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Unplanned roadside repairs


drewd

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some years back we did a trip to Southend in the 240 ....from Liverpool way ,    we needed to stop at every service station to hit the alternator to keep it going ...

 

I also got quite good at changing Fiat Strada clutch cables at the side of the road , must of seen every different kind of mod they did to stop it snapping cables

 

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E30 318is coming back from the ring in the worst rain I’ve ever seen, drivers side wiper decided it would rather flap around on the side window than clear the screen. Took the arm off to find stripped splines, so a cheese & onion pasty wrapper was wrapped around the spindle and the arm pushed over it and tightened. Lasted at least the remainder of my ownership

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Back in about 1997 the carb return spring snapped on my £300 2cv.........................whilst overtaking two trucks in the outside lane of the M5 in truly shitty weather just south of Bristol.


I was a student and pushing it for time to make it to my job in the Sainsbury’s petrol station at Penn Inn roundabout, Newton Abbot.


An almost brown-trouser moment saw me manage to slip in between more trucks to reach the hard shoulder with the accelerator pedal flat to the floor.


I thought quickly....reached for my Leatherman tool, cut out the elastic from my boxer shorts and was back in the outside lane at warp speed within 5 minutes.

Made it to work on time by the skin of my teeth for 1800-2200 shift and spent much of the evening hoiking my undercrackers up whilst smiling at the customers as per usual.

The repair lasted for a few days until a new spring arrived from ECAS. Boxer short elastic sure beats waiting for the AA.

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Accelerator cable snapped on my Dacia in 2002, just when I was pulling out of a parking space, on a cold November evening, after a nice time in a pub. Bonnet up, flat screwdriver in hand and I tightened the idle speed screw on the carburetor all the way in. So it was 3000 rpm with no gear engaged, at every red light, and then just slowly pushing forward and slowing engine speed down as I was shifting 1st, 2nd and 3rd. I only once managed to change it in 4th, and it rewarded me with about 35 kmh (that's a bit over 20 of your mph) but engine almost stalling.

 

Oh, and this is my second proud roadside bodge:

 

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No bodge to be proud of, but I got up to 40 setting off from cold without touching the throttle the other day.  Wouldn't have liked to have had to climb a hill, but it made an interesting point about the torque available when a SMOLL car has a decent engine.  Tooleater beaters FTW.

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I’ve just remembered a Renault 14 bodge!

1995, being taken to Paris by my placement supervisor Odile in her white R14 when the pole d’echappement rubbers broke, dragging said pole d’echappement down the busy route nationale in a very loud shower of sparks.

Luckily I found  a set of Christophe leather toe straps (cycling-related, not for interesting bedroom-related activity, or at least as far as I know) in the car. These wouldn’t easily burn through on the hot exhaust and got us the remaining 140km to Paris.

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  • 5 months later...

When I first did the injection conversion on the Lada I had issues with it snapping throttle cables as a passtime for a while.

You couldn't just wedge the throttle open either as if the system didn't detect movement from the throttle position sensor in an open state for 30 seconds it went into a safety mode and cut fuelling (presumably to prevent a runaway if the throttle got stuck open).

I got quite quick at replacing them at the side of the roads.  Would have been far nicer if it wasn't all done on top of the exhaust manifold...many burned fingers.

 

I had the rear prop rotoflex coupler self destruct on my Lada Niva once (at *ahem* 70mph) which was quite spectacular.  My solution: unbolt and remove rear prop, throw it in the boot, engage diff lock, continue with front wheel drive only until new part arrived.

 

Then there was the coach we ratchet strapped the engine back into when the front engine mount sheared off the block...that wasn't a repair so much as a "get it back to the yard without paying for recovery on a Sunday afternoon" bodge.

 

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AX rear brake went to shit, pissing brake fluid everywhere clamped the brake line with some mole grips, topped the fluid up and drove it about a mile to a scrapyard. Seems a pity in retrospect but I'd paid 115 quid and my mum had driven it for three years before it became a spare car. Think the guy gave me 45 quid for it, took the mole grips off it once it was in his yard though. 

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8 minutes ago, motorpunk said:

Good bodges.

whats the further anyone has driven with no clutch? I did 35 mines with the kids and holiday clobber in, by Rev matching, roundabouts and junctions included. That was no fun.

Not quite that far, but years ago my mate had a 2.0S Capri and the cable broke out in the lanes somewhere. He had no idea what to do so I showed him how to clutchless change. He drove me home and I jumped out while doing about 10MPH and he got it home to fix it. Very easy in RWD stuff, FWD seems to be a bit harder probably due to longer gear linkages etc. I also wouldn't do it to my own car unless I had to!

