Your worse bodge?

[alf892]

About 1994 I bought a mk 2 Cavalier for £50. It had 166k on it and the ends rattled a bit. The body looked awful as the owner had 'touched up' rust spots with dulux. But it was only 7 years old so it seemed like a deal. I stripped the engine and 'rebuilt' it with new big end shells, a quick go over with a honer and new rings. Well two new rings anyway........I couldn't fit the top one as the stop on the bore was horrid and I couldn't get stepped top rings. A quick tidy on the body followed with 1/2 a litre of two pack made it look pretty although I did sweat some cutting the new bits in. I put it in the local paper at £900 and a right fly trader thought he stole it at £700.....total outlay was £200 inc the MoT.

[Rocket88]

A mate of mine was selling a Mk3 'Scrote Etate wihich was lacking most of the front fllor pan on the passenger side. Car was poverty spec. with rubber mats. Old road sign sprayed black on the underside of the car, attached with Sikkoflex, and the rubber mat glued on from the inside......probably more structually rigid than original............Many yeras ago, when I lived in the New Forest, bloke came in for an MOT at a garage I was working at for an MOT on an old Corsair. MOT examiner thought the sills were a bit "solid".....fould that they consisted of uindersealed concrete!

[FredTransit]

This is officially the best thread on here. Fact.

[Pillock]

Had to post this up ...

A motorist who put cooking oil in his car's brake fluid has been given a suspended jail sentence and banned from driving by Swansea Crown Court.

It almost sounds like the judge has read Autoshite...

He takes a rather immature attitude towards cars

That's most of us, isn't it? :)I've not done any truely bodgy things.... I once plopped a new engine into a Polo and flogged it on after convincing the guy it had been installed properly but it did run, the only sheared bolt was on the exhaust manifold which putty sorted, and he never came back with burly mates.My beetle body was held onto the chassis with bathroom sealant, but that wasn't me, it was the garage that I bought it from.Oh, and I've rigged ABS lights to pass an MoT but that's only due to silly rules. My immobiliser in the old Mondeo used to light up as a check when you started the engine, so I just pushed the LED into the hole where the light should go. Tester never questioned why it was green, not yellow

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

1981 Ford Fester; inject sills with expanding foam, leave for 2 hours, trim back hot and hardened foam, smooth over with filler, DA sand and paint body colour. Job done.Mark 5 Cortina. New top axle void bushes? Fuck that. Hammer some big nuts inro the axle, refit bolts with lots of seam sealer, job done.520i 12v with wanked head gasket. Remove 'stat, replace bleed screw with a bit of brake pipe and union, fit a 535i header tank on the bulkhead (520i ones are on the side of the rad) and run a bit of small bore coolant pipe from bleed screw area to said extra header tank. The cooling system is permanently venting exhaust gases into the 'auxilliary' header tank which is conveniently above engine level. Job done.Fitted a '73 Mini 1000 with the cheapest new rear subframe available. Find out it's so badly made that the drivers side tyre rubs against the inner arch. Fit a wheel spacer on that side only. Job done!1977 Marina Van. Front floors are rusted through. Welding? Yeah, righto. Firfe up the mixer and pour in a bit of concrete, bit of trowel work, job done. 'Needs slight screeding for MOT'.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Now i,am grown up i can confess that certain brake fluid didn,t workBut the castrol fluid did,it was brilliant,i did a couple for friends as a poor student,but it did worry me i would get caught!but they did have a funny smell to them and a slightly greasy look,but it fooled all those it needed to...

You were doing it wrong. After an overnight stay at the Brake Fluid Motel, you have to wash them uder a hot tap, dry them and iron them.They truly were the good old days.

[HillmanImp]

I traded in a VW bay camper for a bug years ago, the camper was a complete shed, rotten to the core.. The garage (now defunct - thankfully) repaired the bottom of the screen by crushing ribena cartons in - in series, and blowing them back up with the straws, then bogging over the top with a skim of filler.

Similar thing was done to my Imp, this is how i knew it was crashed at some point around April 1990 as the date on the Daily Express that had been used to pad the bodywork before the filler was applied was 13 April 1990. Have taken it all out and repaired it properly. I padded it out with The Times.......

[Mr H Sceptre]

I remember my MK2 escort ghia having VERY poor floors,so i used tons of filler which cost a fortune,and just bodged all the floors on both sides,then gave it a thick underseal,the MOT tester wasn,t impressed,so i used an old MOT and dipped it in Castrol brake fluid,which removed all the ink,i then washed it under a tap and got my mum to write the fresh MOT for me!!And it passed a 7 day wonder at the local nick,3 years in a row i did this,next year my dad wrote it out,then my mat all on the same certificate,even taxed it on it,good old days(about 1988)

So the brake fluid isn't a myth! Them was the days, does it work these days if you dip the computer in brake fluid?

