I offer two, but I am sure that in the big wide world they are minor.
"Replaced" door sills on a Wolseley 6/80 with 2 x 2 timber.
My early Mini had a gearlever that dissapeared at about 45 degrees into the gearbox. Mini developed the knack of jumping out of third gear on the over-run. Solution - a plate with a hook attached to the heater housing that captured the gear lever when put into third. Pushbutton on the lever knob actuated a solenoid to release it. It worked very well. My engineer friends were impressed but the garage trade were appalled.
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In my penniless youth I had a well-worn Fiat 124 which had several bodges - one of the front damper mounts had corroded so a very large washer was used to block the hole - couldn't afford a new exhaust so used a baked bean tin lined with firegum and held on with jubilee clips - gearlever broke just above the ball joint leaving a 2" stub so pushed some copper pipe over to get some leverage.
On my recent Astra I disabled the EGR valve using a blank gasket cut from a Foster's can.
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>>On my recent Astra I disabled the EGR valve using a blank gasket cut from a Foster's can.
I'm confused.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=33714&...e
Number_Cruncher
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Can't a fellow change his mind - I did find out subsequently that Vauxhall can disable the EGR electronically on some models (other than mine) so I decide to do mine as well.
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>>Can't a fellow change his mind
Of course! Perhaps I misread the tone of your post, but I thought you were dead against the idea; hence my surprise when reading of your Fosters fuelled expoits!
I'm beginning to view the blocking of EGR on Vauxhalls as an enhancement rather than a bodge. I had intended to block the EGR as merely a diagnostic aid, but the engine runs so much better, I'm happy to stay rid of it.
Yes, you're absolutley right about the electronic disabling of the EGR. When I next visit my friend who has access to the latest ECU upgrades and Tech2, I think I'll ask him to do the upgrade.
Number_Cruncher
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On my old 80's Open Manta I used a couple of flattened baked bean tins to repair the notorious front wings. They didn't quite cover the holes so I used a bit of chicken wire as well.
Slap on the body filler and Bobs your uncle!
Rust came through approximately 2 weeks later. :-(
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Reattached a broken spade terminal to the heated rear window element on SWMBO's old mk2 Astra using a small quantity of Araldite packed with metal filings taken from an old copper heating pipe. My theory at the time was that the Araldite would take care of the bonding part, and there would be enough contact between the metal filings to take care of the current passing part. And do you know what, I was spot on! It worked a treat!
Even when this window was put through by the joyriders who finished this car off a few months later, the terminal still clung resolutely to what was left of the glass. I was proud of that one.
Cheers
DP
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A minor one -
On a Pug 405 with twin electric cooling fans on the rad. The head sheared off the stupidly small bolt holding one of the plastic fans on to its spindle, I could not easily get the rest of the bolt out so I glued the fan back on with superglue.
I tested it and expected the fan to fly off as soon as the motor kicked in, but it was fine. Was still okay 8 months later when I sold the car.
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Once cured a water leak through the rusty bulkhead on a Renault 12 with a sliced-open bicycle inner tube and some RTV rubber compound.
Worked a treat!
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Not particularly major bodge but a split fuel pipe on my Avenger was cured with chewing gum and elastoplast.
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Although not my bodge. I bought a six year old Chrysler 180 in 1978, and a year later a large pair of denim jeans, stiff with David?s Isopon, were found stuffed inside the near-side sill.
Must have helped with the previous MOT.
Clk Sec
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When rebuilding a mate's Triumph Vitesse MkII engine, the small-end bushes were too tight for the gudgeon pins.
We used 800-grit wet&dry to hand-ream each bush out. Took HOURS. But it ran very sweetly afterwards ....
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Once owned a ford capri with a manual wind open/close sunroof, (the type that slid back into the roof).When it "stuck" in the open position one day, i managed to shear off the splines in the handle trying to force it to close, so in the end, my friend cut me some perspex to fit, and we siliconed it into place! - dont know if they ever tested it or not, but it never failed an mot time with it! - and i never dared ask!.
Thats the problem with modern cars - nobody (everyday folk) seems to either customise or bodge them anymore! - probably due to too much disposable income and a willingness to pay garage bills!
Billy
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When I customised my Morris Minor, I used small plastic plant pots to "french" in my rear indicators - looked pretty good I have to say ;)
MVP
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Exhaust putty on a Mk1 Fiesta. Lasted from home until we were on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula! The rest of the tin did us until we got back home. Nearly 1,000 miles in total.
