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Worst bodge you've seen


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Posted

I once saw on a forum somewhere someone had put lowering springs on an Astra.  He could not get the track rod ends in as the lowered spring put the arm in the wrong place.  The solution used was to turn the track rod end by 180 degrees, push it in from the other side, drill through the hole it locates in so the tapered TRE is now going into a parallel hole.

This wasn't presented as a bodge, it was considered a proper solution.  That's the scary part.

  • Like 3
Posted

In my younger days I had a rotten triumph 2000 and it really needed new inner and outer sills so I got a mate to tack a set over the top of the rusty set and managed to get it through a ticket with some help with lots of underseal.

 

But a bloke at my work had an identical car to mine and never had trouble getting his through the ticket and he told me his was full of chicken wire and concrete and hope with a good coating of under seal so at least it wouldn’t rust again, although looking at the repair he would of put Michelangelo to shame as a sculptor but I did wonder what the mot tester must of thought when he tapped it with a hammer.

Posted

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A gestalt bodge when purchased.  I reckon I've almost fully unbodged it now.

  • Like 3
Posted

I discovered this on my Oxford V Traveller. Half the wing riveted on to cover up a mysterious shaped hole, along with Michelin and Glycol ally signs suggesting that this was a very old bodge.

I also found loads of other bodges that would take up most of this thread, which makes me think I should make a separate thread of its own.

 

I did find it very worrying when the previous owner asked me if I could weld, it didn't stop me from buying it though.

 

BTW I did get it back on the road but it's currently sorned as I'm fixing the brakes after a long layup. However it will have an MOT around 20th of May! Fun times! 

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  • Like 25
Posted

Blimey, you’ve got your work cut out there Mr Oxide, well worth it though!

  • Like 3
Posted

Oh god, bus industry bodges. 

 

The supervisor who 'tidied' the sharp edges on a bus with a sledgehammer.

The Mercedes 811D with a shot power door ram - rather than replace it the answer was to fit a hinge half way up the inside and attach a bar across the dash so the driver could push and pull the door.

The bus we bought from Arriva in Liverpool that had emergency hammers made from lengths of steel strip with threaded bar welded across the top.

The coach that had the fuel tanks hung in place with rope because the steel strap had rotted. VOSA missed that on the roadside check they did....

The bus with the drivers seat pop-riveted to the base. I found it by sliding the seat right back and sitting down. The pop rivets at the front gave up instantly.

 

A coach company that used to run my school bus had four identical coaches & one working set of suspension, hence it was easy to tell which one had had it's MOT most recently. Over the years it must have been cheaper to just buy new parts than keep swapping them...

  • Like 2
Posted

Chassis plates are easier to swap than suspension parts. Not that I've ever been involved in such a thing. No, not me. No suree, Bob, never.

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Posted

Speaking of filler.

I went to the garage we use at work for all the work on our vans and spotted an unusual car up on the ramp. It was a Rolls Royce silver spur stretch.

I was chatting to the garage owner about it and he told me the story.

Customer brought it in for some odd jobs, when it went up on the ramp there was a horrendous cracking crunching noise...

On lowering the car back to the ground to see what the noise was the whole roof of the car was covered in cracks. Apparently it looked like a glass window someone had chucked a rock through!

A little investigation on the car later revealed that as recently as one year previously this very same car wasn’t a stretch but a standard car!!

Whoever last had it converted it to a stretch. Badly. As the ramp had lifted the car the shell flexed shattering all the filler work on the roof. They later found the stretch section of the car was held together by seam sealer, filler and tack welds! I never found out what became of it but I can only imagine how it’s new owner must have felt, he’d been well and truly had.

  • Like 1
Posted

83C: "..The bus with the drivers seat pop-riveted to the base. I found it by sliding the seat right back and sitting down. The pop rivets at the front gave up instantly.."

 

A friend's hubby was very badly hurt, driving his bus, when the seat pedestal/shaft sheared and kind of chop sokkied him into the dash/pedals :(

 

Under 5mph so bus sort of grumbled to a halt....

 

Long wrangle with bus company as he couldn't drive/lost shifts.

 

TS

  • Like 1
Posted

Not a bodge as such, but, even although I was only about 16 and niave, I recall thinking that a JOINER shouldn't be drilling 20mm holes in the main chassis rails of several artic truck tractor units in order to fit shonky wooden strap and ratchet lockers. I'm still pretty sure these types of chassis are heat treated and shouldnt be drilled or welded to under normal circumstances. Anyway, he was a JOINER (we called him the Vaj) farting about with great big massive things he knew sod all about.

  • Like 1
Posted

BTW I did get it back on the road but it's currently sorned as I'm fixing the brakes after a long layup. However it will have an MOT around 20th of May! Fun times!

