Bank Holiday bodge

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Tue 1 Jun 2004 20:59
Bank Holiday bodge - Clanger
Set off on Friday to see my eldest who lives near Nottingham. Having failed to slow down sufficiently for a rather aggressive speed bump, driver, passengers and bystanders were rewarded with the full-throated vintage roar and keen whistle that is characteristic of a turbo-diesel engine with an exhaust snapped for'ard of the first silencer. With a tonne of caravan to pull back to Yorkshire and consequent requirements for full throttle so as not to hold up my fellow road users, it was obvious that some bodgeing was required to protect the hearing of the car occupants and passers-by.

A can of mushy peas (bought specially for the purpose) provided a sleeve to fit inside the silencer and partly support the front pipe, and a packet of resin-coated silencer bandage sealed the gap between pipe and box. An old Jubilee clip held the ends of the bandage on and the whole nasty mess lasted in relative silence until a mile or two from home.

It's now 35 years since I started cobbling stuff together to keep my cars (and those of my mates) on the road and still I enjoy the challenge. The exhaust centre section is on order and will arrive tomorrow. More supine therapy ahead; I can hardly wait.

Anyone else out there still enjoy the odd motoring bodge, or have you forsaken such innocent pastimes for the thrill of console games or gardening?
Hawkeye
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Stranger in a strange land
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Tue 1 Jun 2004 21:21
Bank Holiday bodge - Phil I
Only piece of toolkit nowadays is tyre pressure gauge plus can of Tyre Weld. Can however still recall the joy of touring in France in A40 Farina and constructing at roadside with tinsnips a ball bearing carrier from tin can for a collapsed n/s rear wheel bearing to carry on with our holiday. Had sufficient tools and bits & pieces in the box to carry out major overhaul at the drop of a hat. Happy days - only open bonnets nowadays to check washer and oil levels.
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Tue 1 Jun 2004 21:54
Bank Holiday bodge - No Do$h
Hmmm....

1988, Poole Arts Centre and Transvision Vamp are in concert. A young No Dosh finds himself in close proximity to a fair maiden from Weymouth and spends an enjoyable evening .........Yes, well, quite enough of that......... at which point, with the, ahem, lady having missed the last train home, he gallantly offers to drive her through the torrential rains across Dorset in his 1979 VW Polo 1.1GLS (Azoren Blau Met. with tan interior - nice!).

Halfway across the middle of nowhere, hoooooooge puddle is negotiated at an unsuitable speed, ripping the rear silencer off.

After 10 minutes of wading back and forth, the interior of the car frosting up nicely, thank you, I locate said silencer and rattle and roar my way to the next layby.

After some rummaging in the boot I locate a wire coat hanger and a tatty old towel, used to wrap up smelly jack russell cross after energetic walks... ah, much healthier pastime for a young man. Carry on

Thank you.

Tear towel into strips and fashion a bandage of sorts to wrap around the s***tered join. Use coat hanger to hang the dripping, rusty and heavily dented silencer.

Heave soggy self back into Polo and drive in grim silence (bar the rattling of a thousand maniac babies from the exhaust) at altogether daft speeds in to Weymouth station, to be met by non too impressed father of fair maiden.

She never did call.

Exhaust lasted about 150 yards after the drop-off. I gave up at that point. My parents advise me that they heard me coming about 5 minutes before I got home. Frankly I was past caring.

Ah, they don't make 'em like they used to.

ND
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Tue 1 Jun 2004 22:13
Bank Holiday bodge - Hugo {P}
Transvision Vap eh? I saw them at Leicester Poly!

The best one was fixing a friend's exhaust on his Mk 2 escort using 2 jubilee clips, an empty can of cat food and some exhaust paste.

The most difficult part of this repair was force feeding the cat to get the can! However the car did purr very nicely afterwards.

I have had plenty of exhausts re welded where I used to work in Loughborough. I think one section was fitted about 3 times.

H
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Tue 1 Jun 2004 22:48
Bank Holiday bodge - THe Growler
There's always the one about getting your gf to take off her panty-hose so you can use them as a fan-belt replacement....no...no...I never did....
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Tue 1 Jun 2004 22:51
Bank Holiday bodge - frostbite
getting your gf to take off
her panty-hose


Never got any posh girls like that in my car.
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Wed 2 Jun 2004 00:21
Bank Holiday bodge - malteser
No wonder your nom-de-plume is "Frostbite" then - or was it just the girls who suffered that affliction?
Roger in Spain
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Tue 1 Jun 2004 22:57
Bank Holiday bodge - Aretas
Many years ago I had a leak from the radiator header tank whilst in Italy. Araldite filled the hole well enough to get us home.
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Tue 1 Jun 2004 23:03
Bank Holiday bodge - Robin Reliant
Once straightened the front of a Marina out by tying it to a tree and reversing slowly amid some alarming creaking and banging. This was nescessary in order to fit the new radiator, the original having been damaged at the same time the front of the car was re-shaped.
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Wed 2 Jun 2004 00:55
Bank Holiday bodge - Pugugly {P}
What I need to know is what happened to the mushy peas.