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Repaired a split stromberg carb' diarphragm with an elastoplast to get me home and then a bicylce tyre patch as a ( failed ) attempt at more permanent repair.
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I once 'fitted' non-OEM (branded) screen wash to my Merc - had a few palpitations for a while after - but it seemed to work ok! Mind you, I'm quite posh.
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Biggest bodge would have been after the MK1 Capri had its right hand side smashed whilst parked. Door, wing, front bumper and wheel from scrappy, doubled up on the door seal as the roof line was off to the left. Fiddled about with the track-rod end to get the wheel to point straight and off round the garages to see who'd give me the best deal for a trade-in. On doing the deal the salesman asked 'has it ever been written off?' my reply 'I don't know the full history of the car as I'm the fourth owner' - deal done.
Still feel guilty about that one sometimes.
little bodges:
L shaped bracket to hold a spark plug in a stripped hole
sheared a bolt changing a shocker - glued the head back on for the MOT.
wired up a split ball joint on a gear lever
used bus-bar clamps to fix a snapped leaf spring
elastic bands as a throttle return spring
currently have some wire adds to a fuse box to overcome electrical gremlins temporarily
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When we rebuilt my Dad's Fiat 126 (it seized after an hour of 65mph flat out driving on the A/M23), we had 1/2 a dozen assorted bolts left afterwards. I don't recall any difference afterwards though.
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Talking of Fiat 126s. Many years ago a girlfriend bought brand new Fiat 126 bis (water cooled version just before the Cinqecento came out. It leaked water into the car via a blanked vent below the windscreen and then down the wiring loom directly underneath.
I worked for a polymer compnay at the time and we made a liquid polymer that set into a solid but flexible material in about 20 minutes. I took the car to work one hot day and poured a beaker of liquid down the the hole into which the loom disappeared. The leak never reappeared.
The car was actually very reliable after the first couple of months of tribulation and I was very happy to sell to my boss for his wife whi had just passed her test. Next day the rear wiper motor failed.
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This was someone else's bodge but the biggest one I ever brought. About 20 years ago I looked at a Mk II Escort. It looked very tidy and drove well so I brought it. A year later there were rust stains appearing at the edges of the sills but nowhere else on them. When I poked around it turned out they were crafted from fence posts, overlaid with loft insulaion and covered with coke cans which had a thin skim of filler over them. The insulation was totally water logged! I had new sills welded on and the welder observed that the job must have taken days to do and it would have been far easier to fit new sills. Probably just cheaper!
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I, too, tried elastoplast on a Stromberg. Lasted about 20 miles.
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When i was in my teens i had a mk2 escort and the inner wing behind where the door bolts on was rotten and was almost non existent, at the time there were a load of Jager Lager cans littering my drive from me and my mates, so i cut the tops and bottoms of some of the cans,flattened them out and pop riveted them all over my inner wing, then undersealed it all then got handfulls of dry powdered dirt and threw it at the underseal a few times till it looked like any inner wing under the arch. I also had a mini with a great big hole in the subframe and filled it with cement, then undersealed it, in the days of my dads youth when you could drive around in any old tat, one of his mates had a motor with a knackered petrol pump so using the force of gravity he tied a jerry can to the roof with a pipe running down to the carb rather than buy a pump.
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I once ran out of brake fluid and filled the reservoir with cooking oil to get home.
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I met a village mechanic in a remote part of northern Tanzania who swore by brake fluid as a medicine. He used to snort it up his nose to cure colds. Liked a drop of illegally distilled konyagi too.
Edited by Lud on 24/01/2008 at 18:14
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> village mechanic in a remote part of northern Tanzania who swore by brake fluid as a medicine.
In Dar es Salaam I was watching a mechanic at work. His wornout spanner slipped and he grazed his knuckles. Before I could stop him he had whipped off the top of the brake master cylinder, dipped in a very grubby finger and liberally smeared brake fluid all over his weeping wound.
"Why did you do that? Don't you know brake fluid is poisonous?"
"Oh? No it isn't," he replied, "I'been doing it for yeeaz. It's what de docta does. Only his dawa is purrpull. Stings the same."
"Iodine solution is very different to brake fluid. Why not try some petrol next time? That should sting plenty," says I sarcastically.
"Good idea."
I then went on to explain about the importance of keeping the brake system hydraulics spotlessly clean!
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There's been so many i've forgotten most.
First car volvo 122s, front wings completely rotten, huge football sized holes behind headlights (6volt ex South Africa if i remember correctly), cut the bodies off 2 biscuit tins (unfortunately not Royal Scot why dont they make them anymore ''makes biscuit eating that little bit more special'') and filled and painted, perfect.
