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Macgyvering


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I have a German guy stopping by on a cross country trip on a XT 500.

He broke down in South Dakota with a stuck in 2nd gear problem.

Fixed it with a spring out of a pen and back on the road.

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I've never Macgyvered anything, wouldn't have a clue where to start.  😇

 

I've heard that a .22 cartridge makes a great replacement for a glass fuse.  If you over load it it gives off an unmistakable audible alert.

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You know those dumbass plastic inserts Dodge uses on wiper arms and other linkages where the metal "tit" pops in to the plastic "receiver" so it's not metal on metal?  Well that plastic piece failed on my dad's 87 Dakota in the drive-thru at Hardee's.  I slid under it, popped it into drive with a pair of pliers, and used a hose clamp to keep that shifter rod from the column shifter attached to the transmission.

That was at least 25 years ago and I still don't think the current owner has fixed it properly.

My grandfather taught me that.  He fixed a Soundesign dual cassette jam box I got for Christmas when I was maybe 10.  We were playing on the stairs at his house and I fell and broke the handle.  I'm 47, that repair still holds, and the radio still works.  They'll probably bury me with that radio.

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4 minutes ago, Furbird said:

Soundesign

 

Dad worked for them and I started my first business around 5th grade fixing shit based on bags of their dead castoffs that I rebuilt.

 

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1 hour ago, Furbird said:

You know those dumbass plastic inserts Dodge uses

Same as Chevy, I have a 1500 in the driveway that had the same failure.  I rigged it initially so he could get it going, then installed a new bushing.

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I wonder if the new crop of kids have any fix it skills?

I know mine do but they learned from me and they are 40ish.

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I know that the iphone repair shops remove the glass with a Harbor Freight heat gun in like two minutes.  I'm sure Apple has a $1000 tool they use for that.

Difference is they don't use bailing wire and duct tape like we did, they just use a real tool in a different way whereas we went "that shit'll hold!"

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5 hours ago, Furbird said:

I know that the iphone repair shops remove the glass with a Harbor Freight heat gun in like two minutes.  I'm sure Apple has a $1000 tool they use for that.

Difference is they don't use bailing wire and duct tape like we did, they just use a real tool in a different way whereas we went "that shit'll hold!"


A guy who used to do motorcycle plastic repair spent thousands on “professional” equipment just to ultimately use tools from a local craft shop…because they worked better.

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Many many moons ago went to leave a drag race about 1:00 in the morning and had no headlights.  Fuse looked OK but they were closing the place and very dark so I cut the wire from a after market tach, scraped off some insulation off the headlight wire and run it to the battery.  Only one headlight but it got me home about 50 miles.

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Like Furbird........

 

I was on my way to trade my 1600 Capri in on a 6 cylinder Volvo.  The girl I was dating was a Volvo freak, and I sure aimed to please. I had cleaned out the car including several thousand Grape Malt Duck bottle caps, and had stopped at the arcade to play some Pac-man because I was running early.  When I came out, the shifter was limp as a wet noodle and no gears were to be found.  Sure enough, both shift rods had come out of the gearbox levers and were hanging wild and free. What to do?

 

I tore the car apart and found two lonely bottle caps caught under the carpet by the seat rails.  My pocket knife did a pretty good job of putting a crosscut hole in them, and helped me tap them over the shifter rods after I scissor jacked the car up and slid underneath.  And away I went to Bill's used car lot. Bill, his mechanic Eddie, and I had known each other for years and had a friendly relationship.  Bill asked Eddie to put the car up on the lift while he and I did paperwork.  Eddie set the car up on the 4-post and we could hear the clanking of the lock while Bill and I were shooting the breeze.  Eddie roars out "hey Bill" and we both look over to see the car raised about 3 feet with the rear wheels still on the ground.  We howled like banshees.

------------------------

Like blackhawk, a buddy and I were on a mission to pick up an abandoned car parked next to a ramshackle falling down old house.  The house was well into the "I'm not walking on that floor" stage.  Anyway, there was no battery in the car.  We swapped the battery out of the truck to verify the old Camaro would start as we were told, and it did.  In retrospect, we should have started the car and swapped the battery back out while it was running but we had youth, not smarts on our side. We scratched our heads for a while, then finally entered the house and tore a section of wiring out of the wall.  We rammed the bumpers together for a ground, and held the wire we tore out of the house hot to hot, and it started.  And got out of there, because we really didn't have the time to be explaining to anyone what we were doing, if you catch my drift.

 

 

 

 

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Buddy's truck sprung a big leak from a rusty freeze plug on the way to Havasu, we had two skis on a lift in the bed and my boat in tow.  Got it towed to the closest parts store.  The plug that went was behind one of the mounts, yay.  Using the Ford's jack and scraps of wood found around the lot I was able to raise the engine, extract the rest of the plug, and put in a rubber plug.  We launched later than planned, but still got a bitchen camp spot on an island.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Stator plug melted on a ride 2 months ago at Back of the Dragon, in a gas station parking lot I used electrical tape and aluminum foil along with my Leatherman to repair it. 

Cut off burnt chunks, exposed new clean wire, twisted each wire and with the electrical tape wrapped it up, applied layer of foil to protect and act as a cheap heat sink, and avoid melting back together, another wrap of tape on top. 9hrs later back into the driveway and not a twitch from my meter rest of the trip. 

 

17 yrs old 90 miles from home, throttle cable snapped on buddies truck. Ran a string from carb though firewall, seems simple enough fix. Except his truck was 3 on the tree, was a wild ass dance to make it all happen but it worked. 

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30 minutes ago, The Krypt Keeper said:

Ran a string from carb though firewall, seems simple enough fix. Except his truck was 3 on the tree, was a wild ass dance to make it all happen but it worked.

That would have been fun, to watch.

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Burnouts all the way.  Had to double clutch the shifts.

 

I kinda miss my old step-side with three on the column.  I probably wouldn't if I drove it, but I miss the memory of it.

 

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