Most inane repair you've ever done?

[sugarwood]

This may qualify as the most asinine thread ever, but I am sure there are even better examples.

A few weeks ago, my seat belt kinked in the buckle
and I pulled it through and it totally reversed.

This was annoying since there was now a ribbon effect in the seat belt.

I finally got around to fixing it.
I spent 20 minutes fidgeting with this.

The trick was to use the little notch curve in the slot ends to overlap and fold it back over
Then just keep pulling bit by bit until the blanket has been flipped over.

[MBAtarga]

I've done the above multiple times on different cars. Most recently on a buddy's PU truck when he offered to drive on an errand. He couldn't understand how his wife had been riding shotgun since forever and never made mention that the belt was flipped backwards once buckled.

[fred cook]

Many years ago, I had a 1952 Ford 2 door sedan with a 289 engine. I was at a friend's house one day and the throttle linkage broke. To get home, I took a piece of wire from between the headlights, tied it to the carburetor linkage, ran it thru the firewall and tied the other end off on the door arm rest. There was enough slack so that I could hook my thumb over the steering wheel and pull the wire for acceleration. The only hard part was not pressing on the broken throttle pedal when using the wire/throttle! Can you say "Rubegoldberg"?

[wareaglescott]

Originally Posted by fred cook

Many years ago, I had a 1952 Ford 2 door sedan with a 289 engine. I was at a friend's house one day and the throttle linkage broke. To get home, I took a piece of wire from between the headlights, tied it to the carburetor linkage, ran it thru the firewall and tied the other end off on the door arm rest. There was enough slack so that I could hook my thumb over the steering wheel and pull the wire for acceleration. The only hard part was not pressing on the broken throttle pedal when using the wire/throttle! Can you say "Rubegoldberg"?

Dang my Cobra has drive by wire throttle. I had no idea you invented it! Nice work. LOL

[Brian Cameron]

Fixed a broken distributor points wire on my 72 volvo, with a twist tie from a bag of bread while driving from ontario to alberta via the USA. Car had started bucking and backfiring with 3 foot flames coming out the exhaust, i thought i was screwed, but traced it to the broken points wire. The makeshift repair took me from southern michigan to north dakota where i replaced it with some proper wire i found at an all-night truckstop.

[smadsen]

Manuel shift linkage on my mom's 1960 Rambler American would jam in 1st gear. Only happened on rainy nights when escorting someone I was trying to impress. The young lady would hold the flashlight whilst I placed a piece of 1"x2" on the linkage and smote it ever so gently with a 2 lb. sledge, knocking the offending piece back in place with a loud "sprong." Never happened in the daylight, Always at night.

[Coastr]

Anyone with children has had the seatbelt twist problem to solve many times. I don't know how they manage to mess it up, but they do.

[blucille]

clutch cable broke in midtown manhattan shortly after 9/11 (01), town was relatively quiet....had two senior co-workers with me, rushing to get to an appointment, was well-dressed.

lots of starts in first using the starter motor, shifts by rev-matching, at crawling-traffic speeds.

found a hardware store, with a big, open (paid) parking lot across the street.....rolled in, paid the guy for an hour. bought some vice-grips, found some wire ties.

Vice grips on the stub of the cable in the engine compartment, wire ties to keep the vice grips centered on the clutch fork. Held up for all the miles in the city and return to the suburbs....and a few days afterwards while I waited for parts to arrive.

got to the appointment 10 minutes late.

the car was a 1996 Saab 900 turbo. (GM/Opel-9-3 body style)

[OldSpool87]

Originally Posted by Coastr

Anyone with children has had the seatbelt twist problem to solve many times. I don't know how they manage to mess it up, but they do.

Three children and countless untwisting. Baffles me. So many bad words involved correcting.

[rokemester]

Don’t remember the car but it was a friends beater land yacht, think it may been an Olds 88. The right front headlight was smashed beyond our feeble abilities to repair so off to Radio Shack for the biggest flashlight we could find. 50 winds of gaffer tape and we were in business. Not one of my prouder moments!

