Mickey Mouse fixes

[Ross]

Sometimes you you need to make do with what you've got. What is your best "resourceful" repair?

[Alexlind123]

Bailing wire and a piece of inner-tube rubber to replace a broken radiator mount.

[SchnellE34]

Coat hanger looped and used as an exhaust hanger...

[gale]

The top radiator hose nipple cracked nearly all the way around leaving only about a 3/8" long stub to clamp the hose to. I ordered a new radiator but had to make a trip up to Denver in the meanwhile, so I scooted the hoseclamp up as close as I could, cinched it real tight, and wired it to the front bulkhead panel & carried several gallons of water & wire & ducktape in the trunk.

Made trip ok without any problem. I figured if it were to blow, it would be after it's parked and the hoses swell up, so once I was on the road I didn't worry as much about it.

[Ross]

Duct tape AND hose clamps! You are my idol.

[gale]

stripped & twisted the rear brake sensor wires together to get rid of the stupid brake warning check control chime every 15 minutes while on a roadtrip. Figured the token 1/16" of remaining pad was more than enough to get me home.

[gale]

My favorite was back in 1976 in my '58 356A when I was ripping thru Cachuma Pass late at nite, heading from LA up to Cal Poly SLO to turn in my senior project. I started smelling raw gas really bad coming thru the heater vents. Pulled over & found gas gushing out of the left carb & the side cover of the Zenith main jets laying on the sheet metal above the left head. Luckily neither the cover nor the bolt had rattled out of the engine compartment yet. The threads were stripped & the cover wouldn't stay on. I pulled a real McGiver with this one. My flashlight batteries were dead so I fashioned a reflector mirror with a beer can & worked by moonlight after waiting 20 minutes for my eyes to acclimate to the dark. A pine needle jammed into the threads was the best I could come up with to keep the bolt tight & had a some spare axle boot hose clamps in my tool box & put 2 of them together end-to-end & was able to strap the cover on clear around the carb. To this day, I don't know why all that gas pouring down the side of the head and onto the exhaust didn't burst into flames.

Got home & rebuilt the carbs & drilled & tapped all the holes out to the next metric size larger & block-sanded all the warpage out of the mating faces & re-sync'd the carbs. The car went like stink after that. Someday I put my perpetual garage queen back on the road, it's been sitting since 1979.

[Nick.Hay]

MMmmmmm..... 356. Yum!!

I once ripped off sleeve of my shirt to wrap round a broken fuel line... Then used 100mph tape (ie the race-tape/cloth tape stuff thats really sticky and strong) to secure it.

Didn't cure the leak, but atleast it slowed it, and stopped fuel spraying onto hot exhaust manifold!! No fuel stations nearby, and she ran out only 1km from my house!!


Race tape and electrical ties were also the basis of existance for my 323 Familia rallycar!!

[F4Phantom]

In my e30 the odometer stuffed up and it was not RWC. I ripped it to bits and found the rubbery teeth on the gear were gone in one point. I drilled a hole in the gear and put a smaller rubber band through the hole and over the teeth missing area of the gear so when the other gear got to that part it would have something to grip. I drove the car, it would pause a little at that spot but passed RWC and sold no probs.

Also we had a show in Australia called bush mechanics, one solution was some guys carved a brake pad out of some wood.

[Qube]

Oh damn... this thread just reminded me that I have some string tied in strategic places on the car I need to replace!