Is it not MOT exempt on the 1st May too? Of course only driving once roadworthy.

 

Please do a thread! There is love around here for Morris Oxfords.

  • Like 1
Posted (edited)

I know of a Bus company in Scotland that ran a huge fleet of early Leyland Nationals.

They had one duffied up for MOT duties and swapped chassis plates and numberplate to suit.

 

This was going well till a keen bus spotter snapped one out on the road and later on realised it had two sets of entrance / exit doors.
The numberplate's belonged to a bus that was built as a single door and had spent most of it's working life as such.

Edited by jbz2079
  • Like 4
Posted

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A gestalt bodge when purchased.  I reckon I've almost fully unbodged it now.

 

 

Mansfield BP at the crossroads?

Posted

ive not seen the bodge,but a get back to the depot bodge.the bodge i heard of was propshaft mounts detaching from a coach chassis,the bodge consisted of a length of scaffold tube and ratchet straps around the broken mounts to hold it all in place back where it should be,the bus made it.

Posted

 

 

I know of a Bus company in Scotland that ran a huge fleet of early Leyland Nationals.

They had one duffied up for MOT duties and swapped chassis plates and numberplate to suit.

 

This was going well till a keen bus spotter snapped one out on the road and later on realised it had two sets of entrance / exit doors.

The numberplate's belonged to a bus that was built as a single door and had spent most of it's working life as such.

I've got a photo somewhere of the only Mk2 that company ran for any length of time on a school carrying the plate off a Merseyside Mk1.

 

It was rife at one point because swapping the ID on a National involves eight screws - two on each numberplate and four on the chassis plate.

 

 

One of my local outfits was quite keen on Iveco Dailys and did similar for a good few years until someone wasn't paying attention and sent a 21 seater for test with the plates off the longer 25-seater MOT bus.

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

  • Like 2
Posted

A friend bought a Renault Trafic from the auction. It made it 6 miles or so before the big ends started knocking

 

He later took it apart to fix and found coke can type metal packing out the shells!

 

I was quite impressed with that

  • Like 1
Posted

A friend bought a Renault Trafic from the auction. It made it 6 miles or so before the big ends started knocking

 

He later took it apart to fix and found coke can type metal packing out the shells!

 

I was quite impressed with that

While it was apart to fit the shims it would have been just as easy to stuff shells in it....

Posted

Honda 125 sohc engines, TL XL SL CB etc the cams run directly in the heads and if cooked or run short on oil (or have the 2000 mile oil changes skipped) they always wear and rattle horribly. Ghetto skimming a few thou off the head and cover closed up the gap and restored silent running.

Getting a bit over keen resulted in the need to make a hideously complex narrow cardboard gasket to add extra clearance.

Posted

Is it not MOT exempt on the 1st May too? Of course only driving once roadworthy.

 

Please do a thread! There is love around here for Morris Oxfords.

 

On the MOT front. I'm not sure I thought it was 20th of May, when the 40 year rolling MOT exemption would kick in. To be fair it would pass fairly easily. I just need to get my act together.

Bloody hell I've said it would pass easily, I've gone and cursed myself now. 

Posted

A friend bought a Renault Trafic from the auction. It made it 6 miles or so before the big ends started knocking

 

He later took it apart to fix and found coke can type metal packing out the shells!

 

I was quite impressed with that

 

I once saw a banger running on three after it bent a rod. They'd taken the piston & rod out then put a jubilee clip around the crank shells to keep the oil pressure up.

Posted

A friend bought a Renault Trafic from the auction. It made it 6 miles or so before the big ends started knocking

 

He later took it apart to fix and found coke can type metal packing out the shells!

 

I was quite impressed with that

Ive heard of old metal  toothpaste tubes being used for the same. I too wonder why if you have the engine in bits do you not just fit new bearing shells.

  • Like 2
Posted

Ive heard of old metal  toothpaste tubes being used for the same. I too wonder why if you have the engine in bits do you not just fit new bearing shells.

Money for one, but possibly availability. So bodge and shift.

  • Like 2
Posted

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I did that. I had to get the bloody car home. It's still there, and the replacement rubber in inside the car.

  • Like 5
Posted

While it was apart to fit the shims it would have been just as easy to stuff shells in it....

Not as funny though

  • Like 3
Posted

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I did that. I had to get the bloody car home. It's still there, and the replacement rubber in inside the car.

Same as my current exhaust hanger quick fix! (it's not a bodge). The garden string I used to strengthen and take some of the tension from the cable tie is fucked now mind, must brace it with some wire. Or just buy another rubber... One of the two

Posted

So with welds taking up to a day to set solid in this weather this swing arm repair took just minutes...

 

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