After a a crash at the Targa Newfoundland race, I straightened a BMW M3 with a Dodge Ram Diesel and some chains. We "rebuilt" the car and lived to race another day. This happened on day 4 of a 5 day race.

The sad part was, we would have completed day 5 if the power steering pump that was damaged in the crash would have held together.

I fixed all the lights on a '76 Ford van by cutting all the negative wires on every connection and affixing them to the body with sheet metal screws and then doing the same with the negative battery post. Every single light on the van, markers included.

Made the rocker panels of an 88 Cavalier with MonoFoam insulation and aluminum duct tape. Skim coat of bondo and voila! Instant body panel!

This wasn't my repair but I just saw a late 90s Celica with the driver's door being held on with big gate hinges.

Tied the rear bumper on with a rope with the bracket pulled through what remained of the rusty sheetmetal.

Another time, the return spring popped off the carb at 11pm. I walked to a Kroger, bought a picture frame hangar with a spring and got it to work to get me home.

I have done my share but all of them pale in comparison to one I heard from an old friend of mine, Larry Beck.

Back when he was a teenager he had a Ford Model A that he drove around (Keep in mind this was a LONG time ago). On one trip from Kansas to I believe Montana the old Model A developed a rod knock. So there he was out in the middle of no where with nothing more than hand tools and an engine that could go at any minute. What did he do? He pulled the pan collecting all the oil he could, removed the cap from the rod and found a worn bearing and replaced it with a piece of his belt. He figured that would at least hold the motor together until he could replace the "bearing" wiht a real one.

He sold the car 6 years later, running still with the leather bearing.

This should be an outstanding thread. My GTO clone had wiring issues and both turn signals lit both back lights. A friend of mine fixed it with a diode, I don't remember where in the circuit we had to put it though. It was a long time ago.

Big Fiat Road Trip (11 Fiats headed for southern Oregon) we had to pull over to the side of the road on a long uphill climb (one of the X 1/9s was overheating - a blistering 80 deg F out... ;-) ) We waited.. and I kept my car going as the dual carbs were prone to icing on my Spider... The lone Brava in the group couldn't restart.. Vapor Lock, so I ran and grabbed my coleman camp stove.. pumped up the gas, and ran the "injector" into the carb intake directly.. and the car fired up and ran, long enough to get past the vapor lock.

Coleman Injection invented.

Attempted repair of an Audi Fox water pump with J.B. Weld. Hilarity ensued.

In high school I hit a telephone pole while off-roading. I reattached my headlights with duct tape. They stayed like that for about 6 months.

My dad used to sand down and use Rustoleum on rust spots on the various [vintage] Volkswagon Beetles he owned. For a defroster he made an aluminum block into a resister plate and set it at the bottom of said Volkswagon windows. (Yeah, learned to drive in those crates.)

Using diodes and small wiring, I converted the two unused spots on my Passat's brake lights to house dual rear fog lights (common in Europe, rare in the US). Now I have 5 simultaneous brake lights, the bottom two of which are twice as bright as the regulars above. I figure if bright HIDs are legal, why not lights that tell people I'm stopping? The rear fog (single, left) functions properly, too, using the Euro-sourced headlight switch.

Not my original idea. And not really a repair. But it's all I have on creative use of random parts.

Clear duct tape on the sunroof, to end a leaky ceiling after rain, and wedging one of those mini-basketballs to deal with failed hood struts. Obviously, I am less handy than most of you, though I also haven't had much that's gone sour on my Acura/Hondas...

I had a 79 Acadian with a rather large hole (1'x 1.5') on the floor in front of the driver's seat. One day after a large chunk of carpeting(and my foot!) fell through I took a peice of plywood and some mono foam and filled it. Stopped the water from getting in and my foot from gettin' out.

When it came time to sell it, or try to, the sales pitch went pretty good until we came to the hole :)

A piece of black electrical tape strategically placed over the "Service Engine" warning light took care of that problem!

@ash78:

Cool, but I did it on my Mini with two additional lightbulbs and two paperclips to use as jumpers!

This looks like something Michael Waltrip might try.

@Froggmann:
you could do that with babbited bearings. worked for flatheads as well.

i've used plastic oil quarts and pop rivets to hold headlights and front end trim bits on a taurus wagon, low expansion spray foam insulation to rebuild a & c pillars in beetles, used pepsi cans pop-riveted into rust holes to patch an old mazda 323, and street signs braced with pressure treated lumber to put flors in an austin-healey 3000 mk1. driver's side was one lane bridge, passenger side was dead end. learned that trick from patching a bmw 2002 to race in high school - the moonroof was filled with do not enter, and that was probably sage advice, looking back at it.

