Dum Previous Owner Bodges?

[PK010]

Hi there - does anyone have any amusing/horrific examples of bodges by Dum Previous Owners (DPOs)?

There must be a few out there, given the propensity of various idiots and tightwads to get hold of our cars before they get into the hands of loving owners such as us...



PK

[Porsche_monkey]

Drywall screws through the rocker covers into a mound of expanding foam...interesting way to fix rust.

[Dantilla]

I like my car's DPO.

He never thought to replace the 30-year old fuel lines, resulting in an engine fire, resulting in the car ending up at an insurance auction, resulting in my opportunity to buy it cheap and stuff a 3.2 into the space formerly occupied by the extra-crispy 2.4.

Other than that small snafu, the car was maintained to a very high standard, and kept rust-free. I'm very happy with DPO!

[Rich Lambert]

On my current '66 911:

- Bottom edge of both outer rockers not attached to the car, no screws, no welds, just floating in space about 1/8" from the car.

- Windshield washer pump hooked into interior lights circuit...what's that noise when I open the door and why don't the interior lights work? No hoses to the pump or the reservoir, not attached to anything, just floating in the corner of the trunk held in place only by the wires.

- Headlight sockets miswired. This is actually the 2nd car I've owned that's had this problem.

- My 1st Porsche, a '66 912, had a big piece of smooth metal covering the entire floor pan welded to the bottom of the car. I never saw any rust from the top side, so I don't know what the deal was there.

Other than that, I've been pretty lucky.

[doublestuff]

So I broke my clutch cable on Wednesday, and yesterday installed a new one. In the process, I discovered this -




Found another one -





It appears that one of the PO's must have tried to jack the car up by the floor, putting a hump in the floor which I think cracked the floorboard, causing it to deteriorate over time. Nothing a hammer can't fix though -





Good as new! Well, almost...

[FinallyGotOne]

ok, this is what I was told, My DPU actually had a tranny problen and rather than a full fix, they turned the gears around so the dog eared gears were on the insides.
I got the car and sent it to the shop for the complete Tranny overhaul. It appeared the guy tried to save a few bucks by not replacing the gears! That's bad, the tranny is already dropped and out of the car. Other than that my DPO did carrera chain tensioners and pop-off valves and put the 17 inch cups on, all very well done, so think he was sort of hit and miss.

[fintstone]

Originally Posted by FinallyGotOne

ok, this is what I was told, My DPU actually had a tranny problen and rather than a full fix, they turned the gears around so the dog eared gears were on the insides.
I got the car and sent it to the shop for the complete Tranny overhaul. It appeared the guy tried to save a few bucks by not replacing the gears! That's bad, the tranny is already dropped and out of the car...

I have heard that reusing worn tranny gears like that is a Motormeister trick...maybe not done by PO at all.

[BK911]

How about welding in a new front pan without trimming it? It overlapped about 4" on each side, so it sat about an inch high in front and an inch low in the rear. Good thing his welds were crap so it wasn't to difficult to remove. Me: "What were you thinking?" Him: "Well, it was hard to weld to the rusty metal and that was the best I could do." Huh?? So please kids, if you don't know what you are doing, step away from the welder!!

[Rrrockhound]

On my previous 911, the fan adjusting spacers turned out to be homemade pieces of sheet metal that had been cut to shape. The door releases were repaired with pieces of hardware store threaded rod that had been bent to fit. The turbo spoiler was held on with some kind of mismatched sheet metal screws. There was nothing on that car that wasn't somehow jerry-rigged, faked-up or homemade.

[FenderBender]

My timing kept moving on me? Found a aluminum crush washer under the distributer nut. Yesterday found a copper washer and a aluminum crush washer under one of my MFI injectors? The oil pressure sending unit had both washers under the MFI pump hose banjo fitting instead of one on top and one on the bottom. I am sure that was a small oil leak. This was all done by a shop (pretty sure) the PO did not do any of his own service work. That is why he sold his MFI cheap.

