hillbilly fix its.

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63VALIANT*KISS

63VALIANT*KISS

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i wanted to strt a thread on the topic of what weird unusual fix its have u found.i have found some pretty wqeird odball stuff but wanna hear what others have found aswell .

hillbilly fixes go way back with me to my first car my 73 duster the carb didnt fit the barrel intake it had on the 318 so they just loaded around the base of the carb with rtv to cover all the gaps,same car had bubble gum wrapers for fuses.
moving on to my 3rd car now my aspen i noticed some weird long bolts sticking out the intake manifold and wanted to get the right size so the head of the bolt would be flush with the intake so i start removing all that crap and notice the brake booster hose is connected to a funcky nipple this is what i thought took the cake b4 this it was the bubble gum wrapers.

first pic shows the nipple
the 2nd ur looking at a 2nd arm that once came off the nipple with a screw in the hole with rtv around it .
the 3rd ur looking at is anouther arm that they actually cut off like the one with the screw but this time welded or brazed it closed
the 4th is the inside where u see the used a 5/8screw

what hillbilly fixes have u had ? some ppl should not be able to touch the under hood or any mechical/elec stuff EVER!
 

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I don't see any pictures. Just little red x's.
 
Had a 75 Duster that the seat belt interlock would periodacally secide to work, so I extended the wires and mounted it under the dash and when it would decide to work, I would jsut reach under the dash and hit the button.
In Hot Rod magazine they did a 67-68 Dart 2 door post that was originally a 273 4 barrel car and put a 340 and 727 in it, the tranny mount didn't line up so they just got a really long hose clamp, and ran it around the tailshaft and trany crossmember.
 
coffeedart67 said:
In Hot Rod magazine they did a 67-68 Dart 2 door post that was originally a 273 4 barrel car and put a 340 and 727 in it, the tranny mount didn't line up so they just got a really long hose clamp, and ran it around the tailshaft and trany crossmember.
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I remember walking the pits at the WinterNationals in Pomona in the early '70s and seeing an injected Hemi in a dragster with worm-screw hose clamps holding the engine in the chassis.
The motor mounts were made up of a section of tubing whose i.d. matched the o.d. of the frame tubing. The motor mounts sat on top of frame tubing with two long hose clamps on each side holding the motor mount to the frame. I remember wondering how in the world it ever made it through Tech.
 
ocdart said:
I remember walking the pits at the WinterNationals in Pomona in the early '70s and seeing an injected Hemi in a dragster with worm-screw hose clamps holding the engine in the chassis.
The motor mounts were made up of a section of tubing whose i.d. matched the o.d. of the frame tubing. The motor mounts sat on top of frame tubing with two long hose clamps on each side holding the motor mount to the frame. I remember wondering how in the world it ever made it through Tech.
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That was very common back then.
 
I had a friend back in the day with a Chevy Luv pickup...would decide to die once in a while for no reason....we figured out it was starved for fuel when it would do it. So somehow he figured out to pull the fuel line at the tank and blow into it...then it would refire. So he rigged a longer fuel line up so it was easier to get to and just pull it off by the side of the road and blow into it.....and down the road he went.

After months of that, he finally dropped the tank and there was a piece of cardboard inside about 2" square that would randomly get sucked up to the fuel pick up and block it...the strainer was missing. So blowing into the line moved it away.

Crazy....
 
I had a 413 4 speed 65 coronet...beautiful car. I gave it a tune up and after that it smoked like crazy. Turned out the car had such bad blow by that by changing the PCV valve, I caused the problem. I looked at the old one and it was hollowed out...it looked fine from the outside, but it was empty on the inside.
 
about a month after we bought our house, my wife noticed a bit of water in the backroom of the basement. So i climbed up and seen that the 3/4 hot water line going to the upstairs was leaking, of course this is about 11:30 on a saturday night. So I cut out the corroded section of line, and with the help of boiling water, managed to jam on a heater hose from the pickup i pulled my 318 out of. Thing stopped the leak until the hardware store opened monday...but i never went...that was 15 months ago..
 