I had a 1984 Rabbit that was a conglomeration of many Rabbit / GTI parts. One day, on my way home from work, the 5" bold that holds the alternator worked its way out and the alternator was only hanging by the tensioner.

I drove a Craftsman #2 Phillips screwdriver in to the hole where the 5" bolt was supposed to be. I reattacehd the belt (still in the engine bay), retigntened the tensioner bolt, and drove off.

Two years later I finally got the right alternator both and took the screwdriver out.

a friend of mine in high school had a beater dodge diplomat that had holes in the roof and trunk - formerly the home to cop lights and antennas. those got patched with T1-11 siding smeared with clear aquarium sealant and fastened to the car with galvanized deck screws.

when that car died, some of the deck screws got pillaged to keep the headlights up on a much newer '85 Supra. After that was a chevy c-20 "longhorn" with speaker wire tying the lights together... turn signal ended up being an arm out the window, as all the lights would blink (including the headlights) if you moved the signal stalk.

I used clear silicone caulk and a putty knife to "weld" shut a cut some jerk made in the rear driver's side plastic window of my 1991 Geo Tracker.

like CLINTO, lost the carb spring on a road trip, popped the hood to the safety catch, opened the wing on my tiny 1.1L rare foreign car (no chance of spare parts avails in nowhere, texas on a sunday afternoon) folded four feet of white first-aid tape onto itself and tied this "rope" to the lever on the carb and yanked it to let off the gas; hour later pulled into waco, before it was whacko, and there's a totaled version of my unusual austin america 1100 on someone's front yard w/ a for sale sign on it - spring was free

locked my keys in a '67 fury, empty parking lot, middle of the night, enough beer in the belly to make me believe i could get back in w/ the only thing found on the ground - 3 feet of kite string; tied a small loop, jerked on the door handle while simultaneously [blow]ing the string in thru the loose insulation strip until i lassoed the lock button; been a great [job] interview answer to the question "would you consider yourself creative?" shuts 'em up every time

if you post, please remove brackets

Road trip at night and the alternator on my Jeep dies. Friend is following me in his Ford truck so we swap the batteries every few miles to keep both of them charged by the single good alternator.

Lost the nut that holds the ball onto the receiver, coming up I85 in VA doing about 70 one night. Hit a bump and the ball came out of the receiver (stayed in the trailer hitch) and suddenly I was dragging a (thankfully empty) tandem axle car hauler down the road by the safety chains, fishtailing and sending sparks in the air from the jack scraping the pavement.

I finally got it under control and off to the shoulder, and the nut, of course, was long gone. I got the ball back int the receiver, and locked a pair of vice grips around the threads. It held for the remaining 20 miles home. Bought a new nut at a Napa, chased the threads, and all was right again.

The moral: ALWAYS use your safety chains, and CHECK YOUR NUTS!

In my days of driving POS cars, I never went anywhere without a supply of wire coat hangers. They served as battery hold-downs, antennas, etc. In one case, the rear bumper on my LTD came loose from one side (rusty frame) and was skittering behind me on the pavement, sparks flying, still attached to the car on the other side. I trussed it up with a wire hanger and made it home.

Home depot sheet metal and a rivet gun/rivets turned my smashed underpanel/wheel well liners into functional parts.

stupid minivan taught me that tires on roads aren't the only things capable of hydroplaning - hit a puddle entering a convenience store lot and the serpentine slid off an idler; several cuss words later composed myself and politely asked the clerk if i could borow her mop [shut-up!] b/c i was late for work; all she had was a hollow metal rod, which just barely pried the belt back on before she was irreparably bent [the mop handle - and the clerk]

92 Toyota pickup had so many things done to it... I started it with a screwdriver after it stranded me at school one day because the ignition tumbler locked up (I cut it off with a small hacksaw, including the steering wheel lock), I JB welded the headlights back in after someone backed into me, I bolted fog lights up in the headlight housing when i lost both headlights in a four wheeling accident, the tailgate was tied shut, the driver side door used to come open on right turns so I tied it to the seat, the list goes on and on. Strangely, I'd trade my avenger for that monstrosity any day.

Ohh, and PS.. The Toyota still runs, its in my garage serving as a nice way to haul things from time to time. 300k miles cant be wrong.

I once went around a corner in a pretty rusty Volvo 142 and the car kept wiggling down the street. Turns out the bracket holding the track rod to the inner fender tore away the rusty metal. I'd done some brazing before but no welding. I got out my tanks, tacked the metal back together with brass, then cut a reinforcing plate out of 1/8" steel. I didn't have any welding rod, so I just grabbed some steel shirt hangers and used them to weld the plate on. Then I added another plate and filled in all the gaps with brass. Everything bolted back up and the patch worked fine but I figured it was prudent to find a donor body at that point.

Found a solid 142 and later when rooting around I found some heroin someone had stashed behind the dashboard.