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On a scooter tour about five years ago the swingarm/exhaust hanger bearing failed on my old Xevo400. We'd been in the Pyrenees and were heading for Barcelona, with a 200-mile day's ride ahead of us. I nursed it there OK, albeit with an occasional blood-curdling CRACK from what was left of the bearing*. Luckily, the three of us were staying in a caravan. I say luckily, because the caravan had amenities which would help us greatly. Amazingly, my mate's Vespa GT200's spares box had a bearing exactly the right size - what it was for on the Vespa I can't recall - and we stripped the Xevo. The bearing went in the freezer, and the swingarm was heated up on the gas BBQ - much to the amusement of our fellow travellers. 

 

Job done, we got food and beer from a nearby Lidl, and spent the rest of the evening loafing around on the verandah feeling pleased with ourselves!

 

*it's remains are still on the 'Offerings to the gods of slowness' shelf in my garage, along with some other bits of bike-related shrapnel.

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The number of roadside bodges and odd breakdowns I've done/had is significant.  I'm sure I can't even remember all of them, but a few I can:

Diesel BX,  Split a coolant hose, so wrapped it with insulation tape and ran with the pressure cap off.  For about 2 months.

CX Throttle linkage came lose and jammed against something on the carb, giving me constant 40-ish-% power.  Timed a roundabout just right, then killed the ignition to coast into a layby.  Easy enough fix.

Mk2 Cav.  Had to carry a lump of steel with me as the starter would stay engaged after starting the car, so you had to blat it to get it to turn off.  Ran like that for months.  Also snapped a clutch cable and drove 20+ miles home clutchless changing.

Diesel Horizon. Had a small underbonnet fire when the main battery +ve to the starter chafed on the battery tray.  Had to unpick most of the engine wiring and re-wrap it in insulation tape, which worked, but the heat had damaged the clutch hydraulic line, so had to clutchless change it to a breakers yard where I managed to get a pipe from a Petrol Alpine, which sortof fitted.  Bodged that in and it worked.

Landrover Forward control.  Had a bearing on the gearbox layshaft collapse and sieze at about 30mph.  Big Bang, and I've got no gears.  However, 4th still works (doesn't use the layshaft).  Drove it about another 50 miles by using Low-box 4th, high-box 4th, and then over-drive 4th.  Gearbox was scrap as the bearing had a rolling element run up onto another, stretching the outer race and splitting the casing.

Merc E300.  Viscous fan bearing failed, meaning it was now direct drive.  On slowing for a red light, the fan unwound itself from the pulley and smashed through the rad, putting a hole in it just near the side tank.  Plugged the hole up with some chewing gum, refilled with water and limped the 6-ish miles to a very helpful Merc garage, where I ripped the dead rad out and fitted one from a E430 V8.  The gearbox cooler lines didn't really fit properly, and everything was held in with cable ties.  Lasted several months like that before I scrapped it.  I still recovered the 430 rad, and used the side-tanks from the 300 rad to make a "new" 300 radiator, which I still have in case I need a replacement (they're expensive!)

Same Merc as above.. Exhaust back-box fell off quite badly, so used a strap between the towbar and the fuel filler neck to hold it up.  That lasted a week before I welded it back together.

Berlingo with a failed clutch cable.  Drove that 20 miles back clutchless changing.  Quite easy in that actually, the gears all dropped in really nicely.  Only had to start on the starter-motor the once.

A friend's Nissan Cherry suffered spectacular HGF at the side of the road, so I changed it where it was.  Not hard on that engine.  Most difficult part was the lack of exhaust manifold gaskets, so I had to make some from universal gasket paper.  They didn't last very long.

Another Talbot Horizon, the rear damper upper mounting rotted through completely.  Didn't even bother bodging that one, just drove it back about 10 miles a bit bouncy on one side at the back.

Citroen CX, Clutch actuating arm snapped.  Really couldn't be arsed to drive back clutchless, so took the arm off, found a local welder, welded it up and put it back on again.  Thankfully easy access on the bottom of the box.

Had a wheel come clean off on a trailer.  Walked back 1/4 mile and found it, but couldn't find any of the wheel nuts, so just shoved it back on with two wheel nuts from the other side.

C25 Van, alternator mountings came undone, alternator holding on with one loose bolt and the belt.  Cable-tied it in place and drove 25 miles back with no charge.  Thankfully didn't need it as it was a nice day.

Pug 405 diesel right-hand engine mounting bolts snapped at the block, leaving me with a dropped engine and a loose cambelt.  Put a ratchet strap from the bulkhead, under the engine and back up to the radiator panel.  Bodged the cambelt tensioner back together as best I could and drove it very very very gently back about 10 miles. 

