get you home bodges

[SteveClem]

My old mini, back in the seventies was prone to blowing fuses. They all got gradually replaced by bits of silver paper out of fag packets...

Until the whole lot eventually went up in flames?

I got away with it...older and wiser now!

[morris van]

My dad had an Austin 7 when he started driving 70 years ago and a rear spring snapped on the way home from work and he found some house bricks and wedged some bricks between the axle and body and then drove home. On another car he couldn't get tyres and used to put sole that you put on the bottom of shoes on the inside of the tyres as the tyres had no tread.

[kennatt]

well since the imitations of statute on the have long passed, about 50 years ago I had the,then common failure, of the bottom trunion collapsing, the suspension dropped and fortunately it was at the usual time of slow maneuvering after a back seat session with girl friend ,now wife,Miles from anywhere and no mobile phones in those days .Cut a bit of wire from the top of a farmers fence,forced the suspension back together and wired it up. drove it home and to a breakers yard next day to salvage another. Would I do it today with the amount of traffic NOT AT CHANCE .

[cococola]

Loving the bodge stories..how creative we all are

[ndevans]

Loving the bodge stories..how creative we all are

And how lucky!

[geoberni]

Not quite a Get-You-Home, but....
In around 1976, when I had a wreck of a 1969 mk1 Escort (7 years old and already getting as hole in the floor!), I was having problems getting it through the MOT for the handbrake.
This was pre-rolling road and brakes were older readers will likely remember the Tapley meter, a thing that sat on the floor and the swinging weight inside it logged on a gauge how quickly the car slowed when the tester stamped on the brake (there's actually several on ebay at the moment - search Ferodo Brake Tester if you don't remember them ).

Normal braking was passing no problem, it was just getting the parking brake to pull on hard enough and fast enough to get the stupid swingometer to register enough G force.

So before I took it back for the 3rd time of having it checked, I tightened up the adjusters on the back wheels so they were binding just a little and it passed. I then loosened them back a bit when I got back home! I think I probably lubricated the cables at a later date.

[ManyMinors]

Wow, no one has posted in here for a while!

Latest bodge is on the heater valve. It's leaking out of the end where the spindle pokes out-the diaphragm must have split.
I have cut off the spindle with the valve lever pushed open as far as possible, then put a 3/16" screw with a fibre washer, smothered in blue gasket sealer, in the hole in the end of the valve.
No idea whether it'll hold yet, I haven't started the car up, but at least it's not actually weeing coolant on the garage floor anymore!

And, unsurprisingly, it doesn't work! Ran the engine for 10min, and it started leaking again.

I gave up with my heater valve and fitted the brass tap used on earlier models instead. No problem since .
You would think that a replacement valve could be made to a decent standard though wouldn't you

[cococola]

I gave up with my heater valve and fitted the brass tap used on earlier models instead. No problem since .
You would think that a replacement valve could be made to a decent standard though wouldn't you
[/quote]

I did exactly the same on my Convertible as 2 previous heater valves leaked

[Chipper]

well since the imitations of statute on the have long passed, about 50 years ago I had the,then common failure, of the bottom trunion collapsing, the suspension dropped and fortunately it was at the usual time of slow maneuvering after a back seat session with girl friend ,now wife,Miles from anywhere and no mobile phones in those days .Cut a bit of wire from the top of a farmers fence,forced the suspension back together and wired it up. drove it home and to a breakers yard next day to salvage another. Would I do it today with the amount of traffic NOT AT CHANCE .

I have an interesting booklet from 1973, entitled 'Help Yourself Duckhams Guide to Simple Car Maintenance', which in the last few pages has a section, "Chewing Gum and Baling Wire", describing various ingenious bodges to limp home, one funnily enough being mention of "Bracing a broken leaf spring with a post from a farmer's field and lashed to the broken spring with wire stolen from the same farmer's fence"!

The worst I've had to encounter with my Minor being the usual things related to having to bodge non-working electrical stuff (for instance, I only recently got the original heater blower switch working again after years of having bypassed it when it failed with another switch wired in parallel), whacking the fuel pump, numerous bandage/wire bodges in place of broken rubber hangers on the exhaust over the years, etc. Not to mention use of fibreglass in certain (non-structural) areas when I haven't been bothered to weld in new metal, or it's just to awkward/risky to weld there.

I was once driving back from a rally at Brooklands, when the propshaft-gearbox brass bushing wore out after a stint of speed along the M25/M20/A2, resulting in gearbox oil being sprayed all over the back of the car, plus an awful droning din! It got me home, but as I recall, I had to fork out for a recon gearbox and replacement propshaft soon afterwards.