What roadside repairs have you done?

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I have always liked to keep a small tool bag in my cars, especially the daily drivers. It has come in handy a couple of times. I am assembling another tool bag for my extra car. Mostly cheap HF tools since they won't likely be used often. I am just wondering what roadside repairs others have done. This will help me decide which tools would be most useful in my small tool bags.

I have only done a couple of roadside repairs. A while back my drivebelt snapped for my alternator and water pump. I pulled of at the next exit and parked in a motel parking lot. I didn't have a cell phone back then (1990's) so I walked to a diner to use their phone and phonebook. I called a local auto parts store and they delivered me a new belt to the motel parking lot with no delivery charge. I was able to replace the belt with the very basic toolkit I had, using only a ratchet and sockets. Ever since then, when I replace a belt as a preventative measure, I keep the old one in the car.

More recently I had my check engine light come on when I was about 150 miles from home. I stopped at a nearby Autozone to have them check the codes. It came up as a cam shaft position sensor. I used my multimeter to determine that the cam shaft sensor was electrically ok. I pulled it out and found the sensor part was dirty with timing belt debris. I cleaned off the sensor and was on my way. I now carry a cheap codereader in toolbag for the car that I drive the most.
 
Easiest roadside repair? spare tire.

Hardest? Tie between using JB Weld for a water pump that had the metal rot through. Bandaid until I could get to a NAPA for a replacement. Parkinglot repair.

Second would be an ignition module in an old Explorer. I was able to clean out the connections and essentially "hot wire" a connection to get the explorer to run once more. Another parking lot repair
 
The alternator light came on one morning while I was driving to work.
1972 Toyota Corolla DeLuxe-you know-the one with the 1600cc engine (2TC), not the 1200 (3KT).
I loosened the pivot and adjustment bolts, undid the electric connections and removed the alternator.
I walked it 1/2 a block to the last starter/alternator shop on Manhattan;s West Side (9th Ave.).
Paid the guy the $30 and gave him the dead one.
I popped it in and wasn't even late for work.

THOSE were the days. Kira
 
While not on the roadside we were on a hunting trip driving the truck down an overgrown dirt road when some heavy wire got wrapped around the driveshaft. Fortunately I had a leatherman with me or it would have been a 2 hour ordeal. I carry a full set of tools, filter wrench, breaker bar, portable air compressor as well as oil and distilled water pretty much all the time.
 
Hub bearing assemblies that failed loosing the wheel, alternators, water pumps, fuel pumps, tensioner pulleys, brake lines, etc. [censored] I once fixed a strut that popped through the hood the mount was so bad on the side of interstate in the gheto
 
Back in the 70's I had a transmission failier on the way to work. The mainshaft tip had broken off rendering the transmission useless.
However I was about a mile away from a busness that reconditiond transmissions, and they had the Triumph 4 speed I needed in stock. But could not fit it.

I ended up walking to the transmission shop and carrying back, on my shoulder, a recon transmission an 2 quarts of gear oil.

The transmission was changed on the side of the road after the car had two wheels pushed up on a curb with the help of a passer by.

The so called recon transmission screamed like a banshee, so had to be changed again a few days later. But this time in my home garage.
 
On my 1969 roadrunner, while coming back from the Carlisle, PA show back around 2002, the radiator sprung a leak and I started getting odd symptoms with the lights dimming further. I added water once or twice and hoped to get home soon. About 2 hours from home I ended up pulling out the alternator and radiator and doing my best to locate the leak and slow it down. At that point the alternator was shot and I had no lights. Reinstalled the radiator, filled it with water and red line water wetter and somehow limped home at 50 mph over the next 2 hours at 2 am to 3 am. Spent the next few hours cleaning all the dried coolant off my engine bay. What a mess. I did get home though on Sunday morning without having to call a wrecker....driving along the Merritt Parkway and I-95 with no lights. My wife was a few car lengths behind me the whole way ensuring no one would run me down. I first noticed the leak on the show field, 6 hours from home. And it only got worse the longer I drove.

Back then I carried a spare alternator, coolant-heater-brake hoses, a starter motor, distributor, carb, voltage regulator/ballast resistor/coil, plugs and wires, timing light, and most anything needed to fix an electrical issue including a tool box. Never got stranded and did fix a number of issues along the road side.
 
Blew a heater hose at midnight in the middle of nowhere. I looped the good hose inlet to the outlet and got home, although quite freezing as I no longer had a heater.

Driving on the way to school in my 82 Cutlass Supreme, my carburetor some how sucked out a bunch of carbon from the carbon canister into the fuel bowl, which killed the engine. I had to rebuild my carburetor on the side of the road to get to school. Disconnected the carbon canister and threw it away after that.

Lost all oil pressure and got a rod knock 30 miles from home in a $50 1982 S10 truck that I had bought just a few days prior. I drove it home 30 miles with ZERO oil pressure and made it. Tore the 2.8L down and found out the only reason it lost oil pressure was that the oil pickup had just fallen off, for no apparent reason.
 
I make it a point to stay on top of thing to eliminate roadside repairs if that is possible with todays problems.
 
The Serpentine Belt broke after I parked to get Truck 'oil undercoated'.

The Shop Owner said he went to move Truck and the Belt broke.
I told him "there's a spare behind the seat with Breaker Bar and Socket.

ALWAYS SAVE THE OLDER BELT.
 
1987 I had a new Ford Bronco II XLT, I was driving from Toronto to Windsor to visit friends for a weekend. Driving down 401 Hwy I was getting a flat LR tire near Leamington. Cause: a leak from rubber tire valve that was cut at base from a sharp burr edge on the valve stem hole in the steel rim. I had the white painted steel wheels on this truck-let - my first ever brand new car.

