77 ford half ton...shoelace tied to throttle linkage...lasted 5 years...

I repaired the broken AC on a 1980 Celica by applying several piles of cash and a new 1989 Daytona ES...

My 1968 Firebird throttle cable. Broke during a "test drive". I had my small toolbox in the trunk, and had odds and ends in it. Pulled out picture hanging wire and fed it through the cable housing. Made it home and installed a new cable.

@Grandjester: ... and bondo.

Remember the inside of the Soviet MIR space station before they decided to ditch it? Everything juryrigged, duct taped etc.

Well about all of the above with my 86 jeep cherokee 2.5 pioneer 4x4 thrash crash&trash editon home light switch for duct-tape rigged mg midget heater fan, plastic tote window, wired doors shut, so they dont open while running down trees, air shocks and spring helper lift, fiberglass front end wired on,ladder rack to help unibody twist,cut fenders with grinder kinda rub and cut tires 400 stickers pvc pipe "cold air" intake,aquarium air pump kicks over 4wheel drive vac on axel it takes abuse and keeps on kickin unlike my el camino looks good+hardly runs. -friends love trying to kill the jeep!

my fender liner ripped out of my brand new 08 wrx during a rally. I ran it over and it got chopped up into little pieces. I took it out for the remainder of the rally, but since subaru wouldn't replace it under warranty, I cleaned it, used a soldering iron to melt the 4 pieces back into one, used gorilla glue duct tape to fill in the giant holes melted by my tires, and then covered the entire contraption with 3M rubberized trunk liner. so in the end, brand new fender liner for about $10 worth of stuff (vs. $199 for the new part and $89 for the dealer to "install it")

Also once made a ring compressor out of a coke can and some vice grips, but I suppose everyone has done that.

My old Kawasaki Z750 had el cheapo mufflers which had fired their innards out the back bazooka style. After the cops stopped me for the bike being too noisy I had a look in the shed and found a rolled up chicken wire fence and a sturdy broom handle. I used the broom handle to ram the chicken wire into the mufflers, wired the end up and rode it until it fired the rusty remnants out, then I would just rinse and repeat as needed.
I loved that old bike, all chrome and metal except the side covers, it had a minding blue metallic respray and some old handle bars I found at a bike shop (covered in rust but they polished up good). It also had spotlight that I mounted to the frame with some kind of bracket from the hardware store.
I often had to kick-start it in the mornings and bump start it when that didn't work.. Once while trying to bump start it a compression lock-up sent me over the handle bars and I nearly ran over myself. lol.

Many many years ago, when my 68 Volvo P1800 was just a few years old my fuel pump went on a cold winter day in the middle nowhere in upstate New York. What better way to get the car going than to attach the windshield washer pump to the fuel line and the output to the twin SU's. Just a quick flick of the washer pump when the car sputtered and the reservoirs filled up and the car ran all the way to NYC The windshield, however, was all caked with salt

On an near-zero winter night, the thumb push on the driver-side door handle of my '63 Beetle daily driver snapped off, rendering me permanently locked out. (No lock cylinder on the passenger side of a '63. Thanks VW.) Got a metal shower curtain ring out of my bathroom, bent the end straight, forced it through the vent window rubber, popped the vent latch, reached in and unlocked the door. With the shower curtain ring as my keychain, I jimmied my way into that car every day for 3 years.

i made an intake heat shield for my BMW 325is out of a computer case.

Brake line rust out leak with Superglue. Pantyhose fanbelt. Preppy "duck" belt to hold up bumper. Coathanger muffler strap. Ducttape muffler hole repair--do not recommend.

@Grandjester: I once drove my '78 Corolla home 6 miles on a quarter gallon of turpentine I had lying in the trunk. I didnt notice the difference!

Me and a friend bought a '78 Ford Fiesta a few months ago for a 24 hours of LeMons race and drove it from Sacramento to Folsom (45 minutes at our speed and a route that took us on the most remote route possible.)
The catch? I didn't have brakes. But it did have a horrible camber and some bad bearings that helped it slow down fast ish. Oh, and we had the airbox held on with duct tape. Also, the hood release was pushed into the engine bay, so we had to put a bunch of duct tape over the latch.
We've done countless other things to get this car back to decent running condition, one of my favorites being compression fittings to fix the brake lines in several places and the wiring of the radiator fan to a switch on the dash, since it wasn't turning on itself. There are lots of hoses too that don't really go anywhere and are just kinda hanging in the bay. It runs fine though so we don't touch them.

