Your biggest car hack job ever

[Mopar-Man]

Let's hear about it!

I took a '78 Caprice Estate 450 4bbl 4 door wagon and a buddy (you will see a trend here) dared me to neutral drop it in a mud puddle at the mall. I stomped the gas and jammed it in drive. She went "BANG!" and never turned a tire. Lost 3rd gear and reverse so drove it home on the highway in 2nd screaming along. We went to the wrecking yard and got a Turbo 350 out of the mud for $50 and slammed it in. HEY! It has a shift kit in it. Cool... After a couple or six beers later my buddy (told you so) came out of the garage with an air chisel and said, "Soooooooo, how do you feel about making this into a convertible?" Of course in my current state I thought that was a great idea and we cut the roof off. Of course, being drunk he missed a few times and blew the side glass out all over the driveway of his parents house. We didn't plan ahead and realized we needed to get rid of the roof somewhere. So off to the dump we go. We each had a hand out the window holding onto the roof as it slid around. This was beyond dangerous but the weight MOSTLY held it on. When we got there they saw an empty wagon and asked what we wanted? So we said, "We don't need this anymore!" and stood up in the car lifting the roof over our heads. I thought the attendant's eyes were going to pop out of head! She yelled, "NO WAY! GET OUT!" We ended up dumping it on some asshole's lawn like a turtle shell. He had it coming (I think). Despite being a body on frame car, it turns out that it needed a roof! Door gaps between front and rear opened up to 1 inch at the tops. Car had a "springy" ride after that. Named it the "Skankster" and promptly loaded up my buddies and took it down a motocross track. Last thing I remember before the crash was a guy in the rear seat disappearing from my rearview mirror as I was landing from a jump. He landed back inside the car and I when off the berm into the woods. When the dust cleared I had a 4 inch branch harpooned through the radiator and stuck in the A/C condenser. Could not pull it out so drove it to a buddie's house and chain sawed it off. I left the stump in there.

There is much more but now it is somebody elses turn.

 

[pishta]

Mine is nowhere close to being that funny but my friends hood on his honda flew up and sent the rearview mirror into the back seat but didnt break the window. The hood butterfly'd so it wouldnt close so we unbolted it and tossed it on the side of the road and went the rest of the way with no hood. It started to rain so we had to wrap the distributor with our socks! Another time we jump started my friends sister Maverick that hadnt run on a year and drove it to Canada from So. Cal, 30 minutes later! No heater, no radio and there were gaping holes in the firewall, once again we stuffed the holes with clothes. Ran like a top and we never shut it down for the entire 17 hour trip but ended up having a flat outside Seattle. On the way back it developed a lifter tick, and the next weekend outside San Diego the alternator went out. Broke a clutch cable in a Suburu and used a rope through the firewall to get it home, suprisingly easy once you get it moving and powershift it.

 

[hotrod360andy]

Please delete

 

[TrailBeast]

Had a white 66 Falcon four door that I cut the roof off and welded up all the doors.
Shaved the door handles and did the entire interior in zebra stripe black and white (dash, door panels and all) then added zebra striped plastic wheel covers.
My Brother in law was driving it down the freeway and an SUV with a few people in it waved him over, and the drivers Daughter told him she just had to have it.
He called for a ride and the girl drove off toward LA with the Falcon for almost 10 times what I paid for the car.

 

[bruceo2011]

Years ago, a neighbor kid just got his drivers license and his first car - a 69 2dr Valiant sedan. It was a nice car. One day I heard lots of noise and activity in the garage. When the door opened, the car was now topless. Him and his buddy thought they were really cool. They quickly learned what happens when you cut the top off of a unibody car. That car twisted so much going down the road and around corners. It really groaned just turning into the driveway. They soon realized this was not a good idea to do in Minnesota. All mom said was: "Guess you'll be walking!" Lesson learned!!

 

[cosgig]

I was waiting on buying my cousins 73 Firebird, but like a teenager couldn't wait, so I decided to buy a 65 Ford Galaxie for $125. Got it home and had my buddies dad look it over!!...bad news, the frame was almost gone, but could be fixed, just be careful!! Well, careful to me meant loading up my buddy and I and road tripping from Michigan to my uncles house in southern Indiana!! Oops, forgot to tell anybody we were coming, and it was late when we got there after running out of gas, being helped by the cops cause we only had .17 cents left and we're about 20 miles away, so we pulled into a field to sleep for the night!! It was early, and the window was foggy when we woke up, so we missed the path back to the road and ended up in the ditch!! Yep, that move broke the frame!! So now we're stuck in southern Indiana with a broken frame, no money, and surprise!!!....we're here!!

