Autoshite Bodge of the Year Award

[Skizzer]

There are lots of heroic tales on here of lashing together bits of shitty old car with string, cable ties, gaffer tape (there was a whole thread about gaffer tape) and so on, so why not have a thread to collect and celebrate them?

 

If people are interested, maybe at the end of the year I might even sponsor a valuable* prize of some sort for the winner. Photos a bonus but not required. Points will be awarded for ingenuity, general shiteness and ratio of cheapness of materials to expensiveness of broken thing.

 

Rules:

Said bodge should survive its design lifespan - which might mean it got me home or it might mean it's still there 10 years on.

Should be vehicle-related.

You can post your own bodge if you want, or quote from somewhere on here like we do in the AS Quote/Calendar threads.

 

That's more than enough rules, it's not the Lisbon Treaty FFS. Here's a couple to start us off:

 

In the absence of new LHM return pipes, I did a successful bodge repair* using bits of fuel line, washer pipes, and an old Biro. Worked a treat. I, too failed to re-use the old retaining clip. But I couldn't be sure the plate part of the the clip would stay put, so instead I made a new one from the plastic carry handle from a Morrisons Value box of 'wine', and held it on with a second hand giant zip-tie I found once in a lay-by.

 

BX door is reattached thanks to using two nails (as temporary measures until I could hammer in the hinge pins) and a trolley jack

 

Any more for any more?

 

 

*Unlikely to be valuable in any conventional sense.

[fordperv]

a pretty mainstream one i did on a zetec mk6 escort i had, the throttle cable snapped on me at about 6pm on a friday, i found it was in a decent location close to the bulkhead so i cut the casing so it sat flush against the cambelt cover flange and pushed the cable through one of the small holes in the casing so it was acting as a makeshift tensioner for the part of the cable from the cambelt cover to the throttle body then trimmed the casing back on the part closest to the bulkhead then looped one end of the cable and fixed it together with an electrical block then i looped the other end through and fixed it the same, i drove it like that for a few days until ford got me one in, it wouldve lasted a lot longer though, im sure i have a picture somewhere when i find it ill share

[John F]

Broken feed pipe from Calibra V6 fuel tank to fuel pump?

 

 

 

No problem, just solder it back on... bodge is still in place 3 years later

 

 

 

Don't want to buy an expensive dial gauge? Simply mark up the angles on an old CD and file the centre to fit your 3/8" drive...

 

 

 

Too much of a cheapskate to buy a cam locking tool for your Maserati? Make your own out of a bit of old wood...

 

 

 

Can't find TDC on the same Maserati because those crazy Italians haven't marked up the crank pulley? Then build a home-made comparator out of an old spark plug, a bit of wire coat hanger and some Calibra touch-up paint...

 

[Cavcraft]

Mud, lollipop sticks, cardboard and the thinnest skim of filler ever to 'repair' a Fiesta Mk1 bonnet.

 

Cortina Mk4: tapped a bit of rust in the o/s/r wheel arch, which inevitably led to a massive hole. Got a 'long vehicle' sign, badly cut it to fit and sort of bodged/bashed/twisted it to fit. Removed door trim, put lock in 'shut' position then 'accidentally' cut the wire thing the lock was attached to. Shut door, happy days, it can't be opened now. Took it up the lanes, wheelspinned it in/out of field entrances and put some more mud up there for good measure. A few days later I sold it and the buyer didn't notice the repair.

[dieselnutjob]

before

 

after and still working

 

it's a piece of biscuit tin cut up with kitchen scissors and four wood screws

[vulgalour]

It's only a little bodge, but I used one of the perforated metal thingies off the back of a PC case and two random screws to stop the bottom of the front wing on the Princess from flapping about.

 

I don't bodge very often, not of any significant note at any rate. It's not a patch on this gem found by Mr Boll.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2002-PEUGEOT- ... 0979899665

 

EXTERIOR - DIY REPAIR TO N/S ( HAS BEEN FILLED WITH THICK FILLER AND PAINTED)

 

Jesus, is thsi the worst body repair of all time?

 

THIS VAN WAS OWNED BY A PLASTERER PREVIOUSLY

 

Fucking brilliant, if I needed a plasterer and this turned up i'd tell him to GTF

[brickwall]

Not bad, not bad.

 

My computer case now moonlighting as a wheel arch on a 92 Toyota Hi-lux.

[dollywobbler]

Without wishing to add yet another BX to the list, on a rally around France in 2009, the Green Tiger had the bottom hose 'repaired' with self-amalgamating tape, gaffer tape and a slice of hose acting as a sleeve and held in place with cable ties. Incredibly, that got us hundreds of miles (with the occasional top up...) before we finally had chance to fit a second-hand replacement hose.

[meggersdog]

I knew I should have photographed Sunday's permenant repair.

