mickey mouse and good ol jerry rigs

Ok guys my wife told me to start this to see if I really deserve my mickey mouse award I have been bugging her for. My crowning moment was after getting the rear brakes on our 00 yukon done in mass we started driving back to camp lejeune nc upon reaching the nj turn pike and its famous toll both wiggle strips the ukon began to vibrate badly and than the right rear wheel gave a loud clank and locked up in the toll booth. I proceeded to put it in 4 low and drag it to the shoulder where I found the caliper bolts missing and the caliper under the wheel. I removed the lugs and wheel disconected the brakeline and stopped the leaking fluid with zip ties a ziplock bag and a mtn dew bottle cut to fit over it all taped it closed with hose repair tape and secured it all to the frame with a tournequet. I than looked at the left side and realized the caliper bolts were also loose due to the gm service guys forgetting to use lock tite so I used my wifes hot pink nailpolish as thread locker. This setup lasted me the sixty miles it took to get it to another dealership where I could buy new calpier bolts to put it all back together the right way. So let's here em guys the wife wants to know if anybody has done one better.

Yeah, it's amazing what you can do when you have no choice! I once borrowed a friends early '60's VW bug and while out in the middle of nowhere the fan belt broke. No spare naturally....or tools for that matter. I didn't want to fry the engine by driving it without the fan working but didn't want to have to walk 20 miles for help either. Sat and pondered a moment when I remembered that a generator is just a little electric motor. I found a piece of wire by the side of the road and jumped across the battery and field lead on the regulator and viola! the generator/fan is now spinning. I just drove it at low rpm in 4th until I got to a gas station where a new belt was installed.

I don't think I would have thought of that one.

Was offshore fishing and broke the waterpump belt on the inboard 350 chevy. We cut a section of nylon anchor rope and lit the ends and fused it together and once it cooled we used a small crescent to loosen the alternator and we installed the rope belt and just barely snugged it up. We limped in at barely above idle from 29 miles out in the gulf.

used a nylon fishing stringer for a fan belt, once we were on the way to Florida to visit my brother, ran over a deer, the exhaust broke where it joined at the cat, 3 in the morning, miles from nowhere, took a soda can cut the ends off, stuck it in the pipe, took some rods out of the wife's umbrella, and wired it up, with plans to fix it once we got there, ended up fixing it once we got home, stuck a nail in the master clyinder to stop a leak from a blown wheel clyinder.

Used my lighter to heat up a screwdriver so I could plastic weld the plate inside a distributer on my Dakota once. Another time I used a pair of vise grips to pinch off the passenger side front brake line so I could get 20 miles out of the woods. Used a empty bean can once to patch a hole in my exhaust pipe till I got home. Had a friend sit in the engine bay and hold a pop bottle full of gas which was fed to the fuel line so we could get out of the woods after a fuel pump crapped out on us. That was a hairy ride for him.

Jack

Coyote Jack said:

Had a friend sit in the engine bay and hold a pop bottle full of gas which was fed to the fuel line so we could get out of the woods after a fuel pump crapped out on us. That was a hairy ride for him.

Jack

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That's too funny, I thought we only did stuff like that. We were at a public boat ramp at a favorite lake hang out one night, when the cops showed up and said someone complained so we had to leave. We were riding with a friend that had a VW and lo and behold when we started it the accelerator cable broke. Well with our ingenuity and the cop standing there watching, my buddy sat on the rear bumper and operated the throttle while I drove. We took off down the road with me yelling SHIFT out the window so he could let off the gas long enough for me to shift. The local cop, who we knew well and liked very much as he understood our young antics stood there with his hands on his hips shaking his head. True story.:-D

While touring Yellowstone in a 1990 Dodge Monaco, the electric fan quit working and led to temperature problems. I fixed it by taking the fan apart and repairing the broken connection using my trusty Gerber Multiplier and a root beer bottle cap. I cut strips of metal from the cap, scraped off the coating and wrapped them around the offending wires to create a splice to the brush leads. It stayed like that until I gave the stupid car to my then-brother-in-law a year or so later.

Forgot about the car the wipers didnt work on. we had a string thru the vent window tied to the wiper arm on both sides and the driver and passenger took turns tugging.

daredevil said:

Forgot about the car the wipers didnt work on. we had a string thru the vent window tied to the wiper arm on both sides and the driver and passenger took turns tugging.

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Done that on two cars, one Austin Mini and a Mazda 808.

We used a ratchet strap to hold the broken tie-rod end together on an '87 F250 4X4 for the 20 km trip down the mountain to the highway so the tow truck could find us. It was a long, slow drive but it held together. Of course, there was no cell phone coverage, so we didn't have much choice.