'Rigging' things on the road....

[Mudder]

Ever used vise'grips for a steering wheel and a bucket to sit on??? That can be a wild ride!!!!

Have also straightened tie rods and such with tow straps and chains when four-wheeling.

[Hotrod70C10]

I tied my carrier bearing up with weedeater string after it broke from the mount.

[Longhorn Man]

Actually I have used Vice Grips as a steering wheel...but I never left the parking lot.
They work quite well to stop the bleeding too.

[krue]

Does assembling a starter from a box of old starters on the side of the road count. Have used a flashlight for headlights and tied strings to wipers to work them. Oh yeah don't forget the paper towel defroster!

[Brad]

Fortunately I don't have any crazy stories like the previous posts, but two summers ago my alternator belt had broken about 30 miles from home. It was midnight and I made it home okay, but the last 2 miles I had to use my 6 D-cell Maglite as my headlght.

[GasHog396]

I've been involved with several misadventures, but the best one was in '89 while on vacation in Alaska, with my father, while driving a '71 Dodge van (it has a Chevy motor, but that's another story) and pulling a 22 ft travel trailer. As we were on our way home to Florida, 4600 miles away, we heard a loud bang about 100 or 200 miles into the Yukon territory. We pulled over to the side of the road to try and figure out what was going on. The van was running and handling fine so we took a walk around the trailer. As we came around to the right side of the trailer, from the back, we saw the problem. The rear axel was sitting way too far back in the wheel well. The front half of the leaf spring on the rear axel had broken off!!! Huh oh, now what? We are 300 miles from the nearest town that 'may' have trailer parts, but for a 15 year old trailer? Poking around inside the van and trailer, we found a three foot piece of a 2x4, a three foot piece of a 4x4, and some 3 inch nails, all of which we had picked up during the previous 3 months in Alaska. (I can thank dad for sharing that gene that tells you "HEY!!! that could be handy some day". Mom calls it the BDG {bad dad gene}. Its think it's closely related to the PRG {pack rat gene}, which I seem to be a carrier of, but dad is totally afflicted). We notched the 4x4 with a chainsaw and then nailed the two pieces of wood together. The notch was for the axel to sit in. After jacking the trailer up, we wedged the new 'spacer-spring' into place. Then, we attached a heavy piece of chain around the front axel that was still good, and then wrapped it back around the rear axel to pull it forward and to hold it in place. We dropped the weight back on to the axels, and we were off. All done in less than 60 minutes. On the way back, we had a little problem finding a new spring (we can have one here in two weeks). Oh well, onward we pushed, all the way home to Tampa, all 5000+ miles of it (we went through Ohio to visit relatives). All that way on a couple of chunks of wood and some nails we had found. It wore the outside edge of the tire pretty good, but is was no worse for wear other than that. When we got home, we found boat springs to fit that were $14 each. Better than the $150 for the travel trailer springs. My dad now carries a couple of spare springs when he pulls that anchor.

[muleskinner]

I live in Florida....so if anyboby out there lives here they know that in the summer time it rains everyday for about an hour, sometimes longer. Well one day i was out driving my 67 Firebird and of course it started to rain. I turned on the wipers....nothing.....damn...just...damn. Luckily the day before I replaced my Uncles vanishin blind in his apt. I grabbed the 3 ft long twisty rod that opens and closes the blind and hooked it to the wiper arm and with my arm out the window i pulled and pushed it to wipe the wind shield. i ended up using it like that for a week or two till i fixed it.

[Longhorn Man]

Seen that done with a person in the passenger and drivers side...except a rope to pull it back and forth.

Wow...you dug this one up from the dead huh?

[muleskinner]

yeah my bad. i didnt realize how dead it was till after i posted it. i found it doing a search on steering wheel repairs. oh well.. it is funny stuff and some good tips.

[superfly68]

my brother told me this story when i asked why his car was sitting really low one morning. He had just installed air shocks on his 72 camaro RS and took it out to the strip that night as usual. he had 4 people in the car about 4 miles from home when his car suddenly made a "hissing" sounds and the rear started lowering. turns out he ran the line too close to the exhaust and melted the line. He had some fat mickeys on the back and rather than risking blowing a tire he had the 3 other guys in the car ride on the HOOD! I know.... I know... nice guy. that's my brother for you. and to top it off i think he did 45! wanted to get home quick as to not get arrested. AGAIN. they laughed about it the next day though.

[Eddie H.]

Growing up on a farm, I learned the fine art of "rigging" from a "Master Rigger", My Dad. He could fix nearly anything with nothing. I learned at least 6000 different uses for bailing wire and duct tape. ( bulldog friction tape as it used to be called back then). One of the best fixes that I remember is cutting up old tin cans and wrapping them around the axles of our old stalk cutter, held in place with bailing wire, they made fine bearings and allowed him to finish out the day's work without having to go all the way back to the barn to make repairs.

[Short-Fuse 72']

I used some wire from a piece of stranded (no pun intended) cable I found in a dumpster for a throttle cable.

