"Temporary" or Hack Repairs, 'Fess Up!

[1sttruck]

The fan/heater switch on a Honda Civic went out, and looking at the replacement at the dealer it looked like it'd go too so I opted to repair the broken one. A couple of big Radio Shack ceramic power resistors wired in parallel worked for the rest of the time that we had the car.

The headlight switch on the older Taurus would turn on and off while driving down the road at night, Ford figures people's lives are too boring I guess, and looking at it it had pretty much melted. Ford figures low melting point thermoplastics work fine in higher temp applications I guess. I bought another one, but the connector wouldn't fit as it too had melted, so I cut away the connector, pushed the connectors on the switch, and then put a drop of superglue on each connector to keep it in place. It's worked fine for several years now. The main trick was not having to take the dash off to replace the switch, as Ford seems to figure that it's ok to put cheap parts in very hard to replace areas.

The older Taurus has a few connectors in the engine compartment held on with either zip ties or seizing wire, as Ford seems to figure that it's ok to use cheap plactic that breaks easily after a few years on critical connecters.

Someone should provide more training for Ford's polymer materials engineers, or ate least give them some more boxing classes for dealing with accounting :^)

 

[brianl703]

I wired a relay into the rear defroster circuit of a Ford Escort because the switch and connector melted. (It was a Mazda design switch and connector, by the way). This way, if anything burns up it'll be a $3 ISO relay and a not a $40 switch (I got the switch at a wrecking yard for $5, the dealer wanted $40, and the wrecking yard is quite a drive from here).

 

[mmcpeck]

Ignition switch "start" position went out on my old '81 Olds Omega, so I wired a momentary ON/OFF switch to the starter solenoid, and housed it into and old Kodak film canister, cut a hole in the film canister top for the button to come through, and mounted the canister right on the dash. Still needed the key to turn the ignition on, and then you had to just hold the button to start.

Pretty ghetto but it was kind of cool too, at least when I was 17. Pretty funny too when I sold it that way and had to show the guy buying it how to start it...and he still bought it. Saw it parked in front of someone's house like 2 years later and looked in the window and the same switch was still there, so I guess it was a solid repair.

 

[surfstar]

Quote:

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Ignition switch "start" position went out on my old '81 Olds Omega, so I wired a momentary ON/OFF switch to the starter solenoid...

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Heck, ricers pay money to put push "start buttons" in their cars. They think its a cool "mod".

 

[MarkC]

I had to stop on the freeway and superglue the side marker light bulb thing back into place on my Jeep last summer. Then it was painful getting it off when I got replacement screws for the bezel.

 

[turmeric]

One time it overheated and the whole thing started smoking. A plug had blown out of the radiator so I couldnt even fill it up to limp home. I was fed up with it, so I got some chewing gum and paper and shoved it in there. It lasted about 4 miles (highway speed kept it cool I guess) before I had to stop for a stupid reason, the pressure built up, and the gum blew out.

The auto part store didnt have a proper size plug, and I was too lazy to track one down at the dealership, internet, and junkyards, (for some reason it was hard to find parts for this jeep), so I covered the hole with JB weld putty and drove it a few hundred more miles before I sold it as a junker.

The valve cover leaked too, even after I RTVed it twice. I didnt want to buy a new cover, so I put some chewing gum in the leak. The chewing gum melted and bubbled a lot, but I didnt see any more oil coming out.

My favorite is when my casette tape player died... I pulled it apart, bought some stuff from radio shack, poked around with a meter, and after about 8 hours I had an audio-in jack where I could plug in my iPod. Yeah i was too broke to buy a decent radio.

I guess a lot of people to do the 'manual override the cooling fan' thing, which I did so many times I eventually put a switch in the cabin. Then there are all the various wood interior fixes, like slats jammed across the roof to hold up the headliner.

 

[another Todd]

Out in the Mojave desert (middle of nowhere) my friend put his fan into the radiator of his Jeep. We smeered two tubes of black silicone over and into all the holes we could see. It worked and six months later he was still driving it like that! I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS!

 

[brianl703]

Apparently someone wired the electric choke on the 1982 Datsun pickup straight to the interior fusebox. Just crimped a male blade terminal on the wire and stuck it straight into an empty fuse slot.

Worked fine till the choke shorted out..then the wire started smoking and melted.

If that's not a hack repair, I have no idea what is. They didn't even bother putting a fuse on that wire.

 

[Max_Wander]

the internal ignitor and coil died in my distributor, so i wired in a 4-pin GM HEI module to the ECU and outputs went to an external coil. the bare wires are twisted together, the HEI module is hanging by the wires and the coil is sitting in the V-section of the engine

4 months and it's been ok, aside from a hard turn disconnect

 

[1sttruck]

I just repaired a broken wire on the older car, again. Twice I'd used the butt connectors to splice in a length of good wire, but without the correct crimper you end up pretty much cutting the wire when crimping with pliers, and it seems to break easily. This time I use some small wire nuts, the ones used for house wiring, and they not only go on quickly, they seem to hold well. Time will tell how well they hold up, but so far they seem like a nice item to have in the car tool kit.