Well I hope I didn't find this too late but here is my favorite freeway side fix.
I was a delivery driver for a fish tank manufacturer and we used this beater Chevy full size van. This thing was a complete POS! The side door was held on by safety wire there was only one seat in the whole thing and I had to push my finger through a hole in the rear door to get it open it was a mess. But it ran.
So one day I'm south bound on I5 on my way from OC to San Diego. Suddenly the the throttle went to the floor and the RPM's dropped to idle. Pulled over to the side of the road, pulled the engine cover off from under the dash and could see that the throttle cable had broken.
Side note, this was pre cell phone!
So I scavanged some of the bailing wire off the side door and wired it to the carb throttle actuator. I took some a pen apart and slide the wire through it so I could use it as a handle. I could open and close the throttle by hooking my right thumb on the seat belt and pulling on the wire. It was a pain in the butt yet worked. I did the whole rout for three days like that before I got it fixed.

My old '95 Probe GT required a constant supply of duct tape to allow me to keep the sunroof open or shut. Not very creative but it worked.

@weaponsgradecarp: You're that guy! I used to work at a Home Depot, and one day I saw some guy wondering around holding various PVC pipe fittings and a high-flow air filter. Well, probably not the same guy since that store wasn't open at 2am, but it definitely made me smile at the time.

Mine was fun... Early September, 2005, I am on the outskirts of New Orleans, and my old Civic Si had just been rescued from underneath a fallen oak tree. It won't start, and the nearest car parts (not even gas stations were open) are in Baton Rouge.
We narrow the problem down to the computer not telling the fuel pump to go on, and find that when you short one of the wires, it makes the car start 75% of the time, so my dad goes digging into his drawer of magic odd switches, and we rig up a switch to some orange extension cord so that the car will go.
A few days later we went out to Baton Rouge to the junkyard in Port Allen and found an ECU that might work, and for the rest of that car's life it had the check engine light on...

* I had an 86 Cadi Fleetwood Brougham & the A/C went. The dealer wanted several hundred $ for a motor so I went to a mechanic to see what alternatives there were?
He said I could bypass the motor. So I used a regular light switch & grounded to the frame. There was a huge SPARK every time I used it, but it was necessary since the heater was built into the A/C unit.
But hey, IT WORKED! And I saved myself a couple of hundred $$$ :D

So final word: Vice Grips + Duct Tape = Fix everything.

My Escort was an ex-Newfoundland car, so there was as much rust as there was original paint. To get it to pass inspection, I cut out pieces of cardboard roughly the size of all the holes, duct taped them on, and then slathered it in Bondo and paint. Not only did I pass, it held for the year I owned the car. On the F150 I replaced it with, I made the next step and actually got sheet metal to replace the hole in the floorboard (I don't know how to rivet, but drilling holes in the floor and screwing it in did the trick).
Also on that F150, the exhaust pipe rusted out. I meant to try and fix it properly, but never really had the skill neccesary. So, I just tied the muffler to the frame with some rope and drove around until I had to do the clean air testing.

High School 1986 - 70' VW Squareback (already had duct tape keeping the hood from blowing up in my face). I had joined the Cal Dub trend and decided to slam my POS to the ground. Paid some guy to do it...things seemed great...lots of looks and yells and my bad ass ride...So speed bumps were a problem and I was at a rival school watching my girlfriend play soccer...I go to leave and hit a speed bump just a little to hard and it broke the motor mount...AAA towed me home...I worked at Handyman (pre-cursor to Home Depot), and grabbed a length of chain and a master lock. Went home jacked the motor up, wrapped the chain through the motor and out the back hatch, locked it with the master lock. Other than my hatch always being unlocked the car ran great for the 6 months that I left it that way...eventually got another motor mount and raised the car back up to decent level...
Then there was the time I cracked my oil case in my VR6 in the boonies(look up Oroville, Ca) during bungee jump trip...Got someone to get me a case of oil and we poured 2 quartes of oil in every 10 miles till we got to Chico VW...left a mess in their gutter...but got it fixed...not as creative as the squareback fix...but a fix never the less

