Best "get you home" bodge.................?

[Rocket88]

Feel free to contribute...I think my finest was replacing a sump plug that dropped out at approx 2.37 am on a Belgian motorway, with a bit of wood, and copious amounts of chewing gum...........

[simmo]

On a Peugeot 504 the mechanical fuel injection (Kubelfisher sp?) drive belt broke, so I wired in the start aid and got myself the 2 miles back to base, the car was auto and drove quite well like this.

[Father Ted]

I think most of us at some point have wired the coil direct to the battery to bypass a buggered starter solenoid, I ahve also done this with the glow plugs and stop solenoid on a BX when the timer relay went west - 5a mains lighting cable and insulation tape = FTW

[Richard]

My Marina split a radiator hose one night so I clamped the split with vice grips and refilled it. I did consider the most obvious method of refilling it but decided that would be a bit unpleasant when I replaced the hose. Instead we went back and forward to a ditch with Coke cans, and that was whiffy enough the next day.

[whitevanman]

Mk2 Escort 1600 sport................Rolled the bugger and broke the track rod end................oooo!!!! I have a spare one in the boot..........2 jubilee clips and 10 minutes later I drove home with a squashed roof and "loose" steering Feckin' arse that I was

[Rusty Pelican]

When the throttle cable jammed up on my old Sunbeam I connected the choke lever to the throttle linkage , got me home although changing gear was fun , instant cruise control as well ,Another time king lead off the coil had a break in it , by carefull bending about found the internal damage , cut lead in half and rammed half a streightened paper clip in each end , bit of masking tape and off we go

[dollywobbler]

Don't think I can match these heroics but I did once attach a shock absorber to my 2CV with speaker wire after a mounting sheared. A section of hose cable tied over a hole got our BX up several mountains.When a fusebox fault resulting in my 2CV having no brake lights, I swapped the connections at the rear so I could put the brake lights on by putting the sidelights on. Well, I had to drive 30 miles to a specialist so I wanted people to know when I was stopping!

[Station]

Picture the scene if you will:11.30pm @ 31st December 2008 (yes, New Years Eve), location the CENTRE OF LONDON.Was queuing in traffic that was several miles long through the centre, fast approacing 12am. Noticed the temp gauge on my Astra was a little high. Next thing (((BANG)))! And the car is enveloped in steam. I first thought someone had crashed, such was the noise, but then realised my engine had become a little broken. I got out, and pushed to the side of the road, helped by some Asian lads who were walking by. I thought, that's it, my head gasket has gone and I'm 250 miles from home on New Year's Eve in the middle of the year's busiest traffic in the country.Fortunately, I had brought my bag of tools, I had a poke around, and found one of the coolant pipes had bulged and burst, right next to the jubilee clip. I cut the pipe, and fitted it on properly. Job done! Went to the 24 hour grocers, and bought some water, and we were moving again. 'Celebrated' NYE at 1am, and headed home.Halfway there, coming through Birmingham, I pulled into a service station. I lost all gears, the gearstick was as loose as an MFI wardrobe. Not twice in one night, I though!! I once again plunged into the engine bay, and spent 1 hour fashioning a roller pin for the gear linkage out of a seat hinge, and it managed to get us home, without me having to change gear once. Got to bed at 6am in the morning, still in my clothes!Disaster!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Feel free to contribute...I think my finest was replacing a sump plug that dropped out at approx 2.37 am on a Belgian motorway, with a bit of wood, and copious amounts of chewing gum...........

How did you discover the sump plug dropped out, before the engine destroyed itself?

[Timewaster]

Feel free to contribute...I think my finest was replacing a sump plug that dropped out at approx 2.37 am on a Belgian motorway, with a bit of wood, and copious amounts of chewing gum...........

How did you discover the sump plug dropped out, before the engine destroyed itself?

It must be to do with the circulation. My boss had a CX estate Turbo Diesel in 1989. He picked it up after a service and we headed 100 miles down the motorway to a warehouse. After half an hour, there was a call for him on the tannoy, could he go to reception, where they went out to the carpark to look at the lake of oil under his CX. No sump plug to be seen.Fortunately it was a car parts warehouse, but blody awkward to put a sump plug in a Citroen when it has sunk to the floor and you darent start it up. AND you are laying in a big puddle of oil.Not the only "adventure" that was had at the mercy of that car.

[Father Ted]

I once knocked up a brake cable for my Tomos Disco Moped using mains flex ( I think it was the neutral wire actually, and Im sure it was 13a) and a couple of cable screw terminals secure it in place. Needless to say it was sold before it needed to go for another MOT.Other prize bodges include lead flashing and sikkaflex welding panel repairs.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Sure i've told this story before, but when the alternator of my GS died in the middle of nowhere while driving right across france, i dealt with the problem by simply stealing a replacement one from a long-dead Ami in a pile of scrap behind a village garage I happened to pass. Went round the corner, bobbed it on, jobs a good-un.

