Ghetto repairs

[pixelated]

A good while back, the throttle cable broke on a buddy's VW beetle on a weekend, no parts shops open.
After looking at the thing for a bit, I figured we could tie a string on the throttle lever on the carb, run it from the engine compartment through the air vents, up and over the roof and down through the sun roof for a hand operated throttle.
Worked great, he drove it that way for about a week until he had a chance to get a proper replacement.

[sasquatch]

Back over 50 years ago, the first vehichle i bought when i turned 15 was an old 37 Chev pickup, for i think 35 bucks.

We drove that truck only at night around the back roads going to other towns. No insurance, no plates, and no drivers license. Just take the back roads and sneak into town. Believe it or not we only had one headlight also, and never saw a cop.
The exhaust broke off (Rotted,) about two feet from the engine, and the fumes inside the cab were getting bad.
What to do? no money to buy pipe to fix it, we needed the money for gas right?
So we tied (Wired) a length of galvanized eavestrough downspout onto it, which made a cool straight pipe!
That lasted about two nights as comming home speeding, the heat from the exhaust melted the solder joints and the pipe came apart.

[A.K. Boomer]

Riding Mt. bikes with a girl and she gets a flat (damn colo. goatheads)

so I pull off her tire find the thorn and pull out my patch kit and start patching the tube, she just then notices neither of us have brought a pump and says "were screwed"
I say "why?" she says "don't even bother - we don't have a #%$!^% pump!"

I tell her not to worry cuz she's "with the man" lol

she goes through my little seat bag looking for a C02 cartridge and realizes all there was was the patch kit and says it again "were screwed" and it's getting late we should start walking, so I tell her one more time, "don't worry your with the man" lol


couple minutes later im hunting on the ground for a particular small pebble with a cut out in it,
I even have her searching for one, lol she thought I was insane,

Then I remove the piece of vacuum line I use to connect the ends of my sunglasses (so I can wear them like a necklace when not in use, I used to call them "hoseheads" )

stuff the small pebble with the cut out inside the tube on one end so that it can press the inner valve down on her shrader valve stem and since my valve stems were high perf. presta's all that was needed was to put the hose on that end and tilt the hose end a little --- walla - instant transfer from my front to her's, a little mushy of a ride back but with about 3 miles to go it sure beat walking...


She talked about that for years after but to be honest I used to do it on my bike all the time - transfer from one wheel to the other but that's cake with 2 presta's - before we left on our ride I had already looked the situation over and knew id be hunting for a special little pebble should she flat out...

For a long time after I made it a point to ask her once in awhile "who's the man" and she would always answer kinda irritatedly "your are" --- lol

[A.K. Boomer]

The following is a bittersweet story of a subaru,

maintained the vehicle for years and she brings it in and even though its a turbo it's a dog...
I go through the entire diagnoses process and the conclusion is a plugged cat,

But im lazy that day and also don't want to pull the exhaust system down in fear of it crumbling and breaking off studs and such.

so im racking my brains on how I can "take the easy way out"

15 minutes later im driving down the highway with all the ignition wires I could find taped together - it runs from the coil to inside the cab back to the dist. cap,,, all the connections are electrical taped except one --- the one right in the cab and I found a bare spot on the metal window frame that I could short the wire too -------- so im driving and believe it or not even with all that extra coil wire it's not missing a beat --- get it up to speed -- short the wire to the frame and put the pedal to the floor so the injectors can put a full load into the exhaust system along with copious amounts of oxygen and Walla - release the short and hear a muffled "boom",

look back and all this soot leaves the vehicle and a big chunk of missing power comes back! very nice ----- so I keep doing it and the muffled boom gets louder and louder and the power is unbelievable --------- the soot gets less and less --- wow is she going to be happy and this is going to get her bye cheap too...

Im very happy --- but im also whooping up on the car in amazement at the power -------- I didn't think nothing of the quarter million miles it had logged and how the old rod bearing's haven't seen this much "action" in years --- didn't think anything of it till I heard the knock,,,
Im sad for my customer - she never got to feel the last death kicks of her baby... Like an old man with bad knee's getting a steroid shot and some redbull - it was inevitable...
she junked it - to this day I still have the tranny - can't seem to give that damn thing away...

[Gazz]

Way back during my first year of college, I had a 65 Karman Ghia that had a 6v system. It never seemed to have a enough juice in the battery to start it so I put a 12V battery in next to the engine and connected it to a positive wire on the starter. I ran a jumper cable up next to the drivers seat and when I wanted to start the car, I would first get out and open trunk, pull the air cleaner and drop a stone in the carb intake. I would get back in the drivers seat and connect the jumper cable to ground and start the car and then quick disconnect the 12v jumper cable. The only way to keep it running was to use a handsaw with the front of it jammed against the gas pedal and the teeth jammed in to the carpet to hold it there. Then I would get out and take the stone out and put the air cleaner back on, close the trunk, get back in, remove the saw and off I would go.

[davidh]

i dont know what's happening all my other photos open ...photobucket is adding something to the photo now, that makes it incompatible with windows photo viewer.

it does open with other programs

it's also doctoring the photo so the information about the date that it was taken is altered to today...and not three years ago .

in the past when you downloaded a picture it kept the information of the date it was prosssed on your computer.

another funny thing .....its saves Mcgyver's picture of his mechano drill which is also from photobucket..and displays it ok....and the information on the date taken is there ..

wonder if they have added something to all "old pictures" in photobucket

all the best.markj

i just downloaded smugmug.com as photobucket would not work at all to download on my new windows 7. it seems to work well. . so far anyway.

[davidh]

the glow plugs gave out on my old mercedees diesel so. . . a can of starting fluid mounted on the drivers side kick panel with a small tube running into the intake. . . and away it went. of course even more than a sniff would blow the top of the engine to hel;/. but with care, it lasted thru the summer anyway. that was also years ago.

[A.K. Boomer]

Wow Gazz -- you may have not known it but you were predecessor to the 12volt conversion of the old 6 volt systems --- the starters would handle it - so you would just hook the 12 volt battery directly up to the car after changing out the regulator and all your bulbs and stuff - I think you got to even use the old generator... not sure about ignition coil.

[armedandsafe]

Up in Northern Alaska, the 49 GMC pickup was hard to start in Winter. The 6 volt system just wasn't up to it. I went up to the White Alice commo site and scrounged around the "bad" battery dump for a larger battery. I found an 18 volt Cat battery with the very end cell shorted. I drove a large screw into the last good cell and clamped a poured lump of lead on it. I made a large solenoid by wrapping about 20 feet of telephone wire around a bar magnet and a spare recoil spring from a Garand M1.

That little 6 cylinder started just fine with 16 volts on it. It was a little tough on distributor contacts, though.

Pops

[JFLingg]

Not as wild as some of the above, but, access problem. 1973 Plymouth Cricket (left hand Hillman Avenger), heater motor repairs.

Still can't reach it ...

Bandaid needed...

June 1975, I know, the firewall is compromised.

JFLingg