Driving on a shoe string - literally -
Thread Starter
Safety Car
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 4,721
Likes: 1
From: Beautiful Down Town "SWINDLEHURST" Long Island NY
Driving on a shoe string - literally -
Soooooooo I'm buzzing down Sunrise Hwy. and try to blow a little carbon out da cylinders - mash on the gas ---- broke the throttle cable 
Saving my sneaker shoe strings as a back-up - I used two draw strings from my rain gear and one from my hood-ie
Also check the air filter for tree debris
I love my plastic car
Saving my sneaker shoe strings as a back-up - I used two draw strings from my rain gear and one from my hood-ie
Also check the air filter for tree debris
I love my plastic car
Melting Slicks
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 2,778
Likes: 179
From: Decatur IL
2025 C4 of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
2022 C4 of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
Had the cable broke before on my 84. Fortunately it happend in the driveway. It's cool that you did the McGuyver way to get you home.
Thread Starter
Safety Car
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 4,721
Likes: 1
From: Beautiful Down Town "SWINDLEHURST" Long Island NY
My best was living in a Dodge Open Road Motor home 
Bad alternator - dead battery
It had a Olin generator - but the elect. fuel pump was shot
Went into someones garbage and found a 2 lr. soda bottle / a coat hanger
Used a Bic lighter to heat a nail - poked a hole in the cap - jammed a pen cap into that - bit the closed end off
Took a good length of washer hose - sucked gas into the bottle - hung the gas filled bottle with the coat hanger out side the generator hatch - ran the washer hose from the pen top to the carburetor - rope started the Olin - made enough power to the battery to start the 318 and drove home
Bad alternator - dead battery
It had a Olin generator - but the elect. fuel pump was shot
Went into someones garbage and found a 2 lr. soda bottle / a coat hanger
Used a Bic lighter to heat a nail - poked a hole in the cap - jammed a pen cap into that - bit the closed end off
Took a good length of washer hose - sucked gas into the bottle - hung the gas filled bottle with the coat hanger out side the generator hatch - ran the washer hose from the pen top to the carburetor - rope started the Olin - made enough power to the battery to start the 318 and drove home
Drifting
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 1,908
Likes: 3
From: Supreme Soviet Peace-Loving Pipple's Kollektive of Seattle Wa
GREAT JOB!! 
Reminds me of when my mechanical fuel pump went out on one of my old lowboy Studes waaay up in the Ontario northwoods.
Had a bottle (glass), of coke in the back. Drank that and filled the bottle with gas from my spare can, straightened the cap (metal and cork),and put it back on the bottle and used my jackknife to pound a small slit in the cap. Using an old spare radiator hose from the trunk I stuck one end in the carburetor throat(stromberg side-draft), and put the "gas bottle" in the other. It took a couple of tries to enlarge the knife-slit in the cap enuff to get it to run but I was able to idle/surge back to the highway where a gas station was across the road! Lotsa' stops to refill that bottle!
Reminds me of when my mechanical fuel pump went out on one of my old lowboy Studes waaay up in the Ontario northwoods.
Had a bottle (glass), of coke in the back. Drank that and filled the bottle with gas from my spare can, straightened the cap (metal and cork),and put it back on the bottle and used my jackknife to pound a small slit in the cap. Using an old spare radiator hose from the trunk I stuck one end in the carburetor throat(stromberg side-draft), and put the "gas bottle" in the other. It took a couple of tries to enlarge the knife-slit in the cap enuff to get it to run but I was able to idle/surge back to the highway where a gas station was across the road! Lotsa' stops to refill that bottle!
Drifting
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 1,990
Likes: 2
From: Gaithersburg MD A member since 2007 but then the computer crashed and then the car crash loss of memory X 2
Soooooooo I'm buzzing down Sunrise Hwy. and try to blow a little carbon out da cylinders - mash on the gas ---- broke the throttle cable
Saving my sneaker shoe strings as a back-up - I used two draw strings from my rain gear and one from my hood-ie
Also check the air filter for tree debris
I love my plastic car
Saving my sneaker shoe strings as a back-up - I used two draw strings from my rain gear and one from my hood-ie
Also check the air filter for tree debris
I love my plastic car
"Also check the air filter for tree debris
"You have more "Mulch" in your filter than I have in the flower beds out front. Or is that a "green" pre-filter?
Le Mans Master
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 7,706
Likes: 485
From: Everett WA
C4 of Year Finalist (appearance mods) 2019
Wow driving down sunrise hwy ... man that brings back memories.... back in 1980 the wife and I ... having just got married lived one block north of sunrise in Freeport. On Sunday mornings we used to hop on my 79 Suzuki GS850 and zooooom down to Jones Beach
Haven't been back that way in more than 20 years
Haven't been back that way in more than 20 years
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Melting Slicks
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 2,376
Likes: 111
From: Cherokee National Forest TN
Great fix. Time to add some masons twine to the emergency tool kit.
