When I installed new outer door handles I did something to mess up the locks...now they don't work from the outside. After hours of trying to fix them and not wanting to lock myself out of the car, I just took the rods out and put the door panels back on. Now the doors can't lock. I have plans of doing it right eventually :rolleyes:

 

None of these were mine! :blueangel: But the previous owner list is:
Of the four shocks on the Vette, no two were alike.
Shifter console was made of plywood. :crazy:
Kmart carpet throughout.
Headlight bushing made from antena bezel nut.
77 engine compartment wiring harness in a 76.
Door panels made of plywood covered with naugahyde.
Many nuts, bolts and screws missing.
If it took 5 bolts to hold something on, only 3 were used!
Many parts missing. May have been a parts donor car.
The list is endless! :mad

Greg :seeya


[Modified by 76greg, 10:05 AM 6/20/2003]

 

Well, my brake peddle spring broke, you know the one that is buried way up under the dash. With out the tension of this spring it allows the pedal to fall back on the brake light switch which keeps my brake lights on. I am using a huge rubber band to keep the pedal off the switch. I have a replacement spring to put in when I muster up the will power to dive back under the dash and take the brake peddle assembly apart for repair. :cry

 

My 82's oil sending unit wouldn't clear my SuperRam intake. I used a series of brass fittings to mount it in a seriously odd position. A few weeks down the road I decided to fix that Bubba project. When trying to remove the unit I broke the brass fitting going into the engine. I tried a special tap to remove it, but it ended up cracking the block behind the inake!! So I used wire shaped into a sort of bucket to put into the hole and filled it with JBWeld. I then mounted the oil pressure sending unit above the filter. There's a Bubba fix gone bigger Bubba for you.

 

I have true dual exhaust on my '78 and an exhaust hanger on the driver's side broke so I used a wire coat hanger to tie it up, otherwise it's only support would be the very end by the muffler and the header.

The previous owner must have mashed up his spare tire holder because the passenger side has a different muffler from the driver's, and the spare tire holder was repaired badly so it didn't line up with the lock and was held up by some rope. I just decided to take that out altogether.

 

Other than using JB Weld to fix my box seat box I have tried to avoid being to Bubba with my car. However, when I bought my Vette it had been treated very badly by previous owner(s) and had a plastic tie wrap holding the muffle up on the passenger side :lol: .

 

Two minor items:

1. Inside rear view mirror....flopping all over the place. Ball socket obviously worn. Stuck a small piece of styrofoam cup in the socket, tightened it and mirror is rock solid and can be adjusted normally. You would never know it was a bubba fix, unless you took it apart. Saved buying a new one from Eckler's!

2. Hood release cable broke....this is the "cross the hood" section. Broke right at the passenger side end. Fixed with a length of picture hanging wire (heavy, thick version of the cable), attached with the guts of a "Marr connector". Used two separate strands intertwined for strength, screwed together tightly. Doesn't look great (if you bother to look at it), but functions perfectly. Had a hell of a time getting the hood opened when it broke!

I figure these two "bubba fixes" saved me at least a $100 in parts alone! :yesnod:

 

Well this is cool. I didnt expect to get this many replies to this post. So I see alot of us have a bit of bubba in us. Its been great reading these. A few of them really made me laugh :lolg: but i wont say which ones. Keep em commin.

 

Man thats a total trip havin the battery fallin out from underneath yur car as yur goin down the road. That musta been a real sight. :eek:

 

That crappy black tape was factory installed and correct for your car. Crappy looking yes, but it wasn't BUBBA, it was GM / UAW. :D :cheers:

 

Oh Yeah! How could I forget what LT-1 Larry refers to as my "Dubba Bubba" repair :rofl:

I replaced an aftermarket expansion tank (Bubba'd from previous owner) with a new aftermarket expansion tank.

I have the new factory style one now, but don't want to crack the A/C lines just yet to get it under the fender!


[Modified by isosceles, 9:28 AM 6/21/2003]

 

Had to break my radiator shroud in HALF to remove it and now it is held together with small brackets. The glove box **** rattles, so I folded up a piece of paper to act as a anti-vibration seal. I think that's it. :bb

 

WOW, Bubba must be a busy guy or gal because he or she has worked on my 73 for 30 years (aint no way to list this type of dedication on one page). :smash:

 

umm, I'm never going to be able to stop adding to this list. Just this morning I had to cut off my metal pump to carb fuel line in 2 places and run a short hose between them.
The previous owner epoxied the end of that line into the fitting that fits in my Q-jet. :eek: I as soon as I tried to loosen either fitting, I created a fuel leak where the big fitting goes into the carb. I knew I had to replace that washer, but no other way to get it off than to cut it!
I'm going to order a new factory style line. :smash:

 

A really major Bubba fixed I am ashamed to admit. After days of working on my 4 port washer pump I gave up. It now has a three port pump. Maybe one day I can find one that won`t require a bank loan.