[AG81]

1982 Mercedes 240 D alternator. Nuff said. I had never dealt with a "L" shaped bolt.

https://www.pelicanparts.com/catalog/SuperCat/3203/MBZ_3203_ELCHRG_pg1.htm#item0

[GothingNC]

The accelerator cable snapped at the gas pedal when I was on Staten Island traveling from NY to VA with my old 75 Beetle late at night.

Had enough speed to exit the highway but rolled into one of the worst places to get stranded. Found a piece of wire on the side street and used it to hook up the snapped cable to the gas pedal.

Had no issues for the rest of the trip to VA and picked up a new cable for $5 and installed it for the trip back home.

[LIRS6]

Originally Posted by Coastr

Anyone with children has had the seatbelt twist problem to solve many times. I don't know how they manage to mess it up, but they do.

In a rental in Paris, our son (9 at the time) manages to get the belt twisted and in trying to undo it is now to the point where it has retracted so tightly that we can't get enough slack to undo the belt, and he is literally having difficulty breathing due tight on his stomach. We pull over and in our pathetic best french we are frantically asking 2 gentlemen walking if they have a knife. One comes up with a nail clipper, which we use and after 10 mins of cutting manage to free our son. Scary.

Inane repair - rod for fuel door cracked, replaced it with a drill bit - shop thot it was quite creative.

Jason

[ADDvanced]

I recently spent about 4 hours upside down in the passenger footwell of my GF's 04 Beetle Turbo S to replace the blend door hinge pin. It involved using a vice grips and a screwdriver with about 1/4" of space to work with about 5" from where I could access it.

My hands still hurt thinking about it.

[fred cook]

Not a car repair, but one night we (the wive and I) were at a live theater waiting to see a show. All of a sudden, one of the small screws that holds the lens in my glasses decided to depart for places unknown. Being relatively blind with the lens, I went down to the concession stand and asked if they had a left over twisty from a loaf of bread or whatever. They did and I skinned the paper cover off the small wire and used that to hold the glasses frame together. Actually, it worked so well that I waited several days to go by the optometrist office to have the screw replaced!

[Coastr]

Originally Posted by LIRS6

In a rental in Paris, our son (9 at the time) manages to get the belt twisted and in trying to undo it is now to the point where it has retracted so tightly that we can't get enough slack to undo the belt, and he is literally having difficulty breathing due tight on his stomach. We pull over and in our pathetic best french we are frantically asking 2 gentlemen walking if they have a knife. One comes up with a nail clipper, which we use and after 10 mins of cutting manage to free our son. Scary.

Inane repair - rod for fuel door cracked, replaced it with a drill bit - shop thot it was quite creative.

Jason

Sometimes lifting the rear or front of the car will help unlock a overtight inertia reel belt. But I understand with a freaking out child that sort of patience is hard to come by.

[1QuickS]

I have three tales to tell:

• Driving from Chicago to Dallas in 1976 and got frustrated with the twisty roads and slow drivers while in my 67 Beetle. I mashed the throttle pedal with impatience and snapped the cable. I always carry parachute cord which I rigged from carb to just outside the driver's door. I could pull down on the cord which would open the throttles. Glad it wasn't raining or at night.
• Was on a project in Norway in 1980 and being driven to town in a rental Volvo 245 (wagon) with manual shift box and carburetor. Throttle cable snapped so I rigged manual choke cable to throttle lever arm & off we went; pull choke to accelerate...good for cruise control.
• Driving my girlfriend home at night in Dallas, 1982 in my 79 911SC & the fan belt broke or whatever. Again I relied upon my parachute cord and made a couple of wraps around both pulleys, tied a bowline in the end of one end & cinched it tight. With low RPM driving I got about two miles before I needed to repeat the patch. Got six miles that way, enough to get us both to her place for the night.

[sf911]

Many years ago in a badly overheating 535 BMW I discovered that the clutch fan wasn't engaging so I jammed a sock between the fan and the pulley and drove over 300 miles home without a problem . AC even worked !

[everforward]

For the life of me I still can't untwist it.😜

[NYNick]

The stick shift dislodged from my 912 in 1973 30 miles from home outside of Boston. By jamming it in and around, I managed to get it into second gear. Drove 30 miles at 5000 RPMs. Love these cars.