@Gavin082: On my Jetta coupe, the switch burned out somewhere in the darkness of northern California on a trip back to Pullman from San Diego. I had to wedge a shoe between the dash and the column switch for the brights to get anything at all (no low beam). To ease the eyes of the oncoming traffic, I disconnected the inner 100 watt H1 high beams so they only had to deal with the 100 watt H4s on the outside. That same trip we saw a cow in the middle of the road, hit a seagull at 60 MPH, watched an MR2 spin off I-5 at 100 MPH, and somehow found a temple in the redwoods that houses sacred scrolls from Tibet.
I built that Jetta so I was always finding fun things going wrong with it. The upper radiator hose blew a couple miles from the pass one night an hour into a five hour drive. A knife and some bottled water fixed it. I cut the hose just below the hole and stuck it back into the clamp. I drove with that hose for a year or so before dropping a beefier engine in the car.

my hood release lever has been a vicegrip for about 2 years now on my 325i.
that being said, and it's not quite a repair, but a friend and I attempted once to make a cold air intake for an 88 gen4 celica with parts from the home depot. at 2 in the morning. for no reason.

I have a beer bottle cap between my headlight and bumper as a shim to keep it aimed properly.

I was on the way to Florida in my '78 Jeep CJ-7, going down I-75 out of Detroit. I pulled off the highway for gas in Northern Ohio, and got the extra special treat of a clutch pedal going to the floor and staying there. Fortunately, I was able to coast downhill to the gas station, and in the freezing rain I found that the clutch linkage had bounced loose and away somewhere around Toledo. I had some speaker wire and a 5/8" wrench bouncing around in the back, so I put the box-end of the wrench around the ball on the clutch pedal and jammed a fork of the open-end into the receptacle on the throwout fork. Wrapped the whole thing nicely in speaker wire, which got me to Tampa, and my uncle's machine shop, where I made a new linkage from bar stock and threaded rod.

My family had a '71 Ford Econoline 300 window van converted into a camper (including poptop Turtle roof) in '71 which was given to us by the widow whose husband had driven it. But by the time we got it it in the early'80s had approximately 250k+ miles and large rust holes (NJ by the ocean). My Father proceeded to build a replacement battery box out of wood (3/4" cdx plywood if I remember) and bolted it to the firewall/ side fender support under that little short hood. At some point battery technology changed and it didn't need as physically big of a battery to run when we replaced the battery. Smaller battery in wood box tray with no way to keep it from sliding side to side. That was until I picked up a standard red brick from Mother's flower bed edging and used it as a shim. The brick was in there for several years and still in it when he sold it in '87.

oh... if we're going to get into stereo systems.. i don't know what story to tell you guys...
i think re-wiring an '82 mustang to run 5.1 sound ---it didn't qualify as surround...-- the driver's seat had a shaker magnet underneath it in place of a sub (which scared the f*ck out of my friend's parents when they had to move the car) but the previous owner mounted a central 6x9.. there were the two door speakers... and then we rewired everything through a 5.1 channel amp to power the three in front.. and two house speakers (10" woofer, 4.5" mid, and 1" glass piezo--internal crossover) that took up the entire space behind the back seat... had about .75" clearance under the hatch.... sounded great.. even though the speakers were over 20 yrs. old (in '98)
no end to the amnt. of electrical tape and small guage speaker wire used..
but that JVC head unit was a clean enough signal to make that old/used amp provide some great "afro-engineered" sound

While living in Sicily as a military brat during the early 90's, I owned a '78 Innocenti Mini 90L. The car was OK mechanically, but the body was in predictably horrible shape (dents and rust all over). I painted the car with a lovely and uneven coat of Rust-Oleum to cover the rust spots all over the car, but the Pièce de résistance was the way I patched a fist sized hole in the driver door caused by the metal rusting through - I ran down to the NEX, bought as many packs of epoxy glue as I could find, and mixed all the tubes in a pie tin. I then soaked a piece of paper towel in the stuff and applied it directly over the hole, and when dried, sprayed it with more Rust-Oleum. Cheap, practical, and it lasted until the car died a year later.

these are pretty much all better than what i've got... so.. lessons learned:
1. always have vice grips... and more than one set..
2. keep wire hangers in car, if not for unlocking than for something else.
3. there IS a reason your parents always made you wear a belt.... wear a belt!
my best (personal) one is using 7-10 coat hangers to suspend an exhaust patched with nomex gloves and duct tape over the course of a few years...
and i wish i knew what he did.. but i broke i tie rod in an early eighties buick while backing out of a driveway... there was a guy who assessed the problem (he was moving some appliances in to a house nearby) and was able to patch it up, so that i could pull back in to the driveway, no longer blocking the 2 lane road i was backing out into... in about 5 minutes
most important part. VICE GRIPS!