CX bottom hose jubilee clip rotted through and the hose blew off.  Got a huge whiff of hot coolant and realised it was me, so killed the engine.  Managed to coast nearly 2 miles to a very handy garage where the hose was shoved back on, water refilled and ran with no pressure cap to get me the few miles home.

 

... and no doubt many more.  I've only been truly stuffed at the side of the road a few times.  With a completely siezed gearbox in an X1/9, with an utterly collapsed and siezed driveshaft in a Horizon Diesel and with a failed gearbox output shaft in a Discovery 1.

 

 

 

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Blimey, that reminds me of another that although I wasn't driving, I was involved with:

Friend driving his LR S3 Diesel, and the accelerator linkage broke.  Exactly how I can't recall, but I know we ended up driving back with the bonnet in the back, and a length of nylon electric fence fed through the bulkhead vent on the passenger side so that I could operate the accelerator.  We got remarkably well co-ordinated over the 30-ish miles we had to drive, even beginning to show off with double-de-clutching into 3rd gear as the syncros were all shot to pieces.

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Only two that I'd call bodges...

Capri bonnet catch made a break for freedom on the M1 at 70mph, so the bonnet was on the safety catch. Limped off at the next junction and found a garage who gave me some brake line to strap it down with, rang one of the capri parts specialists and made an impromptu trip across the country to pick up a replacement part.

One of the cups on the bluebird wiper linkage sheared off, on a rainy day, when I was out in the countryside, and was cracked so wouldn't re-seat. Attempts to cable tie it temporarily failed. In the end, I drilled into the pivot, then screwed a small bar to the end of the linkage, drilled a hole in that, and fixed it on with a self tapper and some* threadlock, then blobbed it with grease. Worked perfectly.

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2 hours ago, motorpunk said:

Good bodges.

whats the further anyone has driven with no clutch? I did 35 mines with the kids and holiday clobber in, by Rev matching, roundabouts and junctions included. That was no fun.

Two days commuting to and from college in my Skoda 130GL when the release bearing disintegrated (no surprises there then) while I waited for Unipart to get a clutch kit in.

Who said learning to drive buses with crash boxes wasn't useful...

Speaking of...guessing driving those doesn't count does it...

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Driving down the M6, one of my wiper blades decided to go solo, swinging loosely on the hook, doing it's best to escape, but not quite. Seeing it's misfortune he obviously thought he wasn't going alone, so hooked the other wiper, both doing a crazy jig across the windscreen before the two of them disappeared into the wet, raining Midlands sky, leaving my perplexed wiper arms to scutter across the glass. The only bodge really was sticking my head out of the window for the rest of the journey.
From memory, these were both poundland windscreen wipers, which are absolute shit.

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11 hours ago, strangeangel said:

On a scooter tour about five years ago the swingarm/exhaust hanger bearing failed on my old Xevo400. We'd been in the Pyrenees and were heading for Barcelona, with a 200-mile day's ride ahead of us. I nursed it there OK, albeit with an occasional blood-curdling CRACK from what was left of the bearing*.

That sounds really lucky. It happened again..1318795619_Rearwheel.jpg.thumb.png.0bce4f3f666583d5fa3d2dead913a491.png

Only noticed the wheel wobbling about when I pushed it out of my garage to get another bike out. God knows when it went!

20200507_210325.thumb.jpg.d517be7756da8ba3d7353a5804bf7cf8.jpg

This was why it went. Top bolt from the real wheel hanger went AWOL. Luckily it only needed a new hanger and wheel bearing.

And to remind you of your trip:

20190106_122533.thumb.png.77b7b6c15521b89b645733011d15738a.png

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1 hour ago, Jerzy Woking said:

That sounds really lucky. It happened again..

Only noticed the wheel wobbling about when I pushed it out of my garage to get another bike out. God knows when it went!

 

 

It was the weirdest thing - we were leaving the underground car park of our hotel and I was doing about 3mph and the bearing went CRACK! I nearly shat myself, stopped and examined everything but there was no play that I could find anywhere. Then it happened again, about 10 miles later... we stopped again and - nothing. After that, I sat out in front doing 50, fully clenched, all the way to the caravan.

 

 

That one you posted is still my favourite picture of that scooter - it was a brilliant trip - even though I think it looked better after I painted it. Happy days.

 

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You will be pleased to know the stealth paint is holding up well. I sold it to a colleague last March, and it is still on commuter duty. The only bit of paint that flaked off was on the boot when I backed it into a shelf. Covered it with a sticker as had no paint at work

I made it seem even faster by adding a pair of chrome 125 badges to the side panels. 

Great scooter, massive storage capabilities. I miss it.

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