Had a piece of coat hanger for a throttle linkage extension on my duster. Yep I did it. Had a 67 Chevelle in high school i had welded a t handle on. When I broke off the t handle I clamped vice grips on it. I almost forgot about the mustard bottle i hooked up to the driver side windshield squirter when my rubber foot pump blowed out.
 
daredevil said:
Had a piece of coat hanger for a throttle linkage extension on my duster. Yep I did it.
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Coat hanger is a great idea! I am using a welding rod for the secondary rod on my carb right now...still don't know how well it will work, but coat hanger is next on my list!
 
demon700 said:
Coat hanger is a great idea! I am using a welding rod for the secondary rod on my carb right now...still don't know how well it will work, but coat hanger is next on my list!
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Its not for the faint of heart lol
 
My best friend and I put his 318 in my old 65 Barracuda decades ago. It was a slant 6, 3-speed on the column car originally and I didn't have the correct pedal or throttle linkage. We took safety-wire and tied it from the throttle on the 4-barrel, ran it through a hole on the firewall, and tied it to the column shifter. I was able to do hand throttle burn outs at the Nationals that year. My best friend was able to find me a V8 throttle linkage and pedal a few months later.
 
I worked as a professional mechanic for several years. I would always charge more to" unfix" some of the" fixes" the customers attempted. The one that sticks in my head was a 85 corolla that this guy had just bought from his friendly neighbor. He complained that is slammed when he put it in reverse and shimmied when driving. I looked under the hood and found 2x4s wired in where the engine mount and transmission were supposed to be. The engine was literally almost hanging by the transaxles.
 
I used a low E string from a guitar as a throttle cable for my 72 Nova when it broke in the middle of a busy street in Portland.
 
demon700 said:
about a month after we bought our house, my wife noticed a bit of water in the backroom of the basement. So i climbed up and seen that the 3/4 hot water line going to the upstairs was leaking, of course this is about 11:30 on a saturday night. So I cut out the corroded section of line, and with the help of boiling water, managed to jam on a heater hose from the pickup i pulled my 318 out of. Thing stopped the leak until the hardware store opened monday...but i never went...that was 15 months ago..
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Parents house had this very same "fix" for close to 10 years before the hose started to leak. When it did, I just replaced the hose with another piece...
 
Wow, where do I start? Growing up working class poor, my rides were cobbled POS death traps, but they got me to school and work most of the time (both were bike close so I had nothing to lose if my ride was 86'd) So...
82ish Subaru, clutch cable broke so I used a piece of rope on the clutch arm and pulled it through the firewall when I came to a stop, powershifted it the rest of the time.
57 Ford/351C powered. Broke the throttle return spring coming back from Camp Pendelton on the 5, I used a boot band (like a cloth braided rubber band) for the return spring.
My first '65 Barracuda had 3 different sized tires on it. the 2 rears were the same but the fronts were way off, like a 60 and a 75 series!
Bobby pins for fuses all day long......
my 71 Honda AN600 car didnt have a starter for over a year, I push started it every freaking time when I couldnt park it on the one hill by school.
I used a wedged 2x4 for a tensioner when the alternator mount broke, and a pantyhose (not mine) for a fan belt when that broke too.
That same honda had a brake leak, I used cooking oil once to top it off in the middle of nowhere (camper was nearby and they hooked me up!) and even used water once when I HAD to get away from a bad party.
Mazda stat housing ear broke so I used a 3/4 gal pipe with 2 bolts drilled through it to make a bridge over the housing, ran it like that for 2 years (I never registered that car either, took back roads everywhere)
Beer can split and hose clamped for any exhaust leak, water soaked cardboard for gaskets
and maybe the best one, an IV bag full of gas zip tied to an antenna , the surgical tubing stretched over the fuel filter nipple perfectly, got us home.