Ended up junking the car, working 2 weeks in my uncles store and buying a Pinto station wagon that was my uncles dump runner! Great car to head on back to Michigan in, with a leaky radiator and low and behold, it got jammed into 3rd gear at a rest stop about 1/2 way home! No problem, I'll just yank it out of 3rd!!!...and broke the shifter right off!! So, we ended up driving over 150 miles home in 3rd gear, and had the trans in about 1000 pieces! Miraculously, we got that trans back together with a new shifter, and beat the crap outta that car!!

That's my story!!

 

[RustyRatRod]

3 full rolls of duct tape and a rear lower control arm. It got the guy and his family from middle Georgia to their home in central Florida. That's all I'm sayin.

 

[74Dusted]

My biggest hack job, I was about 17 when the oil pump went out in my Twister and wiped the crank out of the 340 T/A I had in it. I had just painted the car and charged the A/C system so I was not in the mood to yank the engine back out again. I talked to a few older mopar folks and they all said I'd have to yank the motor because it was impossible to pull the crank with the motor in the car.

I unbolted the 727, slid it back an inch or so and ran a ratchet strap under it to hold it up, unbolted the a/c compressor and tied it up (still connected and charged), pulled the timing cover and oil pan, dropped the crankshaft, replaced the bearings and put another crankshaft back up in with a new oil pump and had the car back on the road in about 6 hours.

It ran for another 4 or 5 years, till I parked it for a Resto-mod (I was going to replace the T/A with a Supercharged R3 340)...at which point I fired the car up and pulled it into the garage and discovered some iffy things about the driver's side quarter, yanked the motor and started doing body work... The motor is still sitting under my work bench and the car is still in the body work stage, 7 years after the "Resto-Mod" project began.

 

[74Dusted]

Another time I rigged the wipers on the Dodge D300 I was driving. (all mopar nuts know the infamous clunk of linkage bushings snapping, followed by the whine of the wiper motor with no movement from the wiper arms).

My dad had borrowed my Dakota in the fall because he didn't have a 4WD at the time and I had 2 4WD's. Come springtime, My '84 D50 4x4 needed a few parts so I fired up the old '75 D300 Dumptruck and was on my way to the parts store when it started raining. I clicked the wiper switch on and they ran for a few cycles... Clunk......

I pulled over and dug around inside the truck and I managed to find a cellphone charger for a 1990's Nokia Cellphone and a broken ratchet strap. I tied the nokia charger to one wiper arm and the broken ratchet strap to the other arm and ran them through the wing/vent windows in the doors. I drove to town like that, alternating between wiping the windshield and shifting the 4-speed. Shift, wipe, shift, wipe, shift, wipe.

I'm about 10 blocks from my dad's house when it started pouring and the old frayed ratchet strap snapped. I knew I'd only have one more pull left on the wipers (from the nokia charger) before I couldn't go any further, so I timed it just right...and 3 blocks from my dad's house I still had to roll down the window and stick my head out to see. I parked the dumptruck behind my dad's house and when I went in to get my keys, my dad says "Did you swim here?" "No... wipers broke in the dumptruck, it's out back sitting."

 

[GeorgeH]

Years ago dropped a driveshaft on the Garden State Parkway on Christmas Eve in the middle of the night. Lost the caps off the DS side of things on the rear yoke. The caps were long gone. Rooted around that B150 and come up with a couple sockets, a couple hose clamps and a roll of duct tape. Got the DS up on the u-joint hammered the sockets in, wrapped and wrapped tape, then put hose clamps on it. I couldn't go but 20 mph for the vibration and it took me 2 hours to complete what would have been a half-hour drive, but I got there in time to open presents Christmas morning. There was not a soul on the road but me.

 

[Dusterdenovo]

Back in the day I was helping a buddy fix up an old Valiant (69 or 70 IIRC) to sell to his brother. The rear mounting bracket on the drivers side leaf spring had rotted away and the rear shackle punched a big hole up through the trunk floor. We jacked up the car till the spring came back out of the trunk and mixed up a big Bondo and chicken wire pie with extra hardener to plug the hole, then set the car back down on it. Worked great and we drove it like that most of the summer until totally wrecking it one night doing some "stunt driving". His brother never did buy it after that.