So long as we are talking radio fixes, try dealing with two blown speakers in the old yotas. I wired in a dc/ac converter, plugged in a 4.1 sorround sound system from my old computer, and plugged an MP3 player into that. It was so loud and clear. Total cost ~20 bucks for the converter and some speaker wire. Worked like a dream for 3 years.

Two situations for me:

1. Not so much a repair as a modification driven by necessity... My old
Honda Civic Wagovan had a really crappy stereo. This was a cheap beater
and didn't want to invest much in it. I put in a new head unit that
went in no problem. But the stock 4" speakers were horrible and there
was no wiring for rear speakers.

The solution? Took out the 4" speakers, got out the Dremel, enlarged
the opening, mounted a two inch spacer (so the back of the much larger
speakers wouldn't interfer with rolling down the windows) and
mounted/hooked up the speakers. Worked surprisingly well.
#2 Fixing the SID on my Saab. Saabs have what's known as a SID (Saab
Information Display). As these age, the pixels stop working because the
display data ribbon starts to detach from the circuit board. Mine was
so bad is was unusable. New SIDs cost $300 and junkyard replacements
cost $100.

My solution?

Took out the the unit, took it apart, got out my small soldiering iron,
heated the contacts, put back together and improved it enough so that
the display is readable.

@PAULE,
I replaced the floor pans in a friend's two stroke 96 and though the floors were gone, the rocker panels (made up of two layers of laminated 1/8" steel) and tunnel were solid. I don't think a 60s vintage Saab would fold up simply due to a lack of floor pans.

The entire exhaust system behind the header on my former 95 GMC Slownoma was held together with coathangers, hose clamps, and Wegmans green bean cans. I had to replace the cans every few weeks, and this led to the truck being referred to as the Beemobile (it had the godawful Cavalier 4-banger).
I haven't really had to slap together anything on a car in a long time, but anyone who takes car audio seriously would have a fit over how I wired the subwoofer that I transplanted from my recently-departed Impreza to my girlfriend's Intrepid.

replaced a cracked probe taillamp with the gt version. used flat screwdriver & toenail clippers to remove tabs in the way, then stuffed the extra bulb down in the fender.

@amarks: I donated a pile of old real estate signs out of my garage to one of my buddies who needed to fab pieces of floorpan for his winter-beater Saab 96 V4. Worked pretty well for a while, not just as a piece of captive advertising but to keep his feet dry. Eventually we had to fab a heftier patch to prevent the car from folding up due to the lack of front floorpan.

@mechimike: Isn't that what a "Hitch Hand®" is for?

One of my co-workers tied up his exhaust with a CAT5 patch cable. Said it smelled funny for a while (don't inhale burning PVC kids, it's very poisonous!) but it held the exhaust up for a couple weeks.

I was driving a 92 Plymouth Duster with a stick and a V6. It had a custom exhaust system with a "bullet" racing muffler. One of the brackets broke on the Whitestone bridge and I started dragging the whole exhaust system. After an inspection in the parking lot of Pathmark, I decided to purchase some Bungee chord. I used the Bungee chord to pull keep the exhaust system from hitting the street. It worked until I was on the exit ramp off the Grand Central Parkway. The chord broke and I dragged the entire system in a hail of sparks ten blocks to my apartment. My neighbors loved me.

@obi: Gotta love vice grips, never drive a beater without them.
1 AM dark country road, a friend was driving my 84 Tempo as I'd had too much to drink. All of a sudden, no drive, moving the shifter (automatic) felt weird like it wasn't connected anymore. Unscrewed the console and found that the white metal bracket that held the cable end had disintegrated. (Shifter cable gromet had come loose so salt and water had gotten into that area). Took the trusty vise grips, had my friend move the shifter till we found drive, locked it off and home we went.
Made a new bracket that I sandwiched beween the shifter base and the car body out of an old road sign. The car went on like that for years.