And then there is the urban legend about the country bumpkin that used a .22LR for a fuse and shot himself in the pecker when it cooked off.
 
wow! im amazed at all the dare i say brightish engenuity. these r totaly crazy and funny and wow how did he think of doing that and it worked awesome!

forgot to add my valiant has the chain bolted to the engine and goes around the kmember old dragcar backup mount lol
 
Well, I could post my whole restoration thread here... So far I have found body patches made out of bondo and drywall tape, wood screws in the carb, chain for exhaust hangers, fence post for exhaust pipes, house carpet interior and pieces of tin roof for floor pans. I'm sure I will discover plenty more redneck fixes as the build continues.
 
Customer came in to the tire store for wheels and tires I worked for years ago. I was the mechanic/alignment guy. So, the manager comes around to get me and says, "you gotta come see this." I get around front and there's a honda accord with poorly applied "flip flop" paint on the rack. I looked at the driver's side front. There's no rotor and no caliper. The brake hose is clamped shut with vise grips. The right front was metal to metal and had ground into the rotor's cooling fins. The rear brakes were metal to metal. When we showed it to the guy he says "yo mah, jes stick my wees and ties on. It still be stoopin good, yo". So.....they sold him 2100 bucks worth of tires and wheels and turned him loose on the highway.
 
wooooooooow! that is insane les schwab barley let me leave with my front tires being bald on the edges they were conserned and i said dont worry i got new wheels and tires to go upfront.
 
There used to be a scam when I was growing up at all brake shops, you get a free inspection and they red tag your car saying its not road worthy and they cant release it back to you unless you pay them to fix it. worked until a lawyer got stuffed and took the whole house of cards down, made the news back in the 80's. What Mopar rag did a roof patch with a road sign? Ehrenberg had a funny article on ghetto patches to get you home: Golf tee vacuum line plugs, pinching broken brake lines with vice grips, duct tape hose repair, bar of soap for fuel leaks.etc.
 
72 Datsun pickup my Dad had. Initially the wiper motor would not lift the wipers so my Dad tied a string to it and ran it over the sun visor arm to pull them up. A month or two later the wiper motor would no longer pull them down. Now when it rained, and it did alot of that in NJ, he needed a passenger to work the string that was tied to the passenger side to pull them down.:wav:
 
my friends gremlin blew out some fuses on the interstate in mil wi on a 4th of july we were on our way to da grove found a nail and some foil gum wrappers to use as fuses got us to the track and back to madtown after the races. ive seen srews in weep holes on water pumps sheet metal and wire around muffs on cars also
 
Back in my college days a friend and I went to a dealership in a nearby town that had a car out front with a sign that read, "Guaranteed one minute or one mile, whichever comes first. $20" So we bought it! (But we talked 'em down to $15) It was a 57 Chevy four door. The whole car was a collection of sweet fixes. It had a bent up boat fuel tank sitting on plywood in the trunk for it's gas tank (which happened to be full), a galvanized wash tub in the trunk held several quart cans of oil, the rear of the car was held up with lengths of two by four lumber stood up next to each spring, from the axle to the rusty floorboard strategically notched and wired in place (the tired old springs had been bent so bad by shackles if the wood was taken out the back bumper would drag), the battery (which was dead) was hung in place with six or seven tarp straps (only!, the tray had rusted away completly) the Thrush glasspacks were held up by barbed wire on one side and a couple of hose clamps through the rust holes in the floor on the other. The radiator, from who knows what more modern car, was wired in place in front of the core support with several lengths of flex hose connecting it to the engine. The chrome chain steering wheel must not have had the correct splines so it was welded to the end of the steering shaft. The bucket seats from some old Buick or Pontiac were shimmed to sit relatively level with pieces of 1x4 wood and all thread rod secured them to the squares of plywood underneath the rusty floorboards. My favorite was the pice of 1" strap welded to the powerglide shift rod and bent stratgically so it came up through a rust hole in the floor next to the drivers seat with a chrome skull welded on top! I wish I had taken pictures as the whole car was almost beyond belief. We drove it for the day and left it on the lot (with an empty gas tank) where we got it from that evening when we went back home.
 
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