 

[74Dusted]

Years back, when I was putting my '84 D50 back together (even back then, 1st Gen D50 parts were impossible to find, now they're unobtanium). I needed a driver's side door window for the truck and after a couple months I managed to find one listed for sale about 150 miles away, so my dad and I jumped in my beater pickup (an '87 D50, 2nd generation)

That '87 wasn't built for long distances, it was set up to be a plow truck. 4.65 Gears and 28" Tires. I held the throttle to the floor the whole trip, running 500-1000 rpm over the redline the entire way. Apparently I pushed her just a litttle tiny bit too hard.

I pulled over to call the guy, because we were lost and you couldn't hear anything when the truck was running (Doug Thorley Header into 2.5" Duals with Glasspacks). I shut the motor off and called the seller, to find out we were only about 1/2 a mile away. When I went to start the truck again I got a WHIRR from the starter, free spinning like it wasn't engaging the teeth on the flywheel. My dad looked at me. "Are you kidding me? You had to shut it off? You do realize both of the people who could drive our towtruck are currently in this truck?" He got out of the truck "Pop the hood."

"There's no starter...." My dad pointed at the side of the motor. I looked and sure enough my starter is gone! I crawled under the truck and there sits my starter, on top of the front axle, still connected to the wiring. The bolts worked loose from the starter and the bellhousing (2 remained, holding the bell to the block). We dug around in the truck and found an assortment of metric and standard bolts. I used the metric bolts to fasten the bell back to the block and ran smaller standard bolts through the bell and starter and put the nuts on from the other side. We let it idle the entire time I was purchasing the window (and the rest of the 1st gen parts the guy had) and I took it a little slower on the return trip, I might have upset a few people on the highway, but I wasn't about to thrash on it like that again.

 

[Mopar-Man]

Great stories! Keep 'em coming. Here is another one

So my "buddy" (you know the one) and I were cruising in his Camaro around 2am and the bars were closed. We found two leftovers walking the street on their way home from a local bar. Buddy has extremely low standards and pulled over immediately. The closer they got, the worse things looked. They couldn't wait to jump in the car. When the dome light came on he finally came to his senses and his face turned nearly white. I was happy because I got the "good looking" one of the two and she climbed in the backseat with me. A solid 4! We headed off and as we crossed the railroad tracks the Camaro dropped it's tailpipes. SCRAPPPPPPPPPPE. Buddy pulls over pissed off, and the girls head to the woods to take a pee. He pops the trunk and I ask him why since he has no tools in there. He said, "Because we have to get the hell out of here!" as he ripped the speaker wires from the 6x9's. He handed me one and he took the other and we started wrapping it around the hangers and pipes. Finished and drove off right as the girls were coming out of the woods chasing and cussing at us. As it got hotter the speaker wires starting stretching and every once in a while we would hear a light tick as a pipe kissed the pavement. Right as we were pulling into his pops driveway they both let go and we drug the exhaust all the way around the house. I think every light in the house came on at the same time! Had some 'splainin to do...

 

[GeorgeH]

I've had a couple cars where on a left turn the right door would randomly open. Always fun when you grab their shirt and push a lil'!

 

[fastoldman]

Great stories! Keep 'em coming. Here is another one

So my "buddy" (you know the one) and I were cruising in his Camaro around 2am and the bars were closed. We found two leftovers walking the street on their way home from a local bar. Buddy has extremely low standards and pulled over immediately. The closer they got, the worse things looked. They couldn't wait to jump in the car. When the dome light came on he finally came to his senses and his face turned nearly white. I was happy because I got the "good looking" one of the two and she climbed in the backseat with me. A solid 4! We headed off and as we crossed the railroad tracks the Camaro dropped it's tailpipes. SCRAPPPPPPPPPPE. Buddy pulls over pissed off, and the girls head to the woods to take a pee. He pops the trunk and I ask him why since he has no tools in there. He said, "Because we have to get the hell out of here!" as he ripped the speaker wires from the 6x9's. He handed me one and he took the other and we started wrapping it around the hangers and pipes. Finished and drove off right as the girls were coming out of the woods chasing and cussing at us. As it got hotter the speaker wires starting stretching and every once in a while we would hear a light tick as a pipe kissed the pavement. Right as we were pulling into his pops driveway they both let go and we drug the exhaust all the way around the house. I think every light in the house came on at the same time! Had some 'splainin to do...

I've had a couple cars where on a left turn the right door would randomly open. Always fun when you grab their shirt and push a lil'!

Back in high school I was trying to get this hot chick to go out with me. Finally she agreed to go to a festival and street dance with me at a town about 30 min. away. I picked her up at her house and headed out of town in my 62 pontiac drop top. As I passed my buddy's {yeah, one of those} house, which was on a slight hill, I shut the key off, counted to 3 and turned it back on. BOOM! Blew my muffler to pieces! Woops, she wasn't impressed. We drove 30 min. with open exhaust, arrived at the dance and the date was over. Drove home alone.

