Worst bodge you've seen

[Eddie Honda]

That vosa blog was a good read!

It's not what it used to be . Before the blog, they had a mag...

 

Here's the "Horror Story" from Issue 9, October 2000:

 

 

There isn't one in Issue 10 - Jan 2001.

[Isaac Hunt]

Had a 1.7 Ital drop a valve head and muller a piston. Dropped the head off, dropped the sump, took to fooked piston and rod out and went down the engine machine shop for a rod & piston.

 

Engine shop said you want four, Nahh, just one mate.

 

He shook his head disapprovingly muttering something about the youth of the day, took my money and sold be one rod and piston. Put it all together with a second hand head, sweat as a nut.

[twosmoke300]

Nowt wrong with that if the others were ok

[Isaac Hunt]

A mate had a TR7 and he new where to put the key and petrol and that was it.

 

He 'cooked it proper' and got himself an FTP. Fortunately for him he had a couple of mates who were handy with the spanners at the ripe age of 18. So we had the head off, bores full of coolant and we concluded the head was like a bananna. Second bit of fortune was his Dad worked somewhere that had a machine shop. Head came back as flat as flat along with the note 'had to take quite a lot off'. We concluded that a lot was a lot, so we used two headgaskets and bolted it all up. Ran sweet as a nut it did. We drank well on a Saturday night for a couple of weeks. He ran it for a while, no bother and then sold it on, sorry if you bought it.

[DodgeRover]

Had a 1.7 Ital drop a valve head and muller a piston. Dropped the head off, dropped the sump, took to fooked piston and rod out and went down the engine machine shop for a rod & piston.

 

Engine shop said you want four, Nahh, just one mate.

 

He shook his head disapprovingly muttering something about the youth of the day, took my money and sold be one rod and piston. Put it all together with a second hand head, sweat as a nut.

I had a single liner fitted then bored to suit a used piston, I did put new rings and shells in that engine when putting it back together though.

 

Being tight I used to save quality used oversized pistons for common 2 stroke trials bikes and frequently used to get my own bikes bored to suit when they got worn. Even the rebore place commented they would rather trust a used Mahle piston than some Chineseum special.

[406V6]

Now I know this doesn't really count as it's on a house not a car but anyway......

 

I bought my current house as a restoration project. Previous owners were pretty poor at DIY and the house needed quite a lot of attention. Many of the chipboard floors had previously been cut and pulled up and screwed down again. When I opened up one of the floor pieces this is the sight that greeted me. At some point in the past someone had hammered a nail into a heating pipe. Rather than fix it properly with copper fittings soldered to the pipe they had built a cardboard mould on the top of the pipe and then filled it with epoxy glue.  When I found it, it was intact and must have been in place for several years. If it had blown off it would have made one hell of a mess downstairs as scalding hot water leaked through the ceiling.

 

[Timewaster]

Well if we are going household, my place had a socket box in the kitchen which had been filled in with cement and painted to match the surrounding tiles.

When the old kitchen came out I knocked the cement out and discovered the wiring was still in place, taped up and still live!

Must have been interesting slopping the wet cement in there.

 

This was not a one off. There was a double socket next to the downstairs toilet.

[DodgeRover]

That's quite common, as is finding car type crimp connectors

[Guest Hooli]

Had a 1.7 Ital drop a valve head and muller a piston. Dropped the head off, dropped the sump, took to fooked piston and rod out and went down the engine machine shop for a rod & piston.

 

Engine shop said you want four, Nahh, just one mate.

 

He shook his head disapprovingly muttering something about the youth of the day, took my money and sold be one rod and piston. Put it all together with a second hand head, sweat as a nut.

 

Bah, I knew of an engine that when it did that they took the rod out & clamped a jubilee clip around the crank to keep the oil pressure up. Only in a banger but ffs!

[Negative Creep]

Remember an Escort van whose stereo had been powered using nothing but unshielded copper wire

[bunglebus]

I bought my Renault 5 very cheaply as a non-runner (well it ran on about 3 cylinders), all the guy could tell me was it went bang one day.