[FredTransit]

Not quite bodgery, but I remember taking the passenger seat and inside rear wheels off a twin wheeler to get it under plating weight (pre class7). Simpler times, happy days.....

[Station]

Trying to find the photo of the brake pad I put in the wrong way round (and drove for a bit). Not a bodge, just stupidity.

[Cavcraft]

If no-one minds I'll recount the carpark 'episode':Bloke sees it for sale in car park, he's working doing cash deliveries and wants it. Now bearing in mind the key wasn't the proper one (like that when I bought it) and the starter motor used to play up, he wants car and I want to sell it.Just (and I mean just) managed to wiggle the key but the starter motor wouldn't go. No worries said I, I removed something under the bonnet to stop it getting nicked. So I open bonnet and thump starter. Jesus wept that hurt, grazed knuckles, signs of blood and me saying I caught my hand on something.This car is absolute rubbish. Pure unadulterated, tarted/bodged up rubbish.Now the car starts, we're off on a test run and he checks time: he's desperate to get car back to his work's carpark as he lives 50 miles away and needs to get back asap. He asks where I live so I just pointed blindly up the road and said 'about a mile up there mate' as we exit car park. Great he wants it so asks me to drive it back to his local depot and he'll get his mate who has trade insurance to run me home. Agree to this (at the same time as cr4pping blue lights) but we get stuck in traffic and he's getting really desperate. So he asks if I'll walk home from where we are and I agree.I'm sitting in traffic in a srsly knackered car, filling in the paperwork and accidentally giving him wrong address and phone number on the receipt and all the while my fingers are leaking blood on to the V5 and receipt. He passed me the cash and I said I'd walk back from there.I literally opened the door at about 5mph and hit the road running, cash in hand and not looking back. Took me sodding ages to get home through the back alleys, private roads and a spot of 'Grand National' through various people's gardens.I was sh!tting myself for months after everytime I saw one of the delivery vans from his company, and must have looked like an armed robber on the run as I furtively sneaked around or legged it if I saw one of the vans.As luck would have it I never saw the bloke again though I'd be amazed if he didn't have a voodoo doll of me in house or had been sectioned by now.

[FredTransit]

Priceless. To be fair would you buy a car like that, from a car park? Is it so bad you won't tell us what the car was?

[brammy777]

Well when i was in the fiesta project group at college, we were repositioning the fuel tank to go where the engine once had.So we put it in place, but didnt have enough time to mount it properly, so used about 8 cable ties to hold it in place.Pretty handy.Anyone seen that bodge-a-riffic mercedes on ebay for £375 BIN?

[Negative Creep]

Remind me never to buy a car off here

[FredTransit]

Well when i was in the fiesta project group at college, we were repositioning the fuel tank to go where the engine once had.So we put it in place, but didnt have enough time to mount it properly, so used about 8 cable ties to hold it in place.Pretty handy.Anyone seen that bodge-a-riffic mercedes on ebay for £375 BIN?

If you can't fix it with a cable tie, it really is broken......

[Cheggers]

If it should move, but doesn't - WD-40If it shouldn't move, but does - Duck tapeSimples

[Cavcraft]

Priceless. To be fair would you buy a car like that, from a car park? Is it so bad you won't tell us what the car was?

1) No chance, least not nowadays anyhow.2) I'm scared in case it was someone on here or one of their mates 3) What the hell, it was an old Sierra 2.3 diesel.

[FredTransit]

Well i didn't buy it, so no worries here.....

[Parky]

My best ones were either the bungy cord holding in my battery, or the string acting as a makeshift throttle cable. Jeez, the heaps I drove at 17...

[outlaw118]

One from the bad old days of B**GER Racing....In line pairs, Granny 2.3 at the front, e-Max Sierra behind (not running). Last lap, Sierra sparks into life, my mate fester clips my brother in the Granny, flips, onto it's roof. Bro sees predicament, but is in 3rd place, so drags him over the line.One hours later, it's the final; Bro and Fester get stuck in the fence, Bro dismounts, Fester just sits in the car. Race ends, get towed off, Fester beckons me over, asks me for some wire cutters."Why, whats up?" I ask."My harnesses are fucked, so I've tied myself in with cable ties".For Fucks SAKE!!!!