Out snow wheeling in a friends Jeep Commando and 250+ zip ties became a make shift AT shifter cable cover, the orig split, too cold I guess. It looked like a porcupine lying on the passenger floor foot well.
Oh, and once used a broken off and mildly whittled tree branch to replace a popped freeze plug, it actually didn't leak at all by the time we got off the trail.

I guess IMG tags don't work on here anymore. Oops.
Check out this Camaro with a door made of duct tape I found in Omaha:

[www.flickr.com]
Just shows that plastic bodies aren't all they're cracked up to be. Shattering is worse than denting, IMO.

Check out this shit I found in Omaha:

I had an electrical issue on my Honda Civic. Whenever I turned on the night lights, the back lights would go out. The front lights were fine. It was a problem caused by a bad DRL relay.
My (temporarary) fix was to remove one of the light sockets and put a small flashlight instead.

I borrowed my Dad's Escort and had it at school with me for a month while he was away on a job site. Somebody hit it in the parking lot (didn't ever find out who) but only managed to tear away one side of the bumper without causing any major body damage. I duct taped it all back together again in the rain, and then drove it like that for several weeks before giving the car back to my parents, who drove it with my original tape job for another 3 months before replacing the bumper.

the door speakers on my Suzuki blew and started to rattle

so I wadded up some tissue paper and forced open the grilled and stuffed it in there

88 Plymouth Horizon - heater fan died during winter in Oklahoma. Taped a heater vent deflector from the house to the cowling, and got enough air through at speed to keep warm.

i put a stick through one of my tow loops in order to keep the underbody plastics from falling off.

I once crafted a replacement cylinder cooling fan for a 63 Lambretta scooter using an Electrolux vacuum cleaner fan and a reversed flywheel puller. Some thin sheet metal held together with pop-rivets and silicone sealer was used to make a cover to let the air into the fan and mated up to the cylinder head shroud. I never siezed it again after that mod. A miniature Radio Shack project box and some RS switches replaced the missing electrical controls on the handlebars.

1. away from home...busted a sube "rocker panel" (IT IS A BEAM.) to stop from turning the wheel so hard and breaking the body entirely to get home,in a fairly straight line.. I took a hardwood slot off of the charcoal grill side table in the back, a cordless drill, a jack, crammed it under the drivers door and forward, let the car back down with the drywall screws holding it in place.Tougher than the original...
2. Diesel rabbit: front end with headlights in 2 directions, no grill, running fabulous, the hood came back yup and smacked the windshield doing its top speed of 15.8mph. A crow bar punch a hole through the hood, chunk of dog chain wrapped around the bumper, finalizing its already "mad max" look.
3. 79 delta 88: 2500lb fiberglass boat finally does the ever manly back end of frame in entirely...again, a tire crowbar, smash through the trunk, strapped the frame back up through the slots with truck straps ...making the trunk be a unibody...and got home swaying in the breeze, but we were boating that day anyway...
4. 3/4 ton chevy: throttle stuck. Stuck in gear. Door pinched...frame bent and cab mount broken...(all in 3 milliseconds) AGAIN a tire crowbar, a jack, and a chunk of wood. I personally took the inspection sticker off that masterpiece myself.
5. joining the service to become an ever dynamical crew chief under stress wasn't a bad idea.

My dirt bike hauler van leaks above the windshield. I filled the top of the windshield frame with expand-a-foam then sheet metal screwed galvanized sheet metal to the upper frame using gasket maker as a backing to seal up the holes.
but it still leaks like a sieve, no big surprise.

@jeadly: Did your mom ever find out?

Pulled off a strip of vinyl off the ceiling of my mom's Datsun when I was a kid. Managed to reattach it using "nasal adhesive" and the thing stuck up there for a good year and a half.

Not technically a repair, but...
Before I put in a relay, the 4 headlight grill I put on my GTI would
cause the headlight switch on the dash to melt if the headlights were
on for more than a few hours. On one long night trip, I ended up having
to pull the switch out of the dash and holding it in front of the AC
vent right next to keep it from melting.

"Fixed" a friend's wrecked '79 Mustang Pace Car by pulling the frame straight using some chain, a tree, and a backhoe. Mounted a radiator from a Subaru Brat I had laying around, and drove it to the back to await real repairs.