 

[bruceo2011]

Another time I rigged the wipers on the Dodge D300 I was driving. (all mopar nuts know the infamous clunk of linkage bushings snapping, followed by the whine of the wiper motor with no movement from the wiper arms).

My dad had borrowed my Dakota in the fall because he didn't have a 4WD at the time and I had 2 4WD's. Come springtime, My '84 D50 4x4 needed a few parts so I fired up the old '75 D300 Dumptruck and was on my way to the parts store when it started raining. I clicked the wiper switch on and they ran for a few cycles... Clunk......

I pulled over and dug around inside the truck and I managed to find a cellphone charger for a 1990's Nokia Cellphone and a broken ratchet strap. I tied the nokia charger to one wiper arm and the broken ratchet strap to the other arm and ran them through the wing/vent windows in the doors. I drove to town like that, alternating between wiping the windshield and shifting the 4-speed. Shift, wipe, shift, wipe, shift, wipe.

I'm about 10 blocks from my dad's house when it started pouring and the old frayed ratchet strap snapped. I knew I'd only have one more pull left on the wipers (from the nokia charger) before I couldn't go any further, so I timed it just right...and 3 blocks from my dad's house I still had to roll down the window and stick my head out to see. I parked the dumptruck behind my dad's house and when I went in to get my keys, my dad says "Did you swim here?" "No... wipers broke in the dumptruck, it's out back sitting."

And that's why I Rain-X all my windshields...........................

 

[ScampMike]

I had a 78 Jeep CJ7. The tailgate hinges failed and I had neither the fortitude nor the $$ to fix it properly, so I bought two hardware store hinges and a latch, drilled a bunch holes in the body and the tailgate and mounted it so it opened from the side. Not only did it work, but it made it easier to use! On the same vehicle, I put in air shocks on all four corners because I wanted it lifted NOW (did you know they will fit on the front of an old Jeep if you flip them upside down!?) - God that thing had a brutally harsh ride! LOL Same Jeep (yea, I *ahem* experimented on that poor thing) - I wanted a loud exhaust system - so I cut off the muffler and sheet metal screwed a Hush Thrush on - - needless to say, it fell off in short order - I got my loud exhaust!!! LOL
I also had a Chevy S10 that I insisted on having bigger tires on, as in 32's on a stock height S10 - well they fit, but rubbed big time when trying to turn, SO I cut the fenders back with a saws-all... customized S10 4x4!! The problem was that somewhere, somehow I had screwed with the electrical system.. that poor thing never ran right after that.

 

[jos51700]

I just reached through the radio hole to run the wipers in my '75 Valiant.

Y'all are sophisticated.

 

[74Dusted]

I just reached through the radio hole to run the wipers in my '75 Valiant.

Y'all are sophisticated.

Same '75 D300 I mentioned earlier had (actually still has) an old Pioneer Super Tuner Cassette player that had a loose connection. Sometimes it would quit playing any sound (but was still turned on and working) all you had to do was tap the face of the radio and the sound would kick back in.

I found the best way was to tap with your knuckles (not punch it, just tap). One day it quit when I was driving and I tapped the radio, nothing... I went to tap it again, just as I was going over some train tracks, lunged forward when the truck crossed the tracks and ended up punching the radio by accident. It's been sunk 4" deeper into the dash ever since.

 

[diymirage]

Great stories! Keep 'em coming. Here is another one

So my "buddy" (you know the one) and I were cruising in his Camaro around 2am and the bars were closed. We found two leftovers walking the street on their way home from a local bar. Buddy has extremely low standards and pulled over immediately. The closer they got, the worse things looked. They couldn't wait to jump in the car. When the dome light came on he finally came to his senses and his face turned nearly white. I was happy because I got the "good looking" one of the two and she climbed in the backseat with me. A solid 4! We headed off and as we crossed the railroad tracks the Camaro dropped it's tailpipes. SCRAPPPPPPPPPPE. Buddy pulls over pissed off, and the girls head to the woods to take a pee. He pops the trunk and I ask him why since he has no tools in there. He said, "Because we have to get the hell out of here!" as he ripped the speaker wires from the 6x9's. He handed me one and he took the other and we started wrapping it around the hangers and pipes. Finished and drove off right as the girls were coming out of the woods chasing and cussing at us. As it got hotter the speaker wires starting stretching and every once in a while we would hear a light tick as a pipe kissed the pavement. Right as we were pulling into his pops driveway they both let go and we drug the exhaust all the way around the house. I think every light in the house came on at the same time! Had some 'splainin to do...