I bent a paperclip around the base of the rubber valve and secured it back to the steel rim hub, this prevented the valve from bending out at highway speeds (centrifugal force) and stopped the leak. Made it to air pump and proceeded on my journey. Got the metal rim fixed up, new tire valve next day. Kept the paper clip device in the glove box for another day :eek:)

Weirdest part, the paperclip device stayed on at speeds up to 120km/h - and I never even had to style my hair like MacGyver!
 
On a winter day with nothing around but snow as far as the eye could see I had the ballace resistor go bad when I tried to start my 1976 Chrysler Volare with the 225 straight slant 6. A friend had told me that the ballace resistor goes bad on Chryslers so I had a new one in the glove box. I did not have any tools to unmount the bad ballace so I just slid off the electrical connectors on each side and slid on the new ballace and left it hang freely near the firewall. It got me home and I borrowed some tools and mounted the new ballace the next day. Shortly after that I bought a new spare ballace and put it in the glove box. It was still in the glove box when I sold it years later.

Once while I was in a local park I had an old 1972 Buick Skylark with a GM 350 V8 engine that would not start. I happened to have some model airplane fuel in the car and I poured a cap-full down the carb and it fired right up and then died. That confirmed that it was not getting gas, so I walked to a pay phone and called someone and had them bring a fuel pump (they mounted on the side of the motor and ran off a lobe on the cam) and some tools and I did the fuel pump and it fired right up.

When I was a teenager the family stationwagon starter died in the local grocery store parking lot in the winter with plenty of snow on the ground. I got a large sheet of cardboard, a rebuilt starter, and tools and replaced the starter while laying on the large sheet of cardboard surrounded by snow.

With my 1976 Olds 88, I had the pick-up coil wire on the distributor brake when I was 60 miles from home. I puled the distributor and took it home and got a new pick-up coil module (including the metal with tabs that the magnetic pulse travels through. I went back to the car (60 miles each way) and installed the distributor and it would not run. I took the distributor back home and ran it in my cellar by connecting it to a car battery, and spinning it by hand, and figured out that the gap between the new metal tabs and the rest of the distributor was too big, so I used the original metal tabs from the bad pick-up coil, with the new pick-up coil and got it to spark. I then traveled back to the car and installed the distributor and it fired right up.
 
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Had just picked up a trailer with 3 ton of 1.3 and was on my way out of Cannon Falls when a large flock of pheasants decided that our paths should meet and the truck inhaled and slaughtered 7, dislodging the brand new set of belts. Roadside change back to the old belts and duct taping of headlight. The rest of the day was spent trying to keep head out the window because of the remains cooking off under the hood. Simple socket set and end wrench set saved the day-trip.
 
Its been a really long time since I had to do ANY roadside repair... But in the past I've done flat tires, strapped an exhaust system back up with coathanger, spliced wires past a corroded connector, jumpered around a burned-out ballast resistor (don't leave the key in the "run" position while the engine isn't running if you do that, but its safe enough with the engine running).

The single biggest roadside fix I ever had to do was put a wheel (not just a tire...) back on a trailer after the lug bolts backed out and the wheel wedged up inside the trailer's fenderwell. The lug bolts and bolt holes were all buggered up, so they had to be chased with a die and tap, respectively. And had to round up a couple of bolts to replace the ones that were missing miles back down the highway. This was also a good lesson as to why lug bolts suck compared to studs and nuts- any movement of the wheel tends to keep loosening bolts, whereas with studs it doesn't tend to back the nuts off near as fast. And to this day, some 35 years later, I'm still grateful to the Muleshoe, TX farmer who pulled over and loaned me his tap-and-die set, fired up his truck-bed air compressor, and brought over an impact wrench. I'd have finally done the job with the tools I had, but his kindness saved me a lot of grief.
 
I did an alternator in the dark once. Good thing auto parts store was a block away and tools were in the truck.
 
Roadside:

Bypassed a blown heater hose.

Parking Lot:

Removed, took home to rebuild and re-installed the carb on my '66 Nova
Replaced starter on our 2002 Camry.


Those are all I can think of for now.
Oh, I had an ignition coil fail on me three blocks from home and four from the parts store. Walked to parts store to get a new coil and replaced it on my 78 Ford Fairmont. Another parking lot fix as I got the car off the road into a lot.
 
The only car that has left me truly stranded was my first, a 78 Cutlass POS Deluxe.

One day in east Texas it died on me, along 59, near Diball. Diboll? Overheated. A guy in a 280ZX(?) pulled over so quickly, that I feel certain I would have been killed had I gotten in that car. Fortunately, at the same time, the local Philip-Morris sales rep, who I knew, happened to come along and I got in his car. Tobacco saved my life.

Just last month the Lexus needed a new battery. I went to the auto parts store where they did not have a 10mm wrench in their tool box. And every bolt I needed to loosen, all 4, were 10mm. Fortunately, a guy stopped to talk to me for a second and I mentioned that I was trying to use some pliers to loosen the bolts, with no success. He pulled a 10mm out of his pocket, said "I'll be back in a minute" and went inside to do his shopping. When he came out a few minutes later the new battery was installed. Life saver. So.. carry some wrenches. And zip ties. That's all I got.
 
I had the voltage regulator fail hundreds of miles away from home. I was driving a w123 MB diesel, so it didnt need a battery or alternator to run. Drove about 160 miles no issues, though I used the headlights sparingly (thankfully it was at dusk). Got a regulator and changed it in a parking lot pulled up in a bump. Went home no issues.
 
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