Passenger side rear sliding door on the Fiat Doblo wouldn't open and although the handle was loose I gave it a good pull and broke the flipping thing.

The metal part is made from some crap alloy that won't weld.I tried chemical metal leaving it on the radiator for a couple of hours and still no joy.

Never throw Meccano away is all I can say.Two 3 inch strips with holes all the way along,a triangular piece,a drill and some pop rivets.Then use a pair of pliers to bend this whole bracket around the key barrel and attach with the screws provided (holds the metal to the plastic outer handle) for a permenant fix.

[Mr Lobster]

On the autoroute somewhere near Rouen in France in 2011 the air mixture screw decided to make a break for it and headed off on its own.

 

Bodging a plastic bung thing formerly used to hold the plastic floor mats in place and 'securing' it by way of circling the carb in many cable ties coupled with turning the idle speed up meant it held for another 300 miles until a second hand carb could be located.

[Rusty Pelican]

Electric fuel pump on my Imp packed up 18 miles from home ,this was a retro fit pump from a scrappys anyway

Solution was to remove the remote electric washer bottle pump and with a few zip ties and some bits of washer bottle pipe cut to take up the pipe size difference she ran and got me home .

I wired the washer pump to the fuel pump wire as holding the sprung washer switch down didnt appeal so used the pump kill switch instead , by turning the pump on and off to prevent flooding i manged to keep the float chamber full of fuel most of the time.

As washer bottle motors are only meant for short burst use i still shocked it worked

lashed out on AA cover after this.

[trigger]

My favorite bodge was fixing next door's rotten Audi A4 with a old baked bean can and some pop rivets (This was how my neighbour asked me to do it.)

 

 

sadly I forgot to photo the bean can but much hammering, shaping and drilling as well as filer got this shape.

 

 

A quick blow over with some rattle can paint and I slapped plenty of underseal on behind and 6 months on it still looks perfect.

 

 

My neighbour paid me £100 for the bodge too, happy days.

[Des]

Dynamo regulator replacement would cost hundreds, and an alternator wouldn't fit as the rear lug fouled engine mounting, so had to do a quick cut and shut.

 

 

And it worked fine, it can stay, just wish I'd taken my time and done it neater.

 

 

Here's some silver duct tape and water bottle fashioned into an induction hose after I borrowed the gas mixer.

 

 

My best lash up yet was when I pulled a hgf Matiz apart to find the fire ring of the gasket had been chattering away forever and the block was scrap, the head needed lots skimming, so I just murdered it back together with JB Weld, and it's still ok, 2 years and counting.

[Tayne]

Rusty Pelican said:

.

.

[Station]

I use tin cans to repair exhausts. It's better than exhaust bandages and great for 'the man with little time'.

I also cut out my MR2's arches (inner and outer), did an OK job on outer (welded in) and then ran out of time and did the inner with gaffer tape! This is temporary bodge I assure you. The induction pipe to filter was a Pringles tube which is now a length of drain pipe (to replace the 'heat soaked' foam air filter in the engine bay - normally located in the boot). I exclusively use Poundland spray paint, with a promise that I'll do it properly later on, which never really materialises.

 

That filler on the Citroen van is great though. I bet he had images of it looking mint as well, and as soon as the paint went on he gave up.

[Des]

 

Is it an urban myth that the Triumph Dolly Sprint with its new-fangled fuel injected engine had a fuel pump that was an old Triumph washer pump?

 

The Sprint had a nice pair of carbs, I think the Triumph 2000 was the first with Lucas injection, or maybe the TR6, and it was a wiper motor used on the fuel pump, obviously not identical with the linkages still hanging off it but more based on it.

[Skizzer]

Excellent bodging skillz here. Educational, too.

 

I'm not very good at thinking of Great Egg Race type lash-ups myself, which is why I like reading about them so that I can do more. I have picked up (and applied) the tin can/exhaust trick in the past though (Lilt, IIRC).

[Rocket88]

Whittled down broomstick shaft and exhaust paste as emergency sump plug............

[nigel bickle]

About 10 yrs back, stranded in Monaco when the fan blade went right thru the rad of my old Midget (£100, Dulux poppy red etc etc).

 

Rad out, smeared water-mushed cornflakes over it and liberally covered with Plastic Padding. That reduced the torrent to a trickle which was then halted with half a dozen (fresh) eggs.

 

Still fine & holding pressure when it was sold -about 3000 miles later.

[jonny69]

Nice one Nige, I'd heard about using eggs in the rad but you're the first person I know now who's actually done it!

