What's your biggest Bodge?

[stocktake]

Having a conversation with a member about when times were hard and you struggle to make ends meet, I'm sure many of us have had to make do and mend to either get home or get to the end of the month to effect the "correct" repair.

Who is brave enough to admit a bodge, sorry I mean a workaround...

I once owned a Triumph Herald in my twenties and snapped a rear half shaft. Couldn't afford a replacement so bolted a length of angle iron to the flange on the diff and then secured the angle iron to the chassis outrigger with an exhaust clamp to stop it from moving. One wheel drive kept me going....

Over to you

Edit: I don't consider over riding safety systems a Bodge so don't even bother posting them.............

[Arctic]

Yesterday on an intercooler, which had been fitted broken by someone else, whom shall not be named at the moment, owners permission given for the work around not a bodge which knowing you Dave yours would have been a good work around not a bodge until you could get it sorted.

Said intercooler as it had no supporting ring brackets.

1

[roverbarmy]

Not on a Rover but brought a truck back using a gallon can of diesel hung on a coat hook in the cab, using the gravity feed to the 4D Ford diesel pump on the engine, via a length of rubber fuel pipe, when the lift pump failed! It took three can refills (syphoned from the tank) to get back to the yard!

[Ducati750cc]

Many many years ago in the pouring rain we get up here on the Woodhead Road I came across four students in an old Mini in a lay-by with the bonnet up doing a bit of head scratching because the wipers had stopped.


I offered to have a look thinking it would be the usual sloppy ball joint that a bit of baling wire or cable tie would sort, nope the motor had seized and they weren't in any breakdown organisation.


After a bit of head scratching on my part I popped the crank ball joint off, scavenged about ten foot of bailing twine and made a nice set up to use the front passenger as a wiper motor, with his arm action it looked like he was paddling the car along


I followed them down to civilization and about five miles to the uni, just in case, but it worked OK all the way.


I used to come across lots of stragglers up here and made one or two hand throttles out of the choke cable and such like.


The nicest one was coming across a young couple broken down in an old VW on a very bad bend at dusk with no lights on not far from my home, decided that the nearest safe spot was my place, a quick glance confirmed a low battery and the alt not charging.


Off it came, battery on charge and I discovered the slip rings were worn right through, nothing in my junk pile to use so wound and soldered them with some copper wire, a bit of file work and wet and dry and they looked like two wedding rings, a pair of brushes from a scrap alt I had soldered in, a cross your fingers and it was whacking in a good charge.


Meanwhile the late Mrs. Ducati had fed and watered them and discovered they were newly married and were on the way to their honeymoon, they got to their destination and had a new alt fitted the next day.


Ahh the days of make do and codge sadly gone, rolled up silver paper, when the dizi cap brush has worn away, a couple of eggs or porridge for a leaky rad, nail varnish for a cracked dizi cap and a stick of Chemical Metal that would fix anything,especially a pin holed core plug at the back of the block

[cbr1100xx]

Me dad once had a little nissan sunny and forgot about the mot, when he realised that it had run out,took it to the local garage where it failed on a rusty sill.
Back home , got an old biscuit tin out of the shed , folded it over 3 or 4 times and pop rivetted it on.
Bit of filler , coat of underseal and back to the garage within a hour.
Passed with flying colours but the tester was a bit baffled as to how he welded so quick and made it look so neat and tidy.

Stan

[SCP440]

About 30 years ago I was in Aachen in Germany in a 3.0 Capri, a couple of days into the stay I noticed we seem to be getting through a lot more Petrol than usual. At a petrol station the person filling his car up behind me came over and started shouting at me in German ( I dont speak a word apart from being able to order beer) Any way he pointed to the underside of my car and there was a large puddle of petrol under the car.


After some investigation I found several holes probably rust perforation and of course near the botton of the tank, I purchase some Petro Patch or equivalent and tried to patch up the tank, as I did this the holes got bigger.


Plan B was a 5 gallon Jerry can purchased from a Hardware shop and some pipe. After a bit of work the Jerry can was supplying the engine.


The problems were we had no gauge and of course with only 5 gallons we ended up stopping about 7 or 8 times just to make sure we didnt run out of fuel.



In hindsight I should have purchased 2 Jerry cans but we got home and had some very odd looks pulling the boot open and putting the petrol in there, on one occasion I achieved nearly 30mpg.

[BillyMG]

Beer tins, jubilee clips and self amalgamating tape have saved the day for me on more than one occasion. I've patched up just about every hole you can imagine with those... But let's not forget the mighty metal coat hanger - I used one to re-hang the exhaust on my old Ford Orion, and another specially shaped to open the drivers door after the barrell became worn and the key just spun in the lock. However on one occasion after leaving work one Friday afternoon I noticed some ladies hygiene products in my door pocket and quickly realised I'd set off in somebody else's Orion! Same colour (white), same year, parked two cars down from mine in the office car park, and must have had the same wear to the key barrells!

[bsafly]

Not so much bodge, but get you home in a fix:
many from years ago, but two that stand out just now (after a little drink or two).
Taking my wife’s FB Victor for it’s first MOT in her ownership 20 years ago the core plug behind the dynamo mounting bracket let go and it dumped all its coolant rather quickly and noticing the temperature gauge rapidly rising stopped to investigate. I was carrying a full toolbox in the back, so I removed the dynamo and mounting bracket, found a suitable piece of tree branch at the side of the road (was travelling along a country road near Ingatestone), whittled it to the size of the defunct core plug with my penknife, pried the core plug out with a long screwdriver and hammered the wooden plug in, refitting the dynamo mounting bracket held it securely in place and some water from a pond at the side of the road had me back on my way. The car passed it’s MOT and the ‘repair’ held for a few weeks until I got round to fitting a full set of new core plugs.
On the way to work about 25 years ago in a colleague’s old Suzuki 4x4 it ground to a halt with some impressive backfires, the blade spring for the points had fractured and the points were just flapping around!
Out came the trusty pen knife, cut the L.T. wire at the points post, bared the end and wrapped it around the broken blade spring next to the moving contact to make the circuit, ripped a filter off a perfectly good cigarette, folded it in half and jammed it between the distributor body and moving contact, which kept the L.T. wire connected securely to the moving contact and shut it as it came off the cam.
That repair lasted 8 miles before the cigarette filter failed, another ruined cigarette saw us safely to work and a new set of points (ordered by the owner) fitted during lunch break saw it back on the road in time to get us home.

[Saga Lout]

I used to be white van man a long time ago, I was in Birkenhead in a VW van and the throttle cable snapped, I still had many drops to do so I phoned the office to let them know and to get a new cable, I then popped out a bung on the bulkhead and fed the cable through into the cabin, this allowed me to pull the cable by hand but it was tricky changing the gears. It all worked out though. Another time I'd done a drop with a 7.5 tonne curtain side truck on the other side of Oxford, we pulled into Thame services for a stop on the way back. When I turned the key to start the engine, the starter just clicked and the lights went dim so I knew it had an electrical fault, it was getting dark and there was no way of getting it mended where it was, there was a slight gradient and I bump started the thing and set off up the motorway, by the time I got to Wigan the lights were almost gone and I rolled into the yard and killed the engine, left a note for the next driver and went home.

[Bogbrush82]

Not one I did but getting the car MOT'd involved having to replace a stolen cat that had been repaired with scaffolding.