[hgs_notes]

I've got a few of these stories, the most significant was on my wifes aerostar van (POS). It had this problem with oil pressure. We bought it with high miles and it turns out the oil pick up in the pan was clogging with sludge or whatever. We're in Wyoming going to Idaho from Minnesota when it starts acting up. Oil pressure is zero and the only real fix is to clear the clogged pick up tube. Well I didn't exactly have tools to lift the engine and pull the pan, so I got a drill and tap, some screws and a pistol cleaning kit. I pulled into a parking lot by a dumpster and parked it with the front tires on top of the curb. Drained the oil into a pail. Drilled 3 holes through the cast aluminum oil pan and right through the oil pick up, screen and all. Ran the gun brush through the holes to clean as much as possible, tapped the holes, poured some gas through the oil fill to clear as much debris as possible. Put a little permatex on the screws and tightened them up. Refilled with oil and started her up. It worked good and the only change I made later was shortening the screws so they didn't plug the holes I drilled in the bottom of the pick up tube. I traded it like that several months later on her current vehicle, the 99 suburban.

Which leads to my next story, much shorter. While replacing the intake gaskets I also replaced the rotor and distributor cap. When I was putting the new cap on, the little tab with the threaded hole broke off the distributor. It wasn't even tight yet, just a cheap plastic distributor body. The cap is currently held on by a nylon wire tie wrapped around the cap and base. It will stay that way until I can afford a better distributor, which means I'll probably trade it on the next vehicle that way.

HG

[hgs_notes]

I remember a couple more things like this.

My 71 had a remote oil filter because it was too much of a pain changing it out after I put headers on. Of course now you can get shorter filters, but anyway, The oil lines for the remote filter went to close to the header and eventually weakened it to the point that it burst while on a highway on an indian reservation in Wyoming (again in that state). There are no towns for like 50 miles, its december and its windy and I'm kind of short on oil. Not many cars traveling out there but a phone company guy stops to help. We find a couple hose clamps and cut the finger off a rubber electricians glove. I clamp it on the hose as good as I can and hit the road. It worked great for like 3 miles. Now I'm in no better area and all of the spare oil is gone. As luck would have it, the only house in miles is at the bottom of this hill and the only by god mechanic happens to live right there. He fixes it and because at the time I was a squid (navy) and he's an air force vet, he only charged me $8 because he didn't want to make change.

The remote oil filter (POS) is now long gone. Well out of the truck at least. It's for sale for anybody foolish enough to buy it.

The only other odd ball fix I wanted to mention was the lift kit a high school friend used to jack up the back of his POS duster. He used a bumper jack to get the weight off the rear springs then cut 2 x 4's to fit. Kind of like removing the whole idea of a rear suspension. Rode like it too. Yeah, back in the day...

HG

[Hugger]

In High School a friend of mine had a VW, real thrasher...
One night the accelerator cable broke, so I volunteered to ride on the back and operate the throttle until we could get to where we were going, ended up taking turns a doing it all evening, back roads of course??!!

[MrGoodpliers]

These aren't "on the road fixes", but may fit here:

When I was very young, my dad had an old tractor (something-Ferguson, the predecessor to the Massey-Ferguson) and the distributor cap kept popping off. He took an old strip of rawhide and tied it down. The tractor was sold to my uncle, and decades later at a reunion I saw the tractor in his barn, still equipped with the rawhide!

When I was in highschool, I bought an old Subaru station wagon for a hundred bucks. It was abused for about 75000 miles and the brakes started grinding. "I've got to get those checked sometime", I thought for a couple of weeks. Then one day I hit the brakes and-- Grind, CHUNK, KKKKRRRRRRR! The front wheel and rotor went flying into the ditch. It was towed to a local filling station where the owner came out and said, "I'll give you $150 for that car. SOLD!

[67chevemall]

I took my dogg to the park one day, but when we were on the way home the gas peddle went dead!
I stopped to find the throttle cable broke, so I feed the dog leash through the hood and attached it to the throttle and drove all the way home with my hand out the window as my gas peddle pulling on the dog leash! And the darn car was standard too!~
Still makes me chuckell!!

[OLDCHEV4X4]

One time back in 83 me and a bunch of friends were in my 69 C-10 ( it had a cap on the back, 6cyl, 3 on the tree) and were on our way to the Tower Theater in Upper Darby to see the Jerry Garcia Band. It was cold and it was Halloween. So we pulled into the Edgemont Inn on Rt. 3 to get some beer. The buddys with the most facial hair went in to get beer. I was 16. So they come out and get in the truck. I start the truck, push in the clutch, pull it into 1st and am going for reverse when ..Bang!! and the truck lurches forward, jumps the parking barrier and stalls! Everybodys spilling beer and wondering if Randy ate too many mushrooms.
Well, the swivel broke on the clutch linkage rod and is hanging down. Everybody is in a panic cause they dont wont to miss the concert. So they make a decision to thumb it. So me and Wayne and the beer find a 9/16 wrench and a pair of pliers and remove the rod and the broken swivel. We estamate the correct rod length, stick it in the hole in the rear bumper and bend it 90 degrees. We put 1 nut on, slide it into the z bar, then the other nut. It works!! And it has free travel! The hitch hikers didn't get too far and were amazed to see us.
To this day i always carry a extra swivel in the ash tray..
randy