Seddon Atkinson 401, air cleaner stack broke, turns out that 6" or was it 8"drain pipe identical, so fitted and painted black. Had a look under old foden i used to drive and found number plate rivetted to wing to hold the filler in place.
Hillman minx estate, piston holed, got piston out of another engine and stuck it in, fine then.
Some of the naughty ones were in my banger racing days, rover 90's, westminsters etc (yes i should be shot) chap we knew would fit huge steel plates over the wings and doors and then another wing or door over that plate as disguise, made them quite indestructible.
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Austin 8: Having run my brother all over north Scotland chasing trains, the after bracket of the nearside spring broke away from the chassis; a similar trip to Wales was imminent, so immediate action was called for.
Halfords, several glass fibre repair kits.
Jack up by the car structure until correct ride height and bracket location was ascertained and carefully noted.
Scrape off rust.
Make large glass fibre pudding and apply to relevant area of chassis.
Lower away and guide bracket to correct position amidst the pudding and fill in as needed.
Allow to dry.
Road test, enthusiastically.
Proceed with holiday; no trouble then or until car was disposed of (that was the strongest part of the car!).
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Another memory, when i had the mk3 zodiac (executive with leather bucket seats...impressed?) and used it for towing, the rear leaf springs werent strong enough, so jacked car up, and forced in a coil spring cut in half over the bump stop to sit against the chassis rail above, good secondary suspension set up.
Funnily enough bangered that too when the mot ran out.
Replaced that with mk 4 zodiac, on one trip the radiator drain plug fitting dropped off, so as the radiator identical fittings top and bottom, turned it upside down, and filled the hole with P40 chopped fibre glass and resin, good stuff that.
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Briefly owned a 1400cc Peugeot 205 which failed its MoT because one of the rear rubber bump stops had come out and got lost. The rubber block was held in a pressed steel cup with a stud sticking out of the middle of it, and was meant to screw and unscrew in easily. Of course the cup had rusted to bits and the stud was rusted into its threaded hole. In the breaker's yard, when I tried to remove a bump stop from a similar car it too fell to bits leaving me with the rubber block in my hand. Cleaned the end and glued it in place on the ruins of the steel cup in my car, and urged the MoT man not to wrench it about but just note that it was there.
He smiled (I think) discreetly, and passed it. Good bloke.
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Singer Chamois (Hillman Imp) rear brake pipe rusted through so snipped the front-to-rear brake pipe, double folded it and crimped it with mole grips. Maximum brake effort at the lightest end of the car - nice.
Austin Cambridge. Evil SU fuel pump failed with worn points. Bypassed the points with a long bit of wire which I earthed on the gear lever whenever the engine coughed. Drove like that from Sheffield to Haslemere. 3 AA men defeated. Chrome on gear lever wrecked by sparks.
Citroen CX brake fluid return rubber pipe perished and was repaired in a field with much araldite and tinfoil.
Citroen CX handbrake pads "thickened" by adding 2p pieces to take up the slack in the ridiculous handbrake linkage.
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A Citroen CX radiator which I had recored and came back a few mm smaller so the bottom fixings wouldn't line up. I fixed a 6'' length of timber to the body on one end and just wedged the bottom of the radiator in. As I'm a perfectionist, I painted it black. It was still there when I sold the car.
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about 6 yrs ago i sold a Rover 600 with the n/s door mirror superglued in place, because i didn't want to fork out another £105 having not long replaced the drivers side one....they didn't take knocks very well and would sheer the metal bracket
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about 6 yrs ago i sold a Rover 600 with the n/s door mirror superglued in place because i didn't want to fork out another £105 having not long replaced the drivers side one....they didn't take knocks very well and would sheer the metal bracket
So that's why it fell off on the way home! Now I know, and I'll be round for my money back ---only kidding!
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The rubber bump stop on the rear suspension of my Ford Maverick came away from the steel that located it when the car was relatively new. After cleaning up the surfaces I restuck it with Evostick and it held firm for years thereafter.
20 odd years ago my Triumph Herald lost all its lights at night on a dual carriageway in the Midlands. I found that a wire to the headlamps on the underside of the bonnet had worn through its insulation on a sharp edge and was shorting everything. Had moaned to my girlfriend about all the junk she carried in her handbag but carried out a repair with said contents, I seem to think this involved some Micropore tape and even a cotton bud!
Have also had success with the old pair of tights for a fanbelt trick with a Talbot Horizon.