 

My favourite get-me-home bodge was when my Anglia caught fire at the builder's merchants near where I was working at the time and burned through the fuel pipe that connected my two Webers. I was left with just the charred ends. I had a roll of gaffer tape in the car, so I pulled a length off and wrapped it round sticky side out, so as to make a new fuel pipe. I then wrapped around it a few times black side out. It got me all the way across London back to home and didn't show any signs of leaking. It was pretty sticky and squishy when I took it off though

 

Got loads of other bodges that I did when I was younger that I carried out thinking it was a completely legitimate way of fixing the car. Typically involving large amounts of filler, sheets of aluminium mesh, little chocks of wood, family size tins of rice pudding and loads of jubilee clips.

[cort16]

The rad trick doesn't work with creme eggs. Phakt!

 

My best bodge came when one winter a stone hit the floor of my cortina around the pedal area and passed straight throughthe floor leaving a decent sized hole, which let in cold air, water and decent sized furry animals.

To remedy this I got a sock (white sports sock if I remember) and rolled it around in some fibreglass then rolled it up and wedged it in the hole. Once it had set hard I had no more wet/cold feet. I'm not sure it was an MOT standard repair and I seem to remember my Dad didn't have a lot of good things to say about it when he came to weld up the hole a few months later.

[FredTransit]

Once half way accross France in a DI powered Mk2 my other half had the alternator bracket snap. He hammered a can of corned beef between the alternator and block and drove on to Lyon and back!!

[Micrashed]

Lead flashing, Sikkaflex and black underseal cover a multitude of sins wonderfully.

Inner wings on a ZX, front crossmember on a Micra, front vallence on a Fiesta - all PHIXED thanks to lead flashing sheet.

 

Other Noooz, I have done the hard wiring the coil to the battery trick more than once. Bean tins, gun gum and rags to fix Zorzts as well. Oh, and £10 of TJ Hughes DAB radio sticky velcoroed to the dash of my last car served wonderfully as the in car entertainment.

[Joey spud]

I had the pleasure of a 54 plate Triumph 'chopper style' bike with a duff battery that as soon as you took the jump leads off it cut out. (generator was working honest).

 

It only needed to go about 2 miles and i couldn't be asked to go and get the bike trailer and waste 2 hours plus,so a bit of head scratching was req.

 

The solution was remove duff battery and fit the battery from my Electric drill in its place,a couple of bits of wire and a few cable ties later i jumped it up and now it kept running.

 

Followed the bloke home all 'fine and dandy' with the added bonus of getting some charge put into my low drill battery.

 

[Spiny Norman]

^^^ fantastic!

 

Most of my recent bodges have involved gaffa tape.

The side of the Saab's front bumper and spoiler pinged off one day as I went across a field that was a good bit less level than it looked, and when I got home I realised it had broken the clips than held it in place so I taped it back up with black gaffa tape thinking, 'this'll do till it falls off and I'll come up with something a bit more permanent'.

That was in June 2011...

 

 

Bits of my old Royale's driver's side wing were composed entirely of gaffa tape...

[dollywobbler]

 

Is it an urban myth that the Triumph Dolly Sprint with its new-fangled fuel injected engine had a fuel pump that was an old Triumph washer pump?

 

The Sprint had a nice pair of carbs, I think the Triumph 2000 was the first with Lucas injection, or maybe the TR6, and it was a wiper motor used on the fuel pump, obviously not identical with the linkages still hanging off it but more based on it.

 

Yup. As Des says, that was bodgery straight from the factory on the TR5 and 6 as well as the 2.5PI (rather than 2000). These days a Bosch fuel pump that is actually a fuel pump is considered a wise upgrade.

[oldford]

Faced with a diesel LDV Convoy that kept running with the keys removed and would only stop when the lights were turned on, we reasoned that it was back feeding through the ignition light wire. We fixed it by breaking up an old alternator, removing a diode, cutting the warning light wire and soldering in the diode, it worked a treat.

[richardthestag]

Once half way accross France in a DI powered Mk2 my other half had the alternator bracket snap. He hammered a can of corned beef between the alternator and block and drove on to Lyon and back!!

 

My favorite bodge so far, and a tasty hot snack in on the deal

[Albert Ross]

1984/5, driving across Bodmin Moor at 3 am.... Hillman Super Minx. The charge light started flickering, and there was a "squeakly/rumbling" noise from the engine. Turns out that both dynamo mounting throughbolts had fallen out. All that was holding it one was the adjuster link. Rifled through my tool box, and found two of the MFI style plastic cupboard connectors, slotted them in and drove it around for a year or two like that.

[Bren]

Many moons ago I purchased a stolen recovered Vauxhall senator on an E reg (first of the big grill models).

 

After getting it roadworthy it became apparent that the heater would only blow VERY hot air. A garage concluded that the heater control assembly was borked, but could fix it for around £400.

 

I obtained a plumbers isolation valve, the ball type, a short piece of 15mm copper pipe was fitted in either end, and plumbed it the hose going to the matrix. Close the valve in summer, open in winter. It cost less than £2, and was still like that when I sold the car on.