[Castiron9]

Here's mine......drive shaft hitting and rubbing against my muffler pipe when I left work at night....So being the smart guy that I am I say''''bungie cord"""" pull pipe away from drive shaft..problem solved????????NOT...A few miles down the road I hear the noise come back and also you guessed it burning rubber''''bungie cord melting''''So now I get real creative and I find a beer can on side of the road and used that as a temporary shield to keep my bungie cord from melting made it home OK.....Moral of the story carry extra bungie cords and always have an extra can of beer around

[Perchjerker]

The situation on my rigging is more funnier than the rig itself. I was 17 and on my way home to east texas from Mexico for spring break (long long story!!). I'm in my 84 Chevy LWB and in Houston on 59 - 6 lanes of deat. Well, the damn truck motor stops all of the sudden and I pull over onto the left side of the freeway. I'm a dumb a$$ kid, but I knew a lot about these trucks becasue my brother and I had actually built this truck from the frame up when we were 15 and 16 (very poor family). I check the fuel pump right at first and guess what, no fuel. So I stand there on the hiway wondering what in the hell am I going to do ( this is before cell phones and I know no one in Houston!). A tow truck guy on his way home pulls over and "gives me a deal" to tow me 2 miles to the nearest auto parts store for...$100 bucks. Now, that's a lot of dough for a kid, but luckily I had a lot with me for my trip to good ole' Mexico (if you knoe what I mean). I get to the auto Crap store and luckily they had ONE FREAKIN' FUEL PUMP FOR A SBC!!!! It was right at 9pm, closing time and after I bought the pump they closed the store and turn off ALL of the outside lights. I change the pump by the grace of GOD and I'm off. I get 30 miles down to Cleveland, TX and I look at my gas gauge... Oh MY GOD I can see it moving as I travel down the road. I stop in a gas station and pop the hood... Fuel Line is leakin like crazy!!! With ONLY & BUCKS TO MY NAME I put it in gas and rip the T shirt I was wearing and wrap it around where the line was leaking. I drove it like that for 120 miles to Nacogdoches, TX... HOME. AGAIN BY THE GRACE OF GOD I did not catch fire and burn like hell which I realize could of happened now. Wierd crap like that always happens to me.

[Edmond]

I also have a little story to tell.
In the summer of 2002 we took the Camaro to one of the biggest carshows in the world,
In Västerås, Sweden. That's like more than a 1000 miles from my home.
When we arrived we stopped on a parkinglot near a supermarket for some shopping
when I noticed dripping fluid under the car. Closer inspection told me it
was gasoline.
The fuel line from the pump to the carb was rubbing together with one of the oil
lines that goes to the transmission. It must have been that way for years, but now
it made a small hole in the fuel line. In Sweden you can buy flex fuel lines at almost
every gasstation so that was an easy fix. I found out later that not only the fuel line
had a smal hole in it, also the oil line had a hole in it.
So I took a bit of the flex fuel line that I just bought, and cut it open with a knife
in the lenght and used two hose clamps to keep it in place, this closing the smal hole
in the oil line. Drove around with it for about a week and then I could finally
repair it more permanent at a friends house.

Cya,
Edmond

[JDYUSA]

I use to have an ole plain jane 71 blue C10, six cylinder with three on the tree. The shift linkage that ran down the column and on to the transmission was very sloppy. The holes on the shifter rods were "over" rounded and you had to watch to make sure you were in the right gear.

One day it was raining and I had just left a Target store and was pulling onto a six lane highway, and went to shift and had NOTHING. Just up and down with no feeling of the gears at all.

I pulled her (obviously it was a girl) to the bumps defining the median, crawled under her and found the shift rods flopping in the breeze. I got back in the cab, opened my back pack, pulled out an oversized paper clip from some work items, passed the rod through the hole, wired up and took off.

Mama was proud of me that day.

I loved that truck...s he's gone now.

[Sweet72]

A co-worker says he once used an outboard motor fuel tank with the primer bulb as a fuel pump when his fuel pump on the old chevy truck went out. He hacked the carb fuel inlet line off and clamped the hose to it. Just give her a squeeze every now and then to keep the float bowl full.

[Lobo'74]

I had a late '60's Harley Davidson Sprint 250 (engine on those was a Binelli 250) that had to have foil wrapped around the headlight and the ingition fuses to keep working. I was 16 and stupid.

Had a '76 Capri (the German import Merc). just dropped a friend off at the San Diego airport when the gear shift broke off in my hand. Took out the jack handle/lug wrech and fit it into the shifter. Had to start off in second, but it worked for a few days.

[67chevemall]

A windshield washer pump as a fuel pump!WOW!
That takes the cake!