This one isn't technically a repair but mention of old VWs reminded me. I'd had a '67 split window bus with a 1500 and a single barrel carb that couldn't keep up on the interstate, so when I found a solid '72 bus that needed an engine, I grabbed it because the by 72 they had disk brakes in the front, no swing axles in the back, and you could still mount a Type I engine to the tranny. I built a mild hi po 1648 with a Holley Weber. Since I was already using an external oil filter (I'd have to tighten it with a wrench or the Melling hi output oil pump would blow out the gaskets on a cold morning), and a roof mounted oil cooler, I added some valves, a stock engine oil cooler, a plenum and a 12V squirrel cage fan to make a reasonably effective heater for the bus.

When I drove that bus people would ask me what was on the roof. I'd say it was an oil cooler. They'd then ask me what it did.

1992(I think)
Driving along the highway, I started to feel this strange vibration coming from the right front tire. I had just got new tires put on, so it wasn't a flat
(I hoped)! I pulled off the highway only to discover that three of my four lugs had disappeared and my studs were stripped. The forth one was on its way off too (good thing I stopped!) and I could NOT put any lugs on the stripped studs, so I was royally screwed with no money (and no such thing as roadside then), and I was about an hour drive from home.

Desperate to get home, I rifled through my trunk and found a pair of pointy-nosed vise-grips and some nylon rope. I squeezed the shit out of the vise-grips, for them to get a good solid hold on the stripped stud across from my remaining one which I was able to tighten. Then I looped the rope around and around the handle and knotted I don't know how many times, hopped in, got back on the highway (moron), and drove home full tilt (again-moron)!

A buddy of mine repaired a broken tie rod with a hefty stick and some zip ties.

Got him out of the woods and back home.

Vice grips clamping off a brake line on my Jeep above where it had sprung a leak. I zip-tied them to the coil spring to finish the rest of the Rubicon trail.

Another would be when I had to remove the remnants of an exploded brake cylinder from inside the drum (of the same Jeep). Fun when you're doing it using a hi-lift jack (don't lean too hard), and then get to drive home on the front brakes only.

Something about me and Jeeps and brake parts, I guess.

After college, my dad owned a late 70s Saab Sonnett. In New England, those cars were quite prone to rust, and indeed, rust it did. In fact, the entire floorpan of the passenger compartment fell out. Undeterred by this slight issue, my dad took a sheet of aluminum that was roughly the size of the floor, pop-riveted it into place, and called it a day.

After my old Jeep CJ7 wheezed and sputtered trying to run at high altitude crossing the Rockies on a trek from LA to NJ, I figured it was in need of a replacement engine. Since everyone was doing the small block Chevy engine swap, I wanted to go one better. And since just about everyone I talked to said it was impossible, I decided to stuff a 454 in. It had a Holley quad, block hugger headers, hung real low on four motor mounts and had about 3/8 inch clearance from the firewall. Looked pretty stock except for the B&M bang shifter inside and the Corvette sidepipes. Oh, and the yellow traction bars were a giveaway too.

My 78 Datsun King Cab 4-speed had a cable connecting the accelerator to the throttle. It broke off just on my side of the firewall, leaving a half-inch stub. I clamped on set of Vice-Grips and drove it to the dealer to get it fixed. Shifting, steering and throttling by hand was a challenge.

I had a $200 Plymouth Volare in high school. While out screwing around on seasonal limited roads I plowed through a hard pack pile of snow created by the plows. I saw the hood and front of the car move up six inches when I hit the pile.

I got out of the car expecting to see everything smashed, but the grill was fine. When my friend also opened his door we saw the real problem: I broke the car unibody "frame" in half!

We used the jack to get the doors closed and drove home. There, I welded the doors shut and added as much angle iron as I could find to the bottom of the car.

I drove it for another month, until a friend's father saw how unsafe it was, and took the car away from me.

My first car was a 1984 Ford Tempo. It wasn't much, but it was mine and after it was totaled in a random high school parking lot accident, making the rear end of the car a few inches closer to the front. My stepfather told me to buy the car back and we'd fix it to live another day and keep the insurance money.

We took the car to a friends house in the sticks, and removed the rear glass, tail lights and everything that was in the trunk. Hooked the rear bumper supports to an Oak tree with a very stout chain. Then my stepfather admonished me not to look as he accelerated as fast the little Tempo would until the chain went taught and the Tempo resembled a hoopty with hydraulics. He did this a few times on each side as my heart screamed watching my ride doing things that Henry never intended it to do.

When all was said and done the car drove fine and only had a few ripples on the rear to bespeak of the accident. A few months later I put the car in a flooded ditch with water up to the hood on a date with a special someone. When we pulled the car out, it started on the first try. That was the second hardest car I ever owned...god speed little Tempo.