 

Here is a short list of what Bubba did to my car before I bought it:
Previous owner said that he had "rebuilt" the engine after it had spun a bearing. after partial teardown I found that the "rebuild" did not include a new timing chain (the 138000 mile original only allowed about 10 degrees of slop, so why change it? ).
I found that he had tried to put the harmonic balancer back on but forgot that there was a keyway, when it wouldn't go in he just got a bigger hammer (the large dents in the front of the balancer and the "new" keyway that was cut halfway into the bore in the center of the balancer, and the mangled woodruf key were all dead giveaways). :eek:
He said that "when he had the engine apart that the pistons were all ok so he didn't replace them". I guess he didn't bother to check the wrist pins since the #1 wrist pin wrattles like crazy. (I have a sneaking suspision that this wrattle was what Bubba had diagnosed as a spun bearing in the first place).
The fan shroud had been cut in half to facilitate removal, but the bottom piece was missing.
Every single duct, register, boxes, cables that had anything to do with the air conditioning/heater under the dash was broken in one way or another (lucky for me that Bubba didn't own a shop vac though, as I was able to find amost all of the broken pieces under the carpet).
The horn contact was "redesigned" with little chunks of foam rubber inside to replace the broken nylon insulators. (the horn worked about 50% of the time when you wanted it to, and about 80% of the time when you didn't want it to).
The 3 pronged plug to the back of the sealed beam headlight came apart when Bubba was working on them, he put all the wires back but not in the correct holes. (It took me weeks to figure this one out).
Three of the brake calipers were stainless sleeved, I guess he figured that "3 out of 4 aint bad".
Many of the interior fasteners were non-existant.

I think my car is about 85% Bubba-free now. :lol:
The only Bubba fixes that I have done would be the fiberglass repairs to the air conditioning ducts.

 

Had to fix Bubba.

1. Welded strut rod adjusting washers.
2. Top radiator hose must have leaked at one end so Bubba cut it in 1/2 with aluminium pipe joining the two pieces and wired to alternator arm to stop it falling into the front belts.

Bubba also works for Chevvy making new vettes.

My drivers seat belt didnt work. Pulled it out and the belt cam which hold the arm open to get the belt out was installed 180 degrees out !!.

It has a sealed plastic cover so Bubba must have been working in the assembly plant that day (probably hungover ) as the original cover was sealed and in place. :withstupid:

:cool: :cool: :cool:

 

i cant say i do alot of bubba things. i always get cars that got bubbad though.

on my el camino someone fabbed up a new fuel feed line to the carb: basically some vacuum hose with a inline fuel filter in between. it was a clear filter so you could look inside and watch how dirty it gets. I notice after a while that the damn thing never got dirty, even though i knew for a fact the fule line was rusty as hell. So i took the carb apart one day and noticed VAST amounts of rust in the fuel bowl. I took the fuel filter off and examined it. the reason why it wasnt getting dirty was because it obviously wasnt filtering anything. I could fit a toothpick about 1/4" in between the pores in the element. i was at pep boys sometime later and saw that exact fuel filter for sale in the "Hot Rod" isle. Dont buy anything from that isle guys...

Another thing that drives me crazy is just about every used car i had has one of the wheel studs stripped. I mean come on, it takes a whole lot of brains to strip one of those. I've been a mechanic for some time now, and i've never stripped one. The only way you could was if you put the lugnut in an impact wrench and just tried to zap it on, instead of taking the whole three seconds to just start the lugnut by hand.

I always see the standard fuel or brake line fitting, bleeder screw stripped. One of the first things i learned about a car was to use flare nut wrenches on any fuel or brak line.

 

I had to do this the other day.


BTW, if anyone has this part I'll email you my address. :jester




[Modified by Let 'er eat!, 8:53 AM 7/2/2003]

 

My roof panels rattled when I went down the road and I discovered that the bracket that holds it down was elongated and created alot of slop. I took the cap of a BIC pen and cut it to size. It fits right in and no more rattle. If it falls out I can just get some more.

Andy Anderson
Hereford AZ.