The biggest bodge I ever had was trying to read BMWassit's number from the key fob in a force 10 with a match.....when SWMBO forgot to petrol in our old 325.
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Wed 2 Jun 2004 01:13
Bank Holiday bodge - Clanger
"What I need to know is what happened to the mushy peas."

Transferred to a plastic container pending consumption today alongside an entirely health-free pork pie, said mushy peas and mint sauce - in a cereal bowl.
Hawkeye
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Stranger in a strange land
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Wed 2 Jun 2004 09:37
Bank Holiday bodge - patently
The biggest bodge I ever had was trying to read BMWassit's
number from the key fob in a force 10 with a
match.....when SWMBO forgot to petrol in our old 325.


Yes, cunning trick of theirs to put the phone number in small silver lettering on a silver background...
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Wed 2 Jun 2004 10:06
Bank Holiday bodge - Cliff Pope
I knew someone years ago with an old Alvis. He once did a crankshaft regrind at the roadside. A big end went. It had been knocking for some time, so he had a new set of undersize bearing shells ready.
He stopped, told the passengers it would be a short while, then pulled the sump off, pulled the piston down out of the block, and reconnected it hanging downwards. He clamped a bit of fine sandpaper under the big end cap, and then cranked the engine endlessly, progressively switching to finer sandpaper until the journal was ground down to the new size. Then refitted everything and drove off.

I read of a travel account of a long taxi ride in Mongolia where the driver stopped and removed a shot piston completely. The engine made a funny noise, but it got them there.
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Wed 2 Jun 2004 11:21
Bank Holiday bodge - Mapmaker
First W123 did 3 months & 5,000 miles with an exhaust front pipe held together with 2 jubilee clips, some exhaust paste & a baked bean can (eaten especially for the purpose). The plan was to put it through an early MOT, see whether it failed on terminal structural rust - and if not, then deal with the missing piece of exhaust. As regular readers will know, a bunch of toerags meant that I never had to deal with either of these issues.

And somewhere in Wales is a Volvo 440 belonging to a friend who is just about to change car. I am pleased to say that a similar repair (but with Kidney Beans rather than Baked Beans) to hold the silencer onto the mid pipe has held up for 6 weeks & 1,000 miles so far. I'm particularly impressed with that one, as the two had completely parted company, and the stump on the silencer is barely a quarter of an inch.

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Wed 2 Jun 2004 19:17
Bank Holiday bodge - Pugugly {P}
It was only 3 burnt fingers later that I remembered the little torch in the glovebox...
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Wed 2 Jun 2004 11:17
Bank Holiday bodge - THe Growler
I think I posted once before something someone sent me. The only toolkit you'll ever need is WD-40 and duct tape.

The WD-40 for things which should move but don't,
The duct tape for things which shouldn't move but do....
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Wed 2 Jun 2004 11:28
Bank Holiday bodge - helicopter
I once fixed a leaking petrol pipe on a Hillman Avenger with chewing gum and elastoplast. It lasted around 6 months before I replaced the pipe.
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Wed 2 Jun 2004 11:58
Bank Holiday bodge - Mapmaker
Worth a read
www.steele3.freeserve.co.uk/stupid.html if only for: 'Dave writes: I have a friend with a 1968 Land Rover who decided that the required plating on the chassis was a little difficult to reach with the arc welder that he had. Still, he managed to create some very impressive mig type welds with a tube of silicon sealant and a tin of Hammerite. This actually passed 2 MOTs until it failed quite badly on what the inspector described as "squidgy welds".'
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Wed 2 Jun 2004 14:22
Bank Holiday bodge - frostbite
Way back in the days of steel bumpers - Sellotaped two cars together and towed for a surprising distance with just one stop for renewal.
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Wed 2 Jun 2004 22:45
Bank Holiday bodge - Hugo {P}
I tried towing a Renault 18 belonging to a friend of mine.

I tied my end to a rear towing eye

The silly idiot had tied his end of the tow rope to the front bumper!

Honestly, there was so much junk on the front of that thing that he could have tied it to.

This lasted about 200 yards.... and yes he did need a new bumper.

To this day he still blames me for the incident!

I heard of a tale from someone who used to buy and sell Austin Cambridges and Morris Oxfords (Farina style). Apparently he was given a large commercial trailer that would normally be towed by a truck or similar, but he needed to remove it from the premesis. He took the boot off a Cambridge and simply placed the front of the trailer in the boot space and got on with it. The weight of the trailer apparently was enough to keep the front in place.

H
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