 

[brianl703]

I normally just solder a new wire on and cover the joint with heat-shrink tubing.

I saw Posi-Lock connectors at Wal-Mart--maybe a good alternative to butt connectors, Bosch supplies them with universal oxygen sensors so if they're good enough for that sensitive, low-voltage wiring...

 

[John Baio]

On our Gravely lawn tractor we tie-wrapped some ball joints together so they didnt pop out cause we were to cheap to replace them. We also had some rust holes in the deck we fixed by bolting scrap metal to solid spots. One of those scrap pieces of metal holds one of the drive pulleys. All of those fixes have been working for years.

 

[wilbilt]

First car, a '67 Renault R-10. The generator bracket broke, so I wedged a couple of 2x4s between the generator and the frame to support it. I got my first ticket in that car, for "exhaust produces flame" LOL. I later rolled it.

'65 Chevy C-20 pickup, nicknamed "Mongo", because that's what was painted on the door when I bought it. The door window regulators were shot, so I cut some 2x4s into various lengths to hold the windows closed, 1/2 down, etc. The fuel gauge didn't work, either. I used a broomstick with marks at 1/2 tank and 1/4 tank to "stick it" if I was in doubt.

'56 Chevy pickup, aka "Godzilla" (it was green). The door latches and strikers were worn out and the doors had a tendency to fly open going around corners. I bought a couple of sliding barrel latches (like for a gate)at the hardware store and used them for door latches.

I had forgotten about this stuff....

 

[The Critic]

For some reason, one plastic fastener fell out (even though it was super hard to put in) on the front underbody cover of the Saturn today. One out of the four, so it isn't that bad, but still.

Used two long pieces of twine to tie the cover securely to the front end. It's ghetto, but will work until I can make a run to the stealership for some fasteners. Perhaps I should add some duct tape for good measure. Now it'll really look like those GM cars I see in the ghetto.

 

[oli]

Years ago I bought a van and the air filter housing was in the back of the van because it was broken. The used car salesman assured me that it had not be driven for very long with no air filter. As a temporary measure, to keep large airborne

particles from being sucked into the carburetuor, I made a deflector out of cardboard from a 12 pack of beer. It had sort of a metalic coating on it and I figured that it would hold up better than regular cardboard if it were to get wet in some way

. It basicly stopped things from flying in from the front, sides, and top with the opening at the rear. I had wire over the top so that it would not fly around at highway speeds. Over the next three years and 30 thousand miles I changed the deflector about three times. During those years, the valve cover "breather" was replaced with a 5/8" tubing that extended back to about the rear axle. The fumes were a serious health hazard. The motor did die of a slow seizure that lasted about two days. The last few starts were done by bump starting

because the starter could not possibly turn the motor over.

 

[WalterMitty]

I had a 1993 Chevy Lumina Van that had alternator problems. It was my wife’s car. The original failed under warranty and had been replaced by the dealer before 36k miles. It failed politely enough by failing to maintain a charge on the battery over time. The lights were dimming and an alternator check at the dealer revealed the problem.

#2 failed two years (34k miles) later in the middle of a hot summer day when my wife was driving her family womenfolk around a town 30 miles away while I was at work. The car stopped dead in the middle of an intersection. A couple of good Samaritans pushed her off the road and tried to jump start the car, but it was no dice. I threw a few tools and the jumper cables in my truck and headed over.

My Father-In-Law was with me. The rest of the family drove back home in the family’s car that he drove over. I hooked the jumper cables to the van and then started hooking them up to the truck to try to start. When the last cable went on there was a loud spark and the engine lugged under the load. I disconnected immediately and thought what the ?

I pulled out my meter to check voltage on the van and it read zero. I switched to ohms. Red (+) cable to ground read zero, dead short. Disconnected the battery and the Red (+) still read short to ground.

Next I tried to unhook the alternator lead. The stud spun uselessly on the alt. It was hot I was disgruntled; I cut the lead to the alternator with a pair of dikes. Viola! The Red cable is open to ground. The alt is short through-and-through.

By now the dealership is closed and I don’t have enough tools to swap out an alternator anyway. It’s a 60 mile round trip to go home and back. I hook the battery back up. Hook up the jumper cables. Wait a minute and the van starts up like a charm.

OK Dad, here’s the plan: I turn off the van and we let the battery charge a while. I start up, throw you the jumper cables and take off. You follow in the truck and see how far I get. Rinse, repeat.

We only had to make two stops to get home. What I learned on that van is that when the ABS warning light comes on, it’s time to start looking for a place to land; cause you only have another minute before full engine stop.

I replaced the 105 amp stock unit with a 135 amp version. (NEED MORE POWER *grunt* *grunt*) Alternator #3 is still going strong at 214,000+ miles.

 

[eljefino]

Quote:

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My favorite is when my casette tape player died... I pulled it apart, bought some stuff from radio shack, poked around with a meter, and after about 8 hours I had an audio-in jack where I could plug in my iPod. Yeah i was too broke to buy a decent radio.

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We had a work truck, a 1 ton chevy, 1983 vintage (still had buggy springs and a solid axle up front? Plow package, incredibly jarring ride) that had an 8-track player. This was the kind with the two knobs but the knob fell off. Someone jammed a hose clamp in the slot where the knob belonged. It was kind of like a "granny knob" spinner but it worked.

