the road ok and checked it out. Grabbed some lashing wire and hammer out of the bed and tapped the ball back in and lashed it 3 times reversing direction each lap. Drove the rest of the trip without any problems.

 

[Got Rust?]

Vise grips to hold battery cables on, wire ties to fasten wishbones to frame, both lasted hundreds of miles, pipe for a radiator hose section, wire for radiator hose clamps (still on truck) parking brake for brakes, more when I think of them, oh and a tube from a pen to repair a fuel line.

 

[earthman]

Ok, ......some of you are scaring me now

 

[donsrods]

When I was about 16 a friend bought a 53 Ford that someone has swapped an early Hemi engine into. For spacers on the front motor mounts they cut pieces of 2 x 4 lumber and drilled a hole through the middle for the bolt. Every time he would get on it the wood would break and he would have to cut a new piece of wood !

Don

 

[Got Rust?]

Bailing wire, and or ratchet strap to hold spring up to shackle mount, I'v done both. Drywall screw with electrical tape in tire puncture worked good enough to run.

 

[Got Rust?]

2x4 blocks in coil springs to stiften load.

 

[junker39]

I remember one my Dad did.(before I was around) He put a Hudson Hornet engine in a Jeep and everything worked out except the driveshaft. He cut both, slid one up inside the other, drilled a hole, and put a 1/4" bolt thru both. He said it worked good for about one shift. Then it came apart, the driveshaft hit the road and flipped him and my uncle over, upside down in a ditch full of water. He said they couldn't quit laughing. ( I imagine the Miller High Life company might have had something to do with the whole episode)

 

[MercuryMac]

Smallfoot, I have done the same trick as you did with the rebuilding tierod ends on the side of the road. I used the best quality tarp straps to lash the fix together, though. It turns out that you can drive forward quite well while in control of only one wheel, but don't try to back up.
On my first hotrod, I made a signal light flasher out of a vacuum windshield wiper motor and a peeled brass wire. The actuating arm went back and forth rubbing on the brass wire on the last half of it's stroke.
The rest of my fixes will scare E-man so I'll keep them to myself. I usually got home, alive, though.

 

[Bamamav]

I've tied alternators and AC compressors on with tarp straps. Used a piece of clothes line for a gas cable. Tied exhaust pipes up with wire. Plugged air line with a wood screw and silicon. Lots more......

 

[kenny c]

I cracked the the water jacket of a GMC straight 6 one winter when I didn't know there was drain at the rear of the engine ( I was about 15 years old ). I epoxied the length of the engine with PC-7 epoxy. It lasted for years.