After a bit of investigation the head came off the reveal a combustion chamber on one cylinder that looked like the surface of the moon where something had either been sucked down the inlet or possibly broken off a spark plug/snapped a ring. The two chambers either side were also damaged. Never did work out what caused it but a few hours with a grinding bit in a drill saw the combustion chambers returned to something like the right shape, new head gasket and bolts and off it went for another 20K miles before I bought a complete engine for £90 - £5 more than I paid for the car with 9 month's MoT...

Wish I still had pictures of the damage cos it was epic.

[Guest Hooli]

I had a mk2 Polo that dropped a valve after the cambelt went. You could see the sump through the piston...

[dieselassist]

a lot of old famers round these parts used to swear by 1.9D mk3 golf's n vento's, towing heavy cattle trailers; their preferred 'mod' was to replace the springs with section of right diameter pipe, to aid towing/ avoid severe 'arse drag' - of course its hugely dangerous n the brake bias is rendered useless/inactive....

 

'Funniest bodge' I heard of was from a newly qualified mechanic, they had a regular customer who was a dower, ignorant wanker - constantly taking down to the small garage proprietor n waxing lyrical about how all folk in the motor trade were crooks etc etc - the customer was a small time courier n had a 1.9D seat inca, that feck all much went wrong on, but he was a regular in for minor 'small time shiz problems and servicing...

 

...anyways, he minced the mechanics heads on several trips over the heater not being directed to where he wanted it; most of the dash was disassembled n a sticking flap fixed.... he returned again saying they's 'fugged up' the reassembly job as with the fan at full, wasn't as powerful as before 'they'd be at it'...

 

mechanics duely disassembled the dash heater ducts again but this time 'JB welded' in a child's plastic whistle in the base of one of the main ducts, reassembled all n returned the van back to the customer...

 

He returned again n again, moaning, 'the heater is whistling like a banshee now' - which was met with much laughter... they feigned fixing the 'problem' till the customer took his business n drama elsewhere....

[Hendry]

Only bodge I can really remember is this, my old man had a 1991 H plate Orion (mk5 Escort type), hed had it since 3 years old but it was now around 8 years old and was a heap of shit that was always going wrong big time, so the heater stopped working, he just put up with it for ages and ages until he had enough, went to Ford dealer and bought one, got his mechanic pal to fit it, all ok so far, except mechanic went 'ive fitted the new heater motor but it still isnt working, the wirings gubbed' dad goes what you mean its gubbed, he says well all the wirings melted, somehow when the motor has failed its melted all the wiring, not only that, you need a new fusebox cos its damaged as well, so father contacts a guy he knows who fits car alarms and house burglar alarms, who knocks up some wiring from the fusebox to the heater to save the £300 for a new fusebox from Ford and a new wiring loom, it was so crudely done at first than when the ignition was off the battery light would stay lit.

 

This wiring was a sight to behold, what a fucking spaghetti junction of wiring this was, dad wasnt fussed because in his eyes it was an old beat up piece of shit by this point, his reckoning was 'if its done in one heater motor, melted a load of wiring and ruined a fusebox, whats to say it doesnt do it again after ive forked out for a proper repair' but thankfully someone did us all a favour and stole the hateful piece of shit one night from a hospital car park and torched the fucker, dont think ive ever seen anyone happy about their car being stolen before, but he was that night, was actually praying itd get burnt out and written off and he got his wish, if he wasnt so straight down the line id have put money on him paying someone to do it, we got the last laugh though, £1200 for a 9 year old wrecked Orion. Ive wondered ever since though if when the thieves hotwired it the dodgy heater wiring wasnt part of how the bloody thing caught fire it was that bad. 

[hennabm]

As a lad, I went to look at a Cambridge that was for sale locally.

It wasn't too bad for its age but on the dash was a double household switch. When I asked what it was for I was told one gave you ignition and the other switch gave you the starter.

 

Needless to say I said my thank yous and walked away as quick as I could..

 

Another one was on a Ford. The rear flexi brake pipe was joined by a piece of copper brake pipe and two jubilee clips. Again I walked away from it.

 

Concrete sills on a Jagwaar MkII............

[oldcars]

Speaking of house bodges my house was built by Wimpy. My thoughts are they should have stuck to burgers when i see how well the place is built.

[hennabm]

^^ I share your pain.

 

I bought a new Wimpey in Inverness and never again.

 

The kitchen door fell off and a huge gap appeared under the stairs...Easy reattach door and then nail a piece of wood over the gap was their solutions.

