Fixes that shouldn't have worked but did!

My moms prelude (late 80's) blew a upper radiator hose because the thermostat stuck shut. We limped home 35 miles with no coolant by driving until it got 3/4 of the way to overheat. Then waited a half hour on the side of the road waiting for it to cool down. My buddy and I got to know each other real well in those 35miles. Once home, I removed the thermostat and patched the upper hose with duct tape. I then smashed a street sign into the front bumper and radiator at a round a bout, thinking I was the next Colin McRae. The radiator was bent but not leaking. We drove it another year until we moved out west, in that condition. Because there was no thermostat, we had to crack a window in the cold Illinois winter to produce a "Venturi effect" over the windows and defrost stuff. The things you do when a poor hillbilly's mom gets a divorce.

If it was fuel injected, you can cool the engine down by coasting at WOT with the engine off. BTDT a few times.

Edit: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/neat-method-for-limping-an-overheating-car/62004/page1/

After putting a used radiator in my old beater Sunfire (henceforth referred to as the "E36 M3fire") I neglected to get enough air out and got it just a little too hot, causing the typical 2200 external head gasket leak, slow trickle over the bell housing on cold days.

I put a $2 tube of bar leaks powder in it and it quit leaking, sold it two years later on the same hurt head/gasket, beating the piss out of it the whole time.

The gearbox on that car was also worn out from PO never servicing it, noisy with syncromesh fluid in it, then the diptstick/fill plug came out somehow ~1.5 years after the HG incident and the remaining 2 cups of oil were nice and glittery. Flushed it out with ATF and loaded it back up with a a bottle of Lucas trans fix, quart of 20w50, and bit over half a bottle of STP oil treatment to get 2 quarts. You had to be slow and deliberate with it the first few miles on cool mornings, but it worked and was quiet.

Had a truck come into work to be serviced and 2/3rds of the oil pan was coated in silicone to fix the rust hole oil leak. Current owner didnt even know it was repaired that way and had put over 20k on it.

Also had an s10 come in a guy had just purchased used. Had a peice of 1/2 copper line siliconed into the stripped drainplug hole with a watervalve style shutoff on the other end.