So...your buddy who drove a Camaro had low standards?

What a shocker

 

[Rudy`s Ride]

I worked at a wrecking yard from 1980 to about 95. Almost want to cry when I think of all the cool cars I crushed. Anyway I had a 78 Thunderbird at the time and needed a truck to take home a 440 motor for my Cordoba. We had a quick cut saw for cutting rear quarters off so I went and cut out along the half vinyl top and made a Thundertruck as we called it, looked like a Ranchero. I had a fiberglass sheet that I stuck in there for the night. Just tapped in with duct tape. I had to pick up the girlfriend on the way home from work, so pick her up and get on the highway and the back fiberglass blows out. It was winter and cold as hell so she was pissed. I didn`t care as I was still in my snowsuit from work. I kept the old Thundertruck alot longer than her anyway. Ahh the good ol days
Mike

 

[whitepunkonnitro]

Mine ended up on live TV.
We qualified #16 in Funny Car at the Mopar Parts Nationals at ETown one year.
Last qualifying run, the baffles tore loose in the oil pan at the finish line..spun every main and destroyed every saddle in the one block we had.
So, we had Force in the first round Sunday morning. No way we were going to beat him anyway, but you have to at least stage and leave the starting line to collect your qualifying cash..which we NEEDED!
So, we worked all night to doctor up the block. Cut up Pepsi cans and made shims to back up the main bearings and screwed and epoxied everything in place. First thing in the morning, we had it all together and towed to the line.
So, while the plan was just to start the car, stage, take the green against Force and then shut off...my driver suddenly had other plans.
He trees Force, beats him to.the 60, and proceeds to whip this dead Elephant right to the 1/8th, where..you guessed it..she threw the crank onto the ground and incinerated everything we owned.
Fun fun fun

 

[74Dusted]

Mine ended up on live TV.
We qualified #16 in Funny Car at the Mopar Parts Nationals at ETown one year.
Last qualifying run, the baffles tore loose in the oil pan at the finish line..spun every main and destroyed every saddle in the one block we had.
So, we had Force in the first round Sunday morning. No way we were going to beat him anyway, but you have to at least stage and leave the starting line to collect your qualifying cash..which we NEEDED!
So, we worked all night to doctor up the block. Cut up Pepsi cans and made shims to back up the main bearings and screwed and epoxied everything in place. First thing in the morning, we had it all together and towed to the line.
So, while the plan was just to start the car, stage, take the green against Force and then shut off...my driver suddenly had other plans.
He trees Force, beats him to.the 60, and proceeds to whip this dead Elephant right to the 1/8th, where..you guessed it..she threw the crank onto the ground and incinerated everything we owned.
Fun fun fun

My grandfather occasionally talks about repairs like that, that he and his friends made when they were young (this would have been the 1940's, if my math is right) to keep their cars running. Shimming bearings with cut up cans because they couldn't afford to buy new bearings, running heavy oil, etc.

My grandfather also tells me about how the biggest mistake of his life was buying a beat up ford as his first car, that it burned more oil than it did gas. "We carried gas cans filled with used oil in the trunk"

 

[Mopar-Man]

Mine ended up on live TV.
We qualified #16 in Funny Car at the Mopar Parts Nationals at ETown one year.
Last qualifying run, the baffles tore loose in the oil pan at the finish line..spun every main and destroyed every saddle in the one block we had.
So, we had Force in the first round Sunday morning. No way we were going to beat him anyway, but you have to at least stage and leave the starting line to collect your qualifying cash..which we NEEDED!
So, we worked all night to doctor up the block. Cut up Pepsi cans and made shims to back up the main bearings and screwed and epoxied everything in place. First thing in the morning, we had it all together and towed to the line.
So, while the plan was just to start the car, stage, take the green against Force and then shut off...my driver suddenly had other plans.
He trees Force, beats him to.the 60, and proceeds to whip this dead Elephant right to the 1/8th, where..you guessed it..she threw the crank onto the ground and incinerated everything we owned.
Fun fun fun

Gators this weekend! You goin? I've got a few friends in FC pits I hang out with every year.

 

[whitepunkonnitro]

Gators this weekend! You goin? I've got a few friends in FC pits I hang out with every year.

No, I have not been anywhere near a national event in 20 years. Don't follow it, have no idea who is who or what they are even doing.
I am building another Fueler, but this time it's an all steel, small tire Grudge car.