Someone ripped the antenna off on a tree branch so it only got one country radio station. I started the heap up one night and Aaron Tippins "There ain't nothing wrong with the radio" song came on. Oh, the irony.

We got sick of this country stuff so i went to goodwill and got 8 tracks of:

-- Best of the Village people
-- Best of the Eagles
-- Best of Tom Jones
-- Jim Croce's greatest hits.

We listened to these four 8-tracks for a month and got pretty sick of them. My next hack was to return to that same thrift store and bought an 8-track to casette adaptor. The thing had a play/rewind/pause lever that ran a little geared transmission inside. It took "spin power" from inside the 8-track and converted it to run the casette tape. One AA battery moved the sound from the playback heads. Cute gizmo. A world of tapes was opened up to us.

Then my cousin, who worked with me, got a CD-player to casette adaptor and plugged it into the 8-track-to-casette thing. He brought a discman along. You should have seen this thing sticking out the dash! We were still using the hose clamp to control volume too.

 

[andyd]

VW bugs had a problem with 4gear. At about 110k, the trans would wear out and and they would pop out of 4th under acceleration. The solution was simple , a piece of 1x3 cut to fit between the shifter and the firewall. I hung the stick on some pieces of bicycle inner tube and drove the 66 bug for another 6 months

 

[kmrcstintn]

maybe not as entertaining as others, but here we go...(a bit long but the details are necessary for you to understand the ________ I went through)

I had a 2001 Ford Ranger XL (regular cab...remember this for later in the story) that I bought new and a few months later I upgraded the stereo system. I had a shop do the install in stages. then came time for the subwoofer and amplifier install...

the installers had to 'squeeze' a 10" JL Audio sub in a prefab enclosure that fits behind Ranger seats in a regular cab and 'squeeze' a subwoofer amp along the other half of back wall under the window

Came time to pick up the vehicle and as I am walking around the vehicle there I see the damage...the installers took 6" wood screws and forced them through the sheetmetal of my cab to mount the amp...the 'hacks' did the same thing with 6" wood screws through the bottom of the sub housing and through the sheetmetal through the bottom of my cab...

I was absolutely fuming and wanted them to repair the damage they did and they refused stating to the effect 'this is the way we do it...you didn't ask for clarification...you signed the release...etc, etc, etc' needless to say they didn't ever see my business or vehicle ever again...

this leads to the repairs...

I backed the screws that held the subwoofer as far as I could and shot silicone gasket maker in the holes and retightened the screws; I removed the subwoofer from its housing and selaed over the screws with the silicone gasket maker stuff and remounted the subwoofer...now for the outside of the truck...

I sealed the metal and the protruding screws on the outside and underside of the cab with industrial grade rubber undercoating compound...about 5-10 applications total; I only had the truck about 2 years before trading it fot a FWD vehicle for winter driving since I moved back to PA

 

[wilbilt]

This one wasn't done by me, so it really doesn't count as a confession.

I had a co-worker when I was about 19-20 whose vehicles were always down for one reason or another. This was generally because he was a large, brutish guy and tended to break things. We workied in a tire shop together, and he was great to have around for throwing truck tires up to the second-floor storage loft.

Since his primary vehicle (it was a Triumph GT-something that looked like a hatchback Spitfire) was down with a snapped-off something, he did what he always did in such situations. He rented a car from a "rent a wreck" outlet run by a former high-school teacher of his.

This particular wreck was a Chrysler Newport of about 1969 vintage, complete with a frame-mount receiver hitch and trailer-brake controller. (remember when people used to tow large travel trailers with fullsize sedans?)

Anyway, he had a problem one evening after heading to the beach with his latest girlfriend. He might have had another problem as well, but that is beyond the scope of this story. A few minutes after leaving the beach, heading uphill on a canyon road, the car lost momentum and came to a stop.

A quick investigation led to the realization that there was a large puddle of ATF running downhill behind the car. Even his limited diagnostic abilities allowed him to find the source of the leak, which was a rubber line that had blown off hte aftermarket transmission cooler installed in front of the radiator.

The hose clamp was still there, so he was able to reattach the hose and tighten the clamp. Now the problem was where to find some ATF on a SoCal canyon road at midnight on Friday.

Due to his penchant for plying the ladies, he always kept a good stock of fluids for persuasion purposes, so just happened to have a few gallons of cheap wine and a case of equally nasty beer in the trunk.

Rent-a-Wreck warranties notwithstanding, he proceeded to fill the transmission with wine. Upon starting the car, he was pleased to feel it go into gear. He stepped on the gas, and away they went. (His words the following Monday morning; "It just went Whhooosssh, and it started moving!")

Of course, after a couple of miles, the wine boiled and steamed out, and the process was repeated, etc.

After pouring in all of the wine and the last can of beer, he coasted into a 24-hour gas station followed by what had to be the worst-smelling cloud of steam known to man.

He filled it with ATF, and returned the car a few weeks later, with no apparent ill effects.

I don't know if that girl ever went out with him again.