Just get me home!

1. 87 Pontiac, blew a hole into the block with #5 piston, *I THINK is was #5 anyway*, (this was a long time ago) and stuffed the hole in the motor with a few rags from under the front seat tied in knots and stuffed them in the whole, smoked like a bastard for about 20 minutes and then it ran "OK" to get me home on 5 cylinders. Sheared off wrist pin.

2. 89 Oldsmobile, drove around 8 months in 2nd or 3rd of a 5 speed automatic as the overdrive and drive forward gears were nothing more then a "neutral" after the wife drove 20 miles to Manchester, NH and hit a pot hole in the road that poke a hole in the tranny pan and puked fluid the whole way to and probably from, and I was at home and the next morning seen a few "fresh" spots of tranny fluid on the ground next to the driver side front tire. and I knew that wasn't a good site.......... that car, with a 3.8, V6 just would NOT die either, the cost of fuel had to have broke me to say OK, enough is enough......

3. Same car above, the wife went to the bank in January BEFORE the tranny issue happen went to wind the window down at the drive-through, and it was a power window and blew the freakin window out, freezing cold, and she came home got out plastic bags handed them to me and I was like WTH is this fer? She replied to fix the window I blew out of the car, and I was like, its to freakin cold to blow through the window for me, (she didn't want to hear me say that one! DAMN NEAR got slapped over that comment) then went and showed me. I was like to hell with a rattlin damned bag.......I went to home Depot, back then, bought a quarter inch thick Lexan, cut it to fit, and jambed a 2 by 4 under it, to wedge in the Lexan, and went on my merry way... the car in the summer sucked as the window in the driver door didn't wind down, BUT it kept in the heat, and AC, and could be seen through, was in it, the day the car went for scrap!

4. My wifes old Ford (4 lettered F-word) Taurus wagon, hit a raccoon put a tooth through my high pressure line to the power steering. New part? Ford Dealership? $250, part cost, another $225 installed on top of it. In my shop? Trip, strong armed the thing to Home Depot, bough 3/8th thick wall high pressure copper pipe, and 2 fittings for mating straight sections and then a telescoping fitting to fit the 3/8th thick walled, to telescope with the other 2, to make them "thick" chucked in my lathe, cut double barbs for the hose ends into the fittings AFTER being soldered to themselves (the fittings) and then soldered the fittings to the pipe after being cut to length. THEN 2 turn-screw small diameter hose clamps, 4 total 2 on each end........ the whole part, bought, made installed, cost? $14.00 was on the car, when it too went for scrap! Lasted 4 years, with that pipe zip tied to the factory part, covered in house-hold pipe insulation....To keep vibration from wearing a hole through it from the Ford factory steel part it was zip tied too.....

5. Same ford, rotted off lower radiator hose in the local Wal-Mart parking lot, 6 miles one way home. Fix? Making a hose, NOT fitted factory part from 1 inch copper pipe to fit INSIDE some radiator hose I had laying around that were all angles or corners to get around all the damned lower A-Frame and control arm of the steering rods and hold pressure and not leak. the factory hose........ $125!!!!! Piss on that. I made my own, cost? time I had, and left over parts, that I saved from years of past cars, laying around that were paid for just from the original reason for having them! GLAD I saved all that "JUNK" today for that very reason.......