A pencil. I used it to plug a hole in the side of the carburetor on a 78 Ford Pinto. In three years, I only had to replace it once. It was still there when I sold the car.
A pencil. I used it to plug a hole in the side of the carburetor on a 78 Ford Pinto. In three years, I only had to replace it once. It was still there when I sold the car.
Toyman01 wrote: A pencil. I used it to plug a hole in the side of the carburetor on a 78 Ford Pinto. In three years I only had to replace it once. It was still there when I sold the car.
Surely you had to sharpen it every now and then...
I always kept a few golf tees in my tool box. Handy for plugging vacuum lines etc.
Taped a cheap LED flashlight to my trailer hitch after the polite officer informed me that my license plate light was not working.
Fiat X1/9 with a broken throttle cable went 3 days with speaker wire hanging near the steering wheel! Got pretty good at popping it off my thumb when shifting too.
Bruce
One time I needed to drill a hole in a piece of metal using a hand drill, but I had no vise, and the drill spun the part when I tried to hand hold it. So I laid a 2x4 on the garage floor, put the metal part on top of that, put another 2x4 on top to hold it, and then parked an F250 on top of the whole thing.
In other news, the spanner tool for a Harbor Freight angle grinder makes a perfect Ford/GM clutch line disconnect tool.
I bought a TR6 parts car that was literally dragged out of a barn onto a flatbed. The previous owner had plugged a hole in the floor pan behind the driver's seat with a baby diaper. At least it was unused.
Snapped a throttle cable in my '73 Honda Civic 1200. It was my first car, so I hadn't gained much knowledge in ethnic engineering. I managed to limp it home, using the choke to get the revs up, so I could let the clutch out to get rolling from a stop.
I once used a tennis ball on a Type 1 ACVW to space a 2bbl carb from the fanshroud far enough that it did not constantly make contact with the accelerator pump.
on my type4 powered beetle, I "lost" a sparkplug wire (I think somebody stole it as half the engine was out in the open. A wire hanger bent to fit from distributer cap to sparkplug worked well enough to get me home
Working at a facility that deals with bulk salt you have to get inventive with some fixes for rust.
Best for me so far at the current job was a truck came in (late 90's f150) and the fan caused an overheat issue, found the one good spot on the body to jack up did so and found a random chunk of rubber and about 10 zip ties on the frame and bam still good to go, could even see my handy work from the inside of the truck due to the Fred Flintstone hole in the floor board 
mad_machine wrote: on my type4 powered beetle, I "lost" a sparkplug wire (I think somebody stole it as half the engine was out in the open. A wire hanger bent to fit from distributer cap to sparkplug worked well enough to get me home
Heh, I did something similar on a Vortec-engined 1-ton box truck. The coil was dead, and the tow truck dropped it off in front of MY car, and I'd be DAMNED if I was going to wait three more hours to take lunch...
...so two 2' lengths of baling wire connected the little bitty mini-Weatherpak connector to a coil that came off of some Japanese thing from the 70s, laid in the passenger side of the floor. Worked for the maybe 20 seconds it took to park the truck.
similar to dabird, only moreso. When in college in 1968, went on a field trip to an old mining camp in central Arizona with three other geology students, 20 miles off the pavement in hilly country, driving my 1963 Corvair. Time to head back to campus on a Sunday afternoon, started the car and suddenly the gas pedal went to the floor, something in the linkage had snapped, so no throttle control. So use boot laces right?
Only problem is the engine is behind you, and the throttle linkage must be pulled toward the rear of the car to increase engine speed. Looked around, found a tree limb to wedge between the battery and spare tire, behind the engine. Found a beer can, took the ends off with a can opener, wedged it over the limb to reduce friction. Found a couple of old square nails in the remains of an old mine shack to hold the can in place and act as lace guides. Propped the engine cover open with a stick, Abarth- style. Looped the boot laces from the linkage back around the beer can, then forward, had to use a belt as well, and was able to operate the throttle out the window - lots of play in the system, though, so downshifting was a bit tricky, as this was hilly country. Drove 20 miles back to pavement, found the only service station open in the closest town (Mammoth or Superior? Memory fails), they put the car on a lift, pulled the linkage tunnel cover, found a missing cotter pin, put in a new one, and away we went.
ebonyandivory wrote:The_Jed wrote: Underwear, it turns out, can be a decent makeshift air filter long enough to get you home.Complete with racing stripe!
I made sure to keep that part out of the air stream lest it have a nitrous like effect and cause stuff to splode. 
Once the cruise control diaphragm failed on my Volvo and pinned the throttle open. I took off the vacuum line to it and plugged it with a handy ballpoint pen. It was still like that when I sold it.
In reply to Woody:
that is awesome! i might go find a sign somewhere, would be even more cool if you had left it painted ...
hwy patrol might not tho!
Nothing to contribute to this Feast of Awesome except that "It was a permanent fix and seemed fine although I never actually got the car running" really deserves to be in the magazine!
Not that strange, but the 302 on my Ranchero ran like E36 M3 until I changed from Penzoil to Castrol GTX. Obviously something that had been gunked up, opened up, but I have no idea what.
I once used a natural gas valve on the upper heater hose to close off the core on my '86 Saab 900 when the real heater valve stopped closing all the way.
I keep a tube of water-soluble "personal lubricant" in my tool box (think K-Y). It makes fitting new hoses much easier, but earns me some weird looks when friends spot it.
Going down the road one day in a Mitsu Colt and the alternator bolt broke allowing the belt to slap around. I had no tool or bolts in the car, just so happen someone had put a croquet set out for trash 
Yep the croquet mallet was just the right size to wedge the alternator back to keep the belt tight for another 125 miles home.
Plus one on the golf tee's they have fixed a few car over the years.
Used a spare tire to hold an engine away from the fire wall long enough to get the car off the freeway. 
Good times.
egnorant wrote: Taped a cheap LED flashlight to my trailer hitch after the polite officer informed me that my license plate light was not working.
haha I did similar... back when I was delivering in my '85 tercel hatch... taped my mini mag light on the twist knob that pops the hatch open for the rest of the night lol
The_Jed wrote:ebonyandivory wrote:I made sure to keep that part out of the air stream lest it have a nitrous like effect and cause stuff to splode.The_Jed wrote: Underwear, it turns out, can be a decent makeshift air filter long enough to get you home.Complete with racing stripe!
CAUTION: DANGER TO MANIFOLD!
conesare2seconds wrote: I keep a tube of water-soluble "personal lubricant" in my tool box (think K-Y). It makes fitting new hoses much easier, but earns me some weird looks when friends spot it.
HAHA! I keep a tube of said lubricant in my toolbox for mounting shifter kart tires. Usually gets some strange looks, and comments, when other people see it.
You'll need to log in to post.