Had a '91 LTD Crown Victoria P71 (EX New York State Police). I hit a car with it and pushed the front bumper in. I grabbed a tow strap and tied it to a pine tree and to the bumper and put the car in reverse to straighten the bumper.

I did this trick trick again with the '92 Mercury Sable my little brother hit a Jeep that bent in the front facia in.

Used a pair of vise grips to hold a broken clutch cable together on an old '77 honda beater at 3am on a very dark cold night in the mountains. Got me home and then some as I sorta "forgot" about em for a time, like maybe a week :).

cheers
obi

Let's see... I've replaced a dead fan switch on my Chevelle with a standard house light switch, which works great if you don't mind just having one fan speed.

Used coathanger wire numerous times to hold up various exhaust systems, which is fun because when you take the car to a proper mechanic to replace the bits and pieces you've cobbled together they always say something like, "You wouldn't believe the fucking mess some idiot asshole rigged up under there."

Probably my best, however, is when I replaced a hose fitting on the crappy-cheap plastic power steering pump housing on my old Taurus wagon using a brass nipple salvaged from an old homemade bong I wasn't using anymore.

Ahhh God, where to begin?

OK, I saw a 1951 Dodge Power Wagon flatbed on a car lot in Torrance, CA .. a beaut, oak bed stakes, 9" PTO winch, military wheels, perfect body and paint, good interior.

It smoked like a destroyer laying down a screen for the Sixth Fleet. Because it "couldn't be driven on Calif. roads" I got it for $200.00. I pullled it into the alley behind El Cheapo's Used Cars, ran across the street to a Super Mercardo and bought a can of Bon Ami and a can of 20WT motor oil.

I mixed about 1/3 of the can of Bon Ami into the oil and while revving the beejeezuz out of that poor flathead six, drizzled the whole can through the carb.

After the smoke cleared I dumped the crankcase and put in fresh oil and filter. Truck $200.00, Bon Ami $0.35, seven quarts of oil, $5.00, oil filter $3.95, (hey, this WAS 1970) the look on the face of the white belt and shoe salesman as I drove off with NO smoke trailing ... priceless.

I drove that old truck to SF, loaded with furniture, then to the Sierras where it was a wood hauler for the next five years that I know of.

By the time I sold it was still getting 500 miles per quart, and never DID get a ring job.

Now, ya wanna hear 'bout the fingernail-file-and-matchbook-cover-tune-up on the '78 Subaru at 02:30 in Truth or Consequences, NM?

Duct tape worked as an engine seal n my 72 Super Beetle for almost 2 years until I replaced it with a NOS seal.

Had a K-5 Blazer. I was driving outside NYC and it overheated, stuck thermostat. Pulled into a park-n-ride lot about midnight. Waited for it to cool a little bit. Got out the tools, reemoved the thermostat, found an orange juice carton in the parking lot to use as a gasket. Drove it for a few days like that.

Nothing that exciting, used a lawn mower fuel filter in my Toyota one Memorial day while trying to get back to Cali from Utah.

Red bandana made a nice quickie tail light cover on my 914.

Wasn't mine but someone I used to know "fixed" a broken transmission mount by putting holes through the transmission tunnel on both sides, running a seat belt through the hole and cinching it up. Got him home from out of state.

Not mine, but an old friend of mine was riding a '69 BSA Lightning from Miami to L.A. (A messy divorce will do that to a man) and somewhere in Texas he got a crack in the crank case that started hemorrhaging oil. He limped into a gas station, bought a quart of oil, a tallboy of Bud and some JB Weld. He drank the Bud, patched the crack with the can and liberal amounts of JB weld and off he rode. I believe he traded it straight across about a year later for a '66 Bonneville.

A friend and I had to make a trip to Boston, Mass to pick up some computer equipment. The company I was working for was closing the office, so I offered to go up and pick up the equipment with a U-Haul and my friend. Mind you, we were only going for the weekend, so we headed up Friday night with an older Ford Econoline U-Haul truck, well over 100K on the odometer.

Once there, we figured it would only take a few hours to get the equipment loaded and come back early Saturday. We were loading Friday night, all day Saturday and most of the day Sunday, since we under estimated how much equipment there was. Sunday night we start to make the 4 hour trip back to NY and get home to work the next day.

Doing about 70, 80 for a few hours in that old Ford caused the engine to start overheating and stall. After pulling off the side of the road and not being able to start the truck, I started thinking of ways to get the truck to cool off quicker. As we were moving computer equipment, I happen to have a can of compressed air. A few sprays with the can upside down on the trucks thermostat and the truck started right up!

I think we only had to do that twice on the whole trip. I was surprised the truck made it without a blown head gasket (at least not the I know of).