Had a few fix on the fly ordeals.
This one is the strangest.
On a POS V6 Chevy wagon with a cam going flat & othe maladies the glowing exhaust manifolds started a grease fire on the slimy valve covers. I pulled the washer hose off the tee @ the cowl & had my bud hold the washer lever down while I played fireman & doused the flames with washer fluid.
Had some lunch while it cooled off & made it home.
Had a few fix on the fly ordeals.
This one is the strangest.
On a POS V6 Chevy wagon with a cam going flat & othe maladies the glowing exhaust manifolds started a grease fire on the slimy valve covers. I pulled the washer hose off the tee @ the cowl & had my bud hold the washer lever down while I played fireman & doused the flames with washer fluid.
Had some lunch while it cooled off & made it home.
Last edited by Churchkey; Nov 14, 2010 at 09:17 AM.
Pro
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 694
Likes: 54
From: Sandwich Illinois
McGuyver fixes
Back in 1960 my friend Norm and I were street racing his '55 Studebaker. It had a Caddy engine and we were out on Rt. 41 in Highland Park. We were racing out on the country roads when we popped a freeze plug when he revved the old Caddy to high. We pulled over to the side of the road, and discovered the freeze plug was gone. Norm went into the nearby corn field and pulled off one of the corn cobs. We kept breaking off the small end until it fit snuggly in the hole where the freeze plug was. I got water out of the ditch with my baseball cap and filled the radiator. We left the cap off so the pressure would not build up. Then we headed back to the neighborhood in Chicago. As the engine heated up the corn cob would swell and plug the leak more. We had to stop for water at least two more times, but we made it home just fine.
Safety Car
Joined: Nov 2008
Posts: 4,328
Likes: 15
From: Jacksonville FL
Most of us grew up without a lot of the indoor entertainment things which made us more mechanical trying to make a toy. Not much has changed except that we have gotten older 
Its kinda an indicator when a reply starts with "Well back in 1960......" (no offense shakey!). I am not sayin the younger bucks (sorry, Norm, lol)cant do it but the qualities we developed to just have fun as kids carried over to adulthood. In my case this developed by necessity 'cause I was too poor or in the middle of nowhere when the breakdown occurred. I guess spending so much time under the ol apple tree in the back yard still serves me well.
Its kinda an indicator when a reply starts with "Well back in 1960......" (no offense shakey!). I am not sayin the younger bucks (sorry, Norm, lol)cant do it but the qualities we developed to just have fun as kids carried over to adulthood. In my case this developed by necessity 'cause I was too poor or in the middle of nowhere when the breakdown occurred. I guess spending so much time under the ol apple tree in the back yard still serves me well.
Thread Starter
Safety Car
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 4,721
Likes: 1
From: Beautiful Down Town "SWINDLEHURST" Long Island NY
Wifey #1 called it the "Wing-Ding" I even pissed in a radiator once - just because I could
Along with the duct tape - I usually keep a small spool of bailing wire for muffler or bondage opportunity's
It sucks
Intermediate
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 43
Likes: 0
Nice fix
Really nice fix on the fly. I remember way back when...I had a 1960 Comet with a 3 on the tree. Coming out of the drags in Great Gorge NJ, I stepped on it and the spring on the throttle broke. I saw sparks coming out of the rear and shut er down. My girlfriend had pen in her pocketbook and I used the spring in the pen and and drove all the way to Ridgewood on the pen's spring. Worked fine.
Melting Slicks
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 2,376
Likes: 111
From: Cherokee National Forest TN
Thinking about this thread:
Depending on traffic:
All thats needed is enough manual throttle to get the vehicle up to 30 mph then activate the cruise control to adjust speed.
Depending on traffic:
All thats needed is enough manual throttle to get the vehicle up to 30 mph then activate the cruise control to adjust speed.
Melting Slicks
Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 2,351
Likes: 222
From: Delta B.C. Canada
2023 C7 of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
2019 C4 of Year Finalist (appearance mods)
2015 C4 of Year Finalist
On my first Vette, a 78, my rad hose split about out on the highway about 20 minutes after I had bought it. No tools, so I pulled off my socks, wrapped one around the hose and used the other to tie it tight. Figured it would get me to the service station at the next off ramp, which it did. Just as I was finishing, another Vette pulled in behind me, (see the vette owners rule book), two babes get out to see if I need help. I showed them my McGuyver repair, but still wonder if they were laughing with me or at me.
Drifting
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 1,908
Likes: 3
From: Supreme Soviet Peace-Loving Pipple's Kollektive of Seattle Wa