[Iowa911]

Pedal cluster area repair created from thick plate steel. Gaps were filled with wadded up tin foil and RTV. Weather stripping from hardware store used for door seals. When I was removing sparkplug wires, found one extra. It was in with the others, just not hooked to anything. Expandable foam used to fill space behind rocker panels. Fortunately nothing to serious. All easily repaired.

[DaveE]

My SC is pretty much unmolested, except for changing the great Continental Orange to Guards Red. At least they did a good job of it. My Boxster however, some idiot took out the factory radio and put in this gaudy chrome-plated Pioneer CD player in it's place, with speakers in that little storage thing behind the seats.

[krd]

welding and brazing a 3/4" nut to the broken rear sway bar mount attaching it to the sway bar. WTF.

[sc_rufctr]

The things I found on the first service of my car... There were others but not worth mentioning. (9 years ago)

1. Gearbox/ Engine mount bolt (gearbox end) replaced with non metric bolt that was slightly larger than 12 mm. It looked like it had been hammered in I had to re cut the metric thread and insert a helicoil to fix.

Total cost of repair (inc M12 Helicoil) = $80

2. Four of the studs holding down the rocker covers had been "replaced" with bolts. At least they were M8 bolts so they didn't damage the threads. Is it any wonder oil was leaking onto the heat exchangers.

Total cost of repair = $20.00

3. The small oil lines going to the chain tensioners looked like they had been bent by hand and were unsupported but at least it had the update. Replaced both lines and brackets.

Total cost of repair = $130.00

The "return" fuel line from the fuel distributor was leaking at the joint left of the throttle plate, as you look at the engine. Replaced all fuel lines on engine.

Total cost of repair = $500.00 (est)

Bottom pipe of oil cooler on engine was slightly crushed. On first inspection it didn't look serious but the mounting plate of the oil cooler had been deformed enough so that it wouldn't seal properly. Replaced with new OEM cooler

Total cost of repair = $800.00

The two main oil lines going to the thermostat in the rear wheel arch had been cut mid way. A hose and hose clamps had been used to join the two halves together. It was leaking I'm still trying to understand this one. Maybe they had stripped the threads of thermostat and decided to try a different approach with the replacement... Who knows As it was there was an oil leak that dripped oil right in front of the rear wheel. A thin coating of oil covered the tyre!!!

Total cost of repair = $650.00 (does not include two new rear tyres)

[Hugh R]

You guys have obviously never owned a British car. Jury rigging is the standard on them. I should probably look into replacing my fuel lines on my 84, it seems to be a recurring theme here. How do you know if they're "bad", do the get hard and brittle?

[SteveinTO]

Wood screws jambed in different vacuum hoses. Odd parts randomly disconnected. Wire harnesses to nowhere.

A white paint job over ivory that was so bad the paint flaked off the rockers when I washed the car. When I used lacquer thinner to clean over-spray off rubber parts, the over spray got larger. I was removing the Rustoleum flat black enamel brushed over the over-spray. Talk about FUBAR.

[PK010]

fantastic guys - I'm glad I'm not the ony one that discovers things such as randomly disconnected equipment (washers, interior lights, cigarette lighter) and crappy parts being installed such as a battery too small to be secured by the clamp and the usual evidence of neglect (split roof due to the neighbour's cat sitting on it - yeah right!)...

PK

[ninesixfour]

Instead of using the handy jack plate someone jacked my car up on the oil line which you can see is almost crushed flat.

[PK010]

Keep 'em coming!

[RSBob]

Cheapo alarm wired to the clock hot lead - causing it to short, frying a significant part of the wiring harness behind the dash. Didn't notice dome light and glove box light did not come on when inspecting the car or figured burnt out bulbs - wrong - crispy wires - cigarette lighter didn't work and on and on... Used harness and install cost about $800. This was on a '72 T.