I was given an FJ-40 Landcruiser by my uncle. It had been given to him by a friend and was rusted out, but according to him it just needed a tune-up & some bodywork. Since I had just T-boned a cop car in my celica (that's another story)...I took him up on the offer to fix it up in hopes that I could finish it before I had to be back to college (x-mas vacation).
After spending a week welding, grinding, sanding we had it looking respectable. I changed the plugs and the points and rotor from the distributor. The fact that it still didn't run yet didn't seem to be an issue for him..."we just needed to take it to his buddies house to tune the carb."
The day I was supposed to leave we stopped by his buddy's garage to have him tune the Webber carb. Turns out it was shot...completely trashed. Since i had to be at school the next day he custom-cut an adapting plate & put on a 2-barrell buick carb. his welds were beautiful, although the high-rise carb looked a little funny. At least it didin't need a choke!
The other "fix" on it was the exhaust. While trying to tune the webber, the muffler "exploded" from a backfire. Since we didn't have any extra exhaust pipes, he welded on a small muffler that was sitting around the garage...and crafted a nice-looking side-pipe.
I drove it from West Hampton, Long Island to Burlington VT that day. Things got a little sketchy when I couldn't find an open gas station on a Sunday night. Drove much slower and luckily made it...which could have been issue because rust from the gas tank had been clogging the fuel filter.
The carb worked perfect...and was still on it when I sold it two years later. Since the little muffler was so close to the engine it burned out & eventually I had someone extend the pipe and move it to the back. The little muffler was loud, but it actually sounded pretty cool.

Me and my father and younger brother in a rented Altima. Dad rear ends someone at a red light. No big deal, the Jeep that we hit is relatively undamaged and it seems like the Altima just has superficial damage. We lift the hood and don't see any bent or leaking parts and figure it's OK to drive it home. As we accelerate onto the highway we notice that the hood is shaking. We hit 55mph and BAM! the hood flies up onto the windshield. To this day I am still amazed that my father got it over on the shoulder without killing us. So we pull over, pull the hood down and realize that the latch is completely broken. There is nothing in the car to tie it down with so we end up using my brothers belt. The hood rose up a bit when we go over 45mph but we made it home without further incident.

@XDoctor: The Winner!
I did the lightswitch-controlled fan bit in my '89 Horizon, same car also had lightswitch-controlled reverse lights. My '78 Volvo 244 recieved a doorbell mounted in the console for the horn.. Of course I've used everything from streetsigns to coffeecans to replace tinworm damage.
"Bondo should be outlawed"? Yeah, brilliant. First raise the minumum wage in New England to 50 bucks an hour, maybe. Or outlaw snow, perhaps..
Buddy of mine drove his '87 "Chevy Nova" for about a year with shoelaces tied to the wiperarm..

I heard about a guy who used chamois cloth instead of piston rings. Ran smooth as silk for about 50 miles... then never ran again.

A large part of my father's childhood was spent on a ranch in Northern California, in what is now the Wine Country but was then just the boondocks. Anyway, he found a '29 Ford Model AA truck (the heavy-duty version of the Model A) in the barn and he rebuilt it to drive around the ranch by the time he was ten or eleven. Now, my father's a pretty wiry guy today, and when he was eleven years old he wasn't particularly strong. The mechanical drum brakes, therefore, presented some problems. So Dad rigged up a novel type of emergency brake: when he needed to stop in a hurry, he pulled on a broom handle next to the seat. This moved a baling-wire linkage that released a few cinderblocks tied to the frame with a stout rope. Theoretically, the cinderblocks dragging behind the truck would help slow the truck so that my father could stop it with the regular brakes. My grandfather was so horrified by this method that he upgraded the brakes to a system scavenged from a later Ford in a junkyard.

I had a 83 tercel in an upstate NY winter. As a cigarette smoker, I needed to open and close the windows, and due to superior craftsmanship, the window gears were shot beyond recognition. I spent 3 months after I tore out the cosmetic door panels and used pieces of wood to jam them in the up position, and created a "down" position creating a 3 inch gap.
Recently I own a 2005 cadillac in which the window jumped the track. I used the same "technology" to jam the rear window in place until I accumulated a few more warranty items.