[Pete-M]

Rear subframe mount rotted through on an XJ-S V12 I had. Caused rather 'special' handling characteristics.So I pinched a bit of Angle-Iron and wedged everything in place.Got me home, but I wouldn't try that again.

[dollywobbler]

When the alternator bearing seized on my 2CV, I just took the alternator off and carried on home like that. Amazing how far you can drive without an alternator on a low tech old motor! (that was an easy 10 miles - 30 is my all time record, though the car did need a bump at the halfway stop...)I did once drive my first BX across Birmingham with no clutch too. Does taking absolutely no action count as a bodge? Come to think of it - I've done that in the 2CV once or twice as well...

[pompei]

There does seem to be a high ratio of Citroen catastrophes ... can i add driving my CX to the bloke who was buying it with the expansion cap long gone ... placed a polythene bag over the opening secured by one of The Fuhrer's elasticated hair scrunchy things. It held up, to the amazement of all of us

[FredTransit]

Gary once drove across Europe and back with a can of corned beef hammered between the block and the alternator after the bracket went....

[Rocket88]

Feel free to contribute...I think my finest was replacing a sump plug that dropped out at approx 2.37 am on a Belgian motorway, with a bit of wood, and copious amounts of chewing gum...........

How did you discover the sump plug dropped out, before the engine destroyed itself?

back in the seventies [when this happened] the oil light came on in cars [in this case an ancient Opel Rekord] before destroying the lump!

[Rusty Pelican]

Best one i know about but not me I hasten to add was in an Imp , they had been trialing apparently and due to a complete cockup managed to rip the whole of the rear panel out , back of the engine then falls on the floor , solution , remove engine lid , take one 3x3 fence post from a nearby field , lay this across the top of the rear wings , jack up the engine and tie this with sturdy rope to the fencepost , tie the engine lid back on , bit more rope here and there just in case , drive the 80 miles home with the engine danging off the fence post held up with rope

[VWPowered]

bodge, if it breaks down its staying where it is

[Albert Ross]

Bodmin moor 2am, sunday, winter 1984...........Hillman super minx. Dynamo securing bolts fell out.....Best repair possible was a pair of mfi plastic bolts designed to hold kitchen cupboards together. Lasted 6 months or more!

[Lankytim]

My Audi 100 has a carb fed engine but an injection head fitted, as a result the holes where the injectors go needed to be sealed up with wooden dowells. One night when returning home from a night shift at work one of the dowells blew out and the car dropped down to 3 cylinders. I "fixed" the problem by rolling up a latex mechanics glove and stuffing it in the hole. This worked a treat for all of 30 seconds before the engine sucked the glove in and ate it. I managed the drive home on 3 cylinders.Ive since remedied the redundant injector holes problem by gluing pennies over them using araldite. Its still working fine about a year later!

[AXrescuer]

 

Bet someone here knows someone who's done summat similar to this!

[Barry Cade]

The petrol pump went one night going home on the A9 in my Renault 5, after a bit of faffing about with finding out what the problem was, I connected the washer pipe to the carb, and filled the washer bottle with petrol. Got home no probs,remembering to squirt the washers every few mins.. :lol:Distributor siezed in a newly bought X1/9 which I'd travelled all the way from Fife to Greenwich for. It boiled up big style in the Blackwall tunnel,then a few miles out of London, the dizzy siezed and spat rotor arms,HT leads and the cap all over the fast lane. Tied it all back together with one of my bootlaces and made it home,26 hours on the road in total. That included the alternator dying just over the border in the pouring rain. Along with all this it was using the false identity of my other X1/9.

[Pete-M]

 

Bet someone here knows someone who's done summat similar to this!

I tried something similar with a W123 Merc front spring. Broke two sets of spring compressors until eventually the car was placed on a huge block of wood, as much suspension as possible removed and a 20ft scaffy bar with two big fat blokes heaving on it until the spring could be hammered in.

 

Didn't do the other side....

[Mike D]

Merc springs are fuggin scary! I chopped the ones on my mates W126 in situ with a home made threaded bar and 1/2" plate spring compressor

 

 

note the ratchet strap to stop the spring getting loose!

[VWPowered]

[Station]

Some good ideas here, I like the washer bottle-cum-fuel pump thing - I would've screamed 'Eureka' if I'd've come up with that! Can anyone confirm putting a petrol can above the engine and letting gravity do it's thing would suffice on carb engines?

[M'coli]

Only if the float valve on the carb was knackered, bikes have used gravity for ever.

[nigel bickle]

Yep -done that, it works.Put a rod out the block on a Standard Pnnant many years ago. Just smashed the remains off & drove home.Bit noisy-but hey!

[Jonnyvalenta]

Both throttle cables broke on my Sunbeam one night,leaving me cruising to the roadside.So I butchered the wiring that ran to the spotlights,tied it around the throttle linkages and fed it in through the door window,hey presto, hand throttled Weber 40s ! It worked surprisingly well,if a bit jerky at first,but got me home which was thankfully not far....