hey everybody, what is the best jerryrigged fix that you have seen on a car?
I have seen a fender on a chevy pickup that had cracked and someone had stiched together with tie wire. there is also my friend that had the fan motor die on his taurus, and he had another motor that was identical other than the output shaft, so he jb welded the motor on to the fan. I have also heard of people driving down the road with out a steering wheel, with two vicegrips clamped on to the steering shaft. can't think of any more right now. anybody have any others?

 

hmmm..this is a tough one. having run on a national racing series, i have seen jerryrigs like you couldnt imagine. i saw an 8 second mustang with a parachute, and instead of running the pull wire through the car, or having an electric activator, he had wire wrapped around the lock pin, and had it fed up over the car through the sunroof, attatched to a pull start handle from a lawnmower.

 

they can make an 8 second car, but they are to lazy to run the parachute line outside of the car???
saw this one in a magazine. they had a dodge pickup that had the fuel line clog up. instead of blowing out the line, they ran an aluminum line from the tank, out to the outside of the truck, along side the rear fender, door, and front fender, and into the carb.

then there is the method of driving with a broken axle- you take a pole and tie it so that it runs across the wheel and is tied back to the frame, so that the wheel can't work out of the axle tube. I have seen that one a few times.

 

Saw this on a show called 'Junkyard Wars', 2 teams made cars for a drag race. One of the teams car had a problem and only had reverse gear. So they drove the first race backwards. Then one of the team members said, "let get this thing going forward with the reverse gear". Everbody on the team and in the show where sratching their heads trying to figure how. Then this guy at the race track in the stands, I guess got tired of waiting, went over to the rail, and yelled to the team to flip the rear axle. Brillant, flipping the axle over making the right tire the left and visa viresa, make the tires turn in the proper way for the car to go forward. I don't think this guy even got a thank you.

 

hahaha...the external fuel line is the greatest ever....thats amazingly dumb!

 

one would think it would be easier just to follow the old fuel line than run it out side the truck- not to mention loads safer, and these people publish a Four wheeler magazine!!!

I was rewiring the ignition system on a 53' F600 flatbed that we got free a few years back, and much of electrical system was wired together with 12 gauge Romex house wire. it was even still in the plastic sheath, even when there was only one wire in use. of course, I won't talk about the desklamp dome light with a sixty watt bulb...

there is also our 67' Dodge M400 flatbed- both outside door handles are missing, forcing you to reach inside the door to open it (we have had this truck for over 17 years, and drove it across the country this way) the dipstick sits on the dash after the tube for it broke and was consiquently pluged with a hickory branch, one interior door handle and a window crank were lost and replaced with pairs of vicegrips, and the headlight switch consists of two wires and an aligator clip.

 

Found two more in magazine coverage of the baja 1000- these could actually be handy one day-
A CV boot made out of a shop towel
welding an open end wrench on as a splint to fix a broken axel housing

 

hahaha....some of those are great! american ingeuity, right?

 

what is really amazing to me is that this post has gone this far with out the words "Duct Tape"!!

 

well..i suppose if you cant laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at...

i have a non-ford street stock drag car, and for the last few years, i ran a small national circuit...well, during the last event of the season we were at norwalk raceway park on ohio, and there had been tornados in the area...we were racing into a 60 mph headwind, and my 1983 dodge didnt like that....the wind was so bad that i was losing about 2 tenths in the QM...it even ripped the hood off of a pro stocker!

so...we covered the headlights, and grille with duct tape trying to direct the air over the car instead of through the grille and into the sunken headlight bezels...i picked up abuot a tenth from that..but i have alot of frontal area...so it didnt do nearly what i had hoped...[:@]

hopefully you guys wont mock me too much....for using duct tape, or racing a 1983 dodge