How a "shoe lace" saved our @#$

[sleepdog]

It's amazing what one can do when properly inspired.

For a couple of screws on the side of a highway I could try to fix anything.

[Barry Bean]

"Bill" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Hope that was a factory shoelace! Otherwise it might void the warranty.

[Dave Hinz]

Yeah, Tony, because shit never just, you know, breaks, regardless of how it's maintained, is that it?

[Dan Espen]

This thread is giving me deja vu.

Corvair on East Side Highway, Manhattan. Spring had come off the vacuum advance weights inside the distributor. The vacuum advance weights then rubbed on the inside of the metal base of the distributor and sliced the entire top of the distributor off. When I saw it, it was just hanging there buy the ignition wires.

Put the whole thing back in place and wrapped some of that wire they use for rebar around the distributor and the base.

Drove back to the Bronx and fixed it there with junkyard parts.

[Neon John]

Heh! whatever it takes. I've gotten out of the woods on my dirt bike after breaking a chain and using all my masterlinks by cutting the clutch cable and wiring the chain back together with the high strength wire.

Two things that go in the emergency kit are duct tape and mechanic's wire. This is soft iron wire that is strong but easy to bend. I've made everything from a fanbelt to an alternator bracket to suspension parts with the stuff. Fashion the wire in the shape you want and use the duct tape to hold it in place if necessary.

You might also consider carrying an improvised welder in your kit if you're out in the woods like that. All you need is some gas welding filler rod, a long set of jumper cables and a carbon rod that you get from the welding supply place. You use your car battery as the power source. 12 volts isn't enough to keep a stick welding arc going but it will run a carbon arc. You use the carbon arc just like an acetylene torch or TIG and use the filler rod to fill the joint.

That and a few random pieces of metal stock and you can fix almost anything. In your situation (BTDT), I'd have taken a hunk of angle and welded a bracket to the control arm to hold the ball in place. Strong enough to get you out but easy to remove for the permanent fix.

If you carry a second battery, for in case you run the other one down after flooding or drowning the engine, you can hook the two in series for welding and use ordinary AC or DC sticks. Lots of the guys I off-road with do that. They carry the long jumpers and a third jumper suitable for running from the spare battery to the cranking battery.

John

[Neon John]

Something similar. I had the throttle cable break on my 280Z. After tossing an old moving pad across the engine, I had my bud straddle the engine (rear opening hood) and operate the throttle while I drove.

That actually worked well. He could watch traffic and know when to change speeds, usually. We had to verbally coordinate shifting but that wasn't hard. If I'd gotten scared, I was prepared to stab the clutch and the ignition switch until we got our signals coordinated again.

John

[Dave Hinz]

Well, I guess in this case to somewhat give him a "piss off" message, and somewhat to express some sort of support for the guy who came up with a damn good solution to a problem, on the fly, and sharing it with us.

[Neon John]

Always the sideline quarterbacks who say stuff like this. FYI, a beater or farm truck is just that - an old truck that one has nothing invested in that he beats around the woods in, hauling rocks, hay, feed, firewood and the like. Maintenance consists of fixing stuff when it breaks, and then only enough to keep it running.

Only a fool would spend the money to say, rebuild the front end, when the whole truck might be worth $100 and could be replaced for another $100. Fix what breaks and use the thing til too many things break too often, then drop it off at the wrecking yard and find another one.

John

[Nick Hull]

Actually the caster will keep the wheel in the right direction if you drive forward slowly. I have done it with a farm tractor and a 66 Chrysler.

More than a shoe lace: One weekend while garage sale shopping my VW didn't want to go after a stop sign. The guy behind drove alongside and told me my engine had fallen out! Sure enough, the engine was laying on the pavement, still connected but unable to shift because the linkage was shifted. I got a couple of logs from the nearby creek and levered the engine back up and tied it into place with some rope I had in the car, steel cored so it was strong. Drove the car 30 miles home then 20 miles to a repair shop on Monday.

[Andy Hill]

What, you weren't carrying a roll of baling wire in the bed toolbox? Kids these days :-)

Nice kludge :->

[jd]

I remember swapping outhte engine of my 72 campervan on the side of I80 one afternoon..... Cops stopped by a couple times to make sure I was OK, but pretty much let me be.

--JD

[Gil Faver]

service road (9

someone to call a tow

forget about

direction if you

and a 66

shopping my VW

alongside and

was laying on

the linkage

and levered

had in the

home then 20

once, while I was piloting my spaceship (an old galactica IV, ionic impaction engine still purring away!) about 5.3 parsecs from namola stalartica, . . .

[Goedjn]

That's another applicatiuon where shoelace comes in handy.

[Elmo]

The things that auto manufacturers would do to save a nickel because a nickel times all those cars added up included: Fords built in the early 70's had cheap plastic cam contacts on the points which were glued to the movable arm. Pontiac made an engine with fiber reinforced plastic teeth on the timing gear and they would break at about 35K miles.

[Dave Hinz]

Chevy econobox, along side the road with pretty girl standing along side, between Omaha and Kansas City, middle of nowhere. "It just stopped all of the sudden". A bit of investigation showed no spark, which I traced to the rotor having come apart in the distributor. The rotor had a springy copper tab for the contact, held in place by molten plastic pushed up through holes in the tab. This plastic had sheared off, leaving the rotor to spin with no electrical contact to the wires.

So, I had my full toolkit with me, including some 1/8" sheet metal self-tapping screws (nice for joining ductwork). Pre-drilled two holes where the tab had been held to the rotor, explained that if this went bad, I could destroy her distributor for her, and then screwed the tab to the plastic body of the rotor. Started right up, ran fine. I followed her to her exit without incident.

So, a couple screws overcame a serious GM engineering defect. But, it made a pretty girl's day much less unhappy, and made my drive from Denver to Wisconsin seem a bit shorter that time.

[Jack]

For the record... my definition of a beater is one which the gas in a full tank is worth more than the vehicle.

[Amun]

I know full well what a "beater" is and have owned several in my lifetime.

But tie rods don't just fall off without ANY warning. You will already have problems steering long before sudden failure occurs

I was advised long ago, you can't get into problems with 2 tons of metal that won't start or go. But you can get into one heck of a lot of problems when it won't stop.

the engine can belch smoke, the trans may howl or not go into a gear or two, and the fenders may flap in the breeze

But dammit, the brakes and steering are no place to save a few bucks.

You may not give a rat's ass about yourself, but it's always the innocent ones that get hit head on by people who saved a few bucks/

AMUN

[kr_gentner]

None of them surpise me at all. I had a '72 Chevy Impala I drove for a month with the drive shaft vibrating so bad I couldn't go over 30 mph. The damn thing fell out one day as I was going over the railroad tracks at all of 10 mph. I had a '72 Buick Skylark I drove for a full six months with no reverse. You just had to be careful where you parked. I had a '74 Dodge van that had side pipes and the exhaust actually passed inspection with beer can/hose clamp repairs.

When I was married to my first husband we had a farm truck the steering was so loose there was at least 6 inches play in the steering wheel. You honestly didn't drive that truck, you herded it. I have no idea what year that truck was but I'd be surprised if it was newer than about '60.

Kathy

[Tim Fischer]

And thanks to the current fuel prices, beaters are getting nicer every day.

-Tim

[Dave Hinz]

Nobody stopped to help?