@XDoctor: That's probably simultaneously the most sad and most hilarious thing I've ever heard. I'd have paid to see that. Did you use electrical or duct tape? Bonus points if you used chicken wire and wrapped it through rust holes on the hood.

First car was a 79 toyota pickup. The electrics on it were bad and the headlights didn't work. I taped two flashlights to the hood for about three weeks until I had the trouble sorted out.

There's way too many duct tape stories here. I invented duct tape fenders back in 1968. All the rest if you are imitators.

My best repair was to the signal lights on my VW Rabbit. The light sockets were expensive dealer parts, so I threw away the factory contacts, soldered leads onto the bulb contacts and replaced the bulbs in the damaged sockets, which still had adequate grounds. It worked great and didn't take any longer than installing replacement sockets. I'm surprised I never saw anyone else do that, because those light sockets were failure prone and expensive.

I ran over a deer with my Prius on the Interstate in North Carolina around one in the morning on the way back to Blacksburg from a Hold Steady show. It was already dead in the middle of the road, but I thought it was some kind of cardboard that had fallen off a truck. Anyway I couldn't get over because the other lane was full of trucks, so I slowed down to about 50 by the time I ran over.
It really messed up the plastic piece under the engine, which wasn't a huge deal except my highway fuel economy went down from about 42 to about 32 mpg. Didn't know that little bit of aerodynamics did that much. This was unacceptable as I had to go to a New Pornographers show in North Carolina a few days later, so I recreated the shield with about half a roll of duct tape.
It fell off eventually on my way back home to New Orleans. I knew 'cause my MPG graph went down abruptly, so I bought some duct tape and effected the repairs again at a rest area somewhere in Tennessee.

Fashioned self-threading nuts out of cut up, pierced, and statcked Ball jar lid centers.

@mechimike: @POLAЯ: @V572625694: @obi: VISE-GRIPS RULE!!!

Half a roll of duct-tape to hold on the front passenger side fender of my 1987 Reliant K - stayed on for over 6 months until I got rid of the car. As far as i know, it's still held together with that tape :)

I've got a hundred duct tape/ zip-tie stories, but the only good repair story I've got comes from a pea green ford truck on a moving trip from south Tampa to some rural town out in Pasco county...we had loaded a couch into the bed and filled a single axle trailer with no walls full with cabinets and desks and just tied it the hell down with tie straps and bungees...after a few miles on the interstate, I notice one of the straps flying in the air. I called my friend to tell him to pull over only to hear him say: " Sorry champ, I haven't had brakes for a few miles now...pray we don't hit traffic. " So after I convince him to slow the f down and pull over using the parking brake, we climb under the truck only to discover a 3" wide strap wrapped around the axle with severed brake lines pouring what was left of the brake fluid everywhere...we tied the brake lines in a knot to keep fluid from pouring onto us, cut the tail of the strap with a dull kitchen knife we had in the car, pushed the tangled mess as far away from the axle as we could and zipp tied it down everywhere to minimize movement and prayed we'd get there on just the parking brake, which we need, rendering the p brake useless after...I was young and didn't realize just how dumb that was...

Bondo should be outlawed. Period.

I bought an S-10 for $900 on the coldest day of the year because it wouldn't start. That issue turned out to be the choke. The truck had also been recently backed into, caving in the bedside. The bedside and rockers were "fixed" utilizing chicken wire and bondo. To keep it all classy, we just primered it (though we always said we would paint it eventually). That was in 1994 and that little truck is still driving around southern Indiana.

Well, the wagon that's my Avitar was my most creative.
First, the rear frame stub that held the rear bumper up had rotted away. Used a 2x2 oak tree stake, wire and a bungie cord to hold it up.
Second problem was the gas tank had a rust hole in the bottom. No problem, unhooked the gas line at the front fender and strapped a 2 gallon gas can to the fender.
Finally, the brakes were bad and I had to pump and LIFT the pedal from the floor with the toe of my foot several times to stop. I did actually drive it on some side streets in this conditon for a about two years till I started the restoration in ernest!
And no, I didn't get caught or have a accident !

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)!

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.

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.

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]

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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 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.

@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.

@ash78:
Cool, but I did it on my Mini with two additional lightbulbs and two paperclips to use as jumpers!

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

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 :)

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...

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.

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.)

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.