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I had an early SAAB 99 and was returning from a technical business trip loaded with electronics gear. The customer was in Shrewsbury and base was at Acton, W. London.
Travelling back down the M1, the engine coughed and cut out - luckily I was able to coast to the hard shoulder. After a few basic checks, I removed the distributor cap and touched the rotor arm - it went round. I removed the distributor and found the roll pin securing the drive dog to its shaft had sheared.
I pulled quite a bit of the electronics gear (Tektronix scopes and the like) out of the boot, hoping I might find a suitable pin. Eventually, I found that a Steadfast electrician's screwdriver (remember those?) was a really good jam-in fit in the hole. So, I hammered in the screwdriver on the kerb with a rock and very luckily, had a junior hacksaw to chop off the handle and remaining blade. A good squirt with WD-40 got the metal filings out of the skew gear.
I was just re-timing the engine with a Fluke multimeter when the police rolled up (all the electronics gear still strewn out on the hard shoulder). When asked about the problem, I couldn't resist saying I was just giving the engine a "Krypton tune" (remember those?). Luckily the police saw the funny side and were very helpful - and impressed when the engine started up first go.
Sometime later, I got hold of some 3mm Spirol pins (stronger than roll pins) and decided to fit it in the comfort of the Acton workshop. I must have hammered that screwdriver into the dog really hard - I had to drill it out to fit the Spirol.
659.
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When I was about 11 and I was out cleaning my dad's Marina one weekend I noticed he had just had a new exhaust fitted.
I decided that I was going to make sure this one was not going to rust through and so crawled underneath and painted the exhaust with the black mastic paint he had for protecting the sills.
Boy did it smell and smoke alot.
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Had to replace a leaking fuel tank on an Astravan with one from a scrappy, and found out (after fitting naturally) that it had a slightly different connection to the filler pipe, and an extra outlet (which I still have no idea what it was for)
So the extra outlet got blocked with body filler, and a new filler pipe was created from several short lengths of different circumference radiator pipe. Which regularly came lose and piddled petrol on my feet while I was filling up.
My dad also created new rear bumpers for a VW LT28 out of plywood, and got through an MOT!
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And I bet the car trade can out do the lot of us put together - from backstreet cowboy to glass palace big franchise.
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Quite right RT. I was hoping this thread would enlighten us but they seem to be shy.
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After a lot of nagging trouble, replaced girlfriend with wife. Should have done a better job of it really as the nagging just got worse and now the cost to fix it is just too much!
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Recently bought a 1988 Mazda 323 for my daughter's first car. Radiator water the colour of very strong tea. I fitted a replacement radiator and flushed it out but it still insisted on getting warm around town until the themostatic electric fan cut in. Solution was to pull the connector off the fan temperature sensor. Now fan runs continuously, and engine stays at a nice temperature. I may reconnect it in winter (it's high summer here and temps are often in the mid 30s (°C)).
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Main battery to engine earth failed on my Vauxhall Victor. I simply attached one of my jump leads to the battery and the other end to the engine. Just stuffed the excess cable under the bonnet (There was enough room to store a sherman tank uner the bonnet in those days). Ran like that for 6 months when I replaced it with some heavy duty cable the electicians at work were using to make a 3 phase 60 amp supply for the new mainframe computer.
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dr.chris, leaving the tights aquisition to our imaginations? jag.
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Unable to cure or find the leak in my Ford Anglia,so punched a hole in the floor pan to let water out.Hole is probably still there but the vehicle has rusted away by now.
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My neighbour, a professional mechanic was a terrible bodger. He'd just bought an accident damaged Fiat Marea with a caved in rear end. He managed to pull it out to some extent with a winch, but it still looked a mess. He then proceeded to use bits of old door skin and plasterers beading to get the body lines back and then skimmed it all over with filler. Rubbed it all down, another coat of filler and it looked great after painting!
Edited by aahbarnes on 25/01/2008 at 08:57
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Pop rivets and thin sheet steel. The number of old bangers I held together with such simple technology.
But then I bought a set of gauges, hoses and a welding torch, and a couple of gas cylinders (oxygen and acetylene) of undetermined providence.
In time they were supplemented by a half decent mig set up.
But pop rivets, 1/8th part drills (3.2mm now) and any metal sheet you could find - those were the days!!
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There's some great ones here, I hope everybody using wood/fibreglass/cement (loved that one) for structural repairs remembered to cover it with metal foil tape before undersealing to fool the MOT testers magnet.
When everyone was fitting pop-up sunroofs in the early 80s it was a good source of steel plates - I even managed to produce a couple of repairs that were good enough for a legitimate MOT pass. No wonder kids today have time to spend pimping their cars, with all the galvanizing rust is almost unheard of.
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Not a bodge exactly. In fact it a case of totally ignoring a problem. On my Triumph Spitfire umpety ump years ago, the O/S front brake ceased to work. The N/S was OK though and for about ten months I drove it like that. You just had to remember to give it a bit of right lock when you hit the brakes ! I really shudder to think of that now.
Then there was a friend ( no not me ! ) who steamed a label off a beer bottle because it happened to be the same colour as that years tax disc. Again, it would now be taken rather more seriously.
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My first car, 1977 Viva HC, around 1988. Much rust in sills, no real surprise. Took out the rot, stuffed in newspaper, and made the surface even(ish) with papier mache. Painted with black hammerite. Off to muddy car park to perform reverse wheelspins to give the 'new' sills a copious coating of mud, put the MOT tester off the scent & discourage close inspection. Worked a treat!
One non-car bodge was when a friend and I repaired holes in the hot water tank in our student house with chemical metal. Not such a terrible or noteworthy event. How the holes got there is though- they mysteriously appeared shortly after my friend fired a gas-powered harpoon gun into the tank. That, however, is another story...
Alex.
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On a Mondeo, I bluetacked the coolant drain plug in place as I couldn't get it to hold any other way. On the ZX the locknut was missing for the clutch cable adjustment, meaning the adjuster nut kept undoing, so I bluetacked that in place as well!
Edited by pendulum on 25/01/2008 at 13:55
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The biggest bodge I've owned (but didn't commit) was on my first car when I was young, and inexperienced, and naive when it came to car buying. The engine breather and filler cap of the 20-year old 1936 Wolseley were stuffed with rag to try to contain the smoke which resulted from one of the pistons having a hole in the top!
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Rear brakes faile don Mini estate due to exhaust hitting petrol tank and breaking fuel pipe and starting a fire.
Complete rear brake system inoperable so no brakes at all - apart from handbrake.
I has a tub of old bolts in car and found one which exactly fitted the pipe outlet in the union under the bonnet which lead to the rear barkes. Inserted bolt so no rear brakes.. but front ones would work.
Drove gingerly home (one of the rear runner suspension cones was rather badly damaged in the fire--- fortunately it never spread to the interior).
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On the theme of brakes I've bored you with this one before.
The rear brake cylinders leaked brake fluid all over the fairly new brake shoes which absorbed the oil pretty well. Those were the days I had no money and after fixing the offending cylinder with new rubbers (does anyone do that now?) and some discussions with my dad we decided to burn off the fluid. The reasoning being that brake shoes could stand heat !!
We got a baking tray, filled it with petrol and plopped in the brake shoes. Stood back and threw a match in. After the blaze, I wiped down the shoes to remove all the soot and then sanded the friction surface. It was a brilliant job and the shoes lasted for ages - in fact I probably sold the car with them.
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In mid-fifties Malaya, my armoured Jeep snapped a fanbelt on the egde of the jungle, where Communist terrorist were suspected (4 killed there not long after). One of my Special Constable escorts sacrificed a long lace from his jungle boots which, tied tightly and then wetted, lasted a few miles to the estate workshop.
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fibreglass to repair ( well replace really ) a rusted floorpan ( think that was a Renualt 5)
Gearlever sheared off, so used a hanger pole from a wardrobe (fiesta)- until I had time to go to a scrap yard and cut a new one off a transit and bolted it to the stub left
Changing pads on a Kadette , the caliper would not close enough , so also fitted old pair on top to bridge the gap.. worked great and passed MOT
Broken exhaust repaired with a coke can and clips to get me home, then used a cut off
piece of scaffolding for a longer term repair (cit BX)
Not a Bodge... drove the BX for a year without using 3rd gear , as it was knackered
Next BX ... broken rear quarter rep[laced with perspex ( frosted!)
Edited by colinc57 on 25/01/2008 at 16:28
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1. Morris 1000 Traveller - repaired rotten woodwork with cement when parked next to a building site.
2 Austin 1100 - broken throttle cable. Fiddled around under bonnet to connect choke cable to throttle linkage - drove for some time with hand throttle! Also as the choke cable had a twist to lock feature I had a rudimentary cruise control.
3. Cortine Mk3 - seat back broke (dont ask!) - had it propped up with half a pool cue for about a year - came in handy when starter motor took to jamming regularly - could beat it with the pool cue to unjam it (shades of Basil Fawlty)
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