[Rusty Pelican]

Passenger door on my Marina used to fly open , tied it to the passenger seat , bonnet flew open , jump up and down on it til it shut , big nut and bolt , job done Best i know of, my mate used to live in africa , wheelbearing disintigrated on his landy miles from anywhere , they keep loads of wire wool in the thing for starting fires ( short across an old battery with a bit of paper and voila fire ) rolls up loads of wire wool in long lenghts , packs with grease , keeps rolling and packing , refit wheel , drive home.

[pandamonium]

The wiper arm dislodged itself on my wifes Swift on the M25 in the rain. Bodged it back together with a rolled up Sainsbury's receipt and my wife's hair band!

[bones96]

c reg mg metro scrapper bought for £25.00 failed mot on holes in chassis rails went home expanding foam trimmed it of when set loads of underseal one mot later sold for £150.00 mk3 cortina going over railway crossing bonnet decides to jump up and hit screen one seat belt cut out and fixed to front of bonnet and tied down to bumper no battery tray in escort down to pound shop one cat litter tray cut in half one piece on the bottom where tray should be the other half on top of battery so it looked original

[FredTransit]

God love the pound shop! Luggage straps make great battery securing straps, perfectly legal! also mine sells wiper blades......

[Albert Ross]

Back to the early 80s here...............auction "prep" time for a couple of oldies....Austin Westminster with the C type in it was a little "endy" so I topped up the oil with a nice thick Marine style lacquer, while the oil was nice and hot. Drove down to the auction, dropping it off just in time to make the sale. Came through within 40 minutes, sounded sweet.................Made over 400 sheets, stood me at about 175ish......Took home the wonga by bus. Wonder if it started the next morning from stone cold?MG Magnette....Noisy gearbox, EP120 in the box.......warmed up first of course......Drove to auction just in time to make the sale.......Repeat previous antics of pocketing cash and buggering off sharpish by bus.Wonder if it went into gear from cold?Other bodge.......In order to get a nice flat repair to door/bootlid/roof etc, lay Telegraph onto flat surface like a kitchen worktop/old piece of glass, cover in half inch thick smear of filler, allow to "go off" while you suck on a roll up..............apply to offending panel, squeezing the edges flat as you go. Wait to set, then remove the paper with a DA! Shape to suit. Paint with rattle can. Sell!Can't afford a full set of wheel trims? Why not just put a matching pair on one side, and another matching pair on the other. People can't look at both sides at once, can they?Arranged to sell a car to a pensioner? Easy. Hole in boot floor needs covering up? Glue the original carpet down, and use offcut from local pub "Axminster" carpet, and trim to fit. Pensioner lifts said "Axminster" to reveal good carpet underneath. Too old and feeble to crawl on the floor see...........(Plus his Wife likes the "Axminster"...........)God I'm a bastard........NOT!

[Station]

Anyone have one wiper blade come loose, only to grab hold of the other one and take that out as well?!That 'cable tie/harness' thing is nothing but silly!!

[bones96]

Can't afford a full set of wheel trims? Why not just put a matching pair on one side, and another matching pair on the other. People can't look at both sides at once, can theytrue

[Cavcraft]

Oh, I might have accidentally put bodyfiller into the very bottom of the engine casing from a Suzuki TS125 and sold the engine to someone as 'believed good'. And taken some good used plugs and put them into a really, REALLy bad Marina engine and sell that.

[warren t claim]

The sad thing is a lot of these bodges are pretty much obselete these days. Can anyone bodge a common rail fuel pump or a cracked head yet?

[Father Ted]

Probably my worst bodge was "repairing" the inner wing of a ZX with lead flashing, sikkaflex and shed loads of black underseal - I even did a little "bead of weld" all the way round the flashing with sikkaflex.Its something I am considering doing again (this time to a crossmember) after the recent credit card bill has forced me to consider fixing up the Micra.Other prize bodges include fitting bonnet pins to a Mk 2 Fiesta when the hinges rusted out so the whole bonnet had to be removed to check the oil (hinged at the front). Repairing the exhaust of same said car with tins, jubilee clips and exhaust gum and several wool bandages liberated from work. Electrical switchgear from pretty much anything bodged to fit a Mk 1 Fiesta I had with electrical issues, Door bottoms of a Mk 2 Metro repaired with chemical metal. A rusted out core plug on a Marina also repaired using chemical metal and a 10p piece (old one). Probably the all time great heap was my 1984 Mini which was just 8 years old when the electrics caught fire. I ran it for about 3 weeks from Preston to Manc and back each day with 240v household electrical cable strewn all over the car to power the lights (no indicators, no brake lights) and some washing line running from the drivers side wipe in a sort of circle through the drivers window and back out the passenger window to pull the wiper up and down (oh it also had the clothes peg on the choke knob bodge too).My skillorz wit body filler is not so good. i prefer lead flashing as its easy to shape and stays smooth.