What's your most creative improvised repair you did to get you and your car home?

Any of us who've owned and driven an old car for many years likely have a tool box behind the seat or in the trunk for when something unexpected happens. I invite you all to share your most innovative ways on how you've dealt with a breakdown so as to get you and your car back on the road. I'll start with mine as an example.

Back in the summer of 1987, I was going through Truckee while driving up to Lake Tahoe when I heard a horrid rattling coming from the engine in my Monte Carlo and I experienced a loss of power. I gently pulled off I-80 onto a side road where the engine stopped then I immediately looked to isolate what the problem was. One of the rocker arms had worn a groove into the side of the rocker stud to the point where it slipped off the top of the valve stem, hitting the spring retainer causing the valve keepers to pop out. The pushrod was also slightly bent. The gods of automotive repair must have been favoring me because the valve didn't drop into the combustion chamber. Unfortunately, I could only find one of the keepers; the other had already made its way down into the oil pan. I was hundreds of miles from home and I only had some rudimentary tools with me. Because of where the car chose to stop, I needed to get moving as quickly as possible; I didn't have AAA back then. I managed to get the one keeper back in place but I needed something to act as the second keeper. The only thing I could find lying around was an old aluminum can. I elected to cut off part of the lip of the can and fabricated it into a makeshift keeper. I then had two choices: 1) I could remove both rocker arms & pushrods for that piston, take out the spark plug then run the engine on 7 cylinders, or 2) I could straighten out the pushrod, reassemble the rocker arm and try running the engine that way. I figured I would start out with #2 and if I experienced a failure, I could always fall back to #1. After I put it back together, I ran just the starter to see what would happen. The patch seemed to be holding. I crossed my fingers then started the engine – It was running fine. I buttoned everything up then cautiously and gently started driving away. When I got up to ~45 mph, I had a failure. The rocker arm slipped and the pushrod bent again but the keepers were intact. I straightened out the pushrod again, buttoned it up and started for home again paying really close attention to the RPMs. I noticed that 45 mph was around 2,000 RMPs and… failure. So, I, again, straightened, buttoned up, and drove. From that point on, I kept the RPMs under 1,800… for a few hundred miles. Going uphill was really tedious, even tractor-trailers were passing me, but going downhill was much better; I could shift the transmission into neutral and coast. I know I had to have pissed off the hundreds of motorists who passed me as I was going really slow but, after several hours, I finally made it home.

So, lets hear it. What's your story?

Good heavens, where is the engine now? Good triage skills though.

Belle fortunately hasn't tested me that way (My other cars were newer albeit not New). Most of the issues Belle had in the past were EGR and driveability (vacuum) issues. Once I replaced all those years ago that took care of it. Typically if she had a problem she just refused to start. She is not a morning person. But again putting a somewhat stronger alternator in than the stock one helped a lot. She still complains on start-up. She does have her matching numbers knock on metal.

76Chevelle2Tone wrote:Good heavens, where is the engine now?

I took the offending head off the engine then to a head shop (if taken out of context, that almost sounds funny) for repair. They made it worse   . It's not like we're talking about something exotic like an Ardun head for a Ford flathead V8, it's an SBC. They claimed the cast-iron tower that the rocker arm stud was pressed into was cracked so they brazed on some brass then drilled and tapped a hole for a new stud. Not only did it look amateurish, the stud was at an angle that was completely different than the rest of the studs, as if they didn't have a proper drill press so they used a hand drill   . The reader's digest version is they wouldn't re-do the repair so I demanded the head back which they held hostage until I paid which I did using a credit card then disputed the charge; that whole thing took nearly a year to resolve. I took the head to a couple other shops who all said it was not salvageable. So, I had to acquire a replacement; yet another infuriating, expensive, time consuming experience that galvanized my distain toward "professional" repair shops early on   .

Anyway, I continued driving with that engine for about 5-years until one of the pistons broke its rings.

76Chevelle2Tone wrote:Good triage skills though.

Thanks  

It wasn't in my SE But a Full Bronco I had Was driving down the road and the rear axle housing cracked and had to ratchet strap it up and disconnect the rear drive shaft and finished the 7.5 mile trek home at 5mph got 75 ft from my driveway and the ratchet strap broke and which in turn locked up the rear GLAD God got me as far as did I just kept going, Pulling the rear thru the gravel