 

The dormer window developed enough condensation to damage the walls but I was told it was my fault!!!!

[busmansholiday]

It's not a car but when we were last in Sri Lanka in Sept 2016, Mrs BMH & I decided to stay in a guest house in Galle rather than the usual hotel we use as a cost saving. This is the shower :-

 

and this is the fuse box in the room the shower was fed from.

 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

....when we were last in Sri Lanka in Sept 2016, Mrs BMH & I decided to stay in a guest house in Galle rather than the usual hotel we use as a cost saving. This is the shower :-

WP_20160913_17_59_07_Pro.jpg

 

and this is the fuse box in the room the shower was fed from.

 

WP_20160915_09_19_33_Pro.jpg

I guess you'll be staying at your usual hotel next time.

[MOD500]

Never found anything dangerous - Just lazy.

 

mk2 golf I bought was taking on water.

I cleared out the front scuttle and figured that would cure it, however, water ingress continued.

I noticed the car steaming up one day when it was sunny, but the roads were soaked.

 

It turns out the previous owner couldn't be bothered clearing the front scuttle and had drilled holes in the rear foot well to allow the rain to pass through the car.

 

 

someone had tried to gain more life out of a fiat 126 starter motor by stuffing a folded bung of gaffa tape behind the brushes to help with the spring tension.

 

 

I have extended the life of a stretched handbrake cable by welding nuts near the end for the clevis pins to slot through shortening the cable by 20mm or so. It's been through 3 mot's like that.

 

I've bonded a snapped bump stop back onto the car. It's been through 3 or 4 mot's like that.

 

The trouble is my 'temporary repairs' seem to last very long!

[DeeJay]

Fed up with wind and water whistling up my trouser legs when driving and knowing it was getting crushed when the "Legit" mot ran out.

Not having a welder but having a saw.

Tongue and groove floorboards in my old Anglia.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

 ....Tongue and groove floorboards in my old Anglia.

Pity no photos! 

[DeeJay]

This was when you had to send rolls of film to truprint, pay a couple of quid and wait a week.

So no photies.

[CanaryinManc]

The clutch master cylinder on my wreck of a SD1 Rover 2600 was a puny Girling affair that was no match for the heavy clutch so it would regularly blow its seals. Eventually I bought a spare cylinder and job lot of seal kits so I could just swap them straight over.

One night I was at a roundabout on the A38 when the clutch pedal disappeared into the engine bay. Roadside inspection revealed that years of leaking fluid had caused the bulkhead to rust out and shear and the master cylinder with pedal attached to move forwards under the bonnet.

My bodge was to tightly clamp the jaws of my Mole wrench around the reservoir aiming the handle upwards then slam the (luckily heavy soundproofed) bonnet on it.

Clutch action was 'loose' and the bonnet visibly flexed when declutching but it worked for a couple of months until the MOT ran out. I even remembered to reclaim the wrench when I left the car at the scrappie.

[cpjitservices]

Not a bodge but at a garage I once worked at (for not very long) I saw the boss Tim, windy gun a nut for a strut onto bare thread. 

 

Couldn't leave quick enough. 

[sierraman]

I've drilled holes in the floor to solve rainwater leaks coming from inaccessible seams behind the dash on the bulkhead.

 

I realise the autoshite way would have been to book 2 weeks off work and embark on a complete strip out of the dash and rebuild it with some special OE Ford seam sealer at £20 a tube, but I'm a busy man and its sorted out the problem no bother, it runs into a gulley and out the hole. Easy.

[Bren]

My royale ran so rich the previous owner had removed the air filter in an attempt to weaken the mixture.

[beko1987]

I've drilled holes in the floor to solve rainwater leaks coming from inaccessible seams behind the dash on the bulkhead.

 

I realise the autoshite way would have been to book 2 weeks off work and embark on a complete strip out of the dash and rebuild it with some Tommy Walsh bathroom sealent at £1 a tube, but I'm a busy man and its sorted out the problem no bother, it runs into a gulley and out the hole. Easy.

[sierraman]

Tommy Walsh stuff... Fuck me... I'm surprised he's put his name to shit like that.

[Kiltox]

Tommy Walsh stuff... Fuck me... I'm surprised he's put his name to shit like that.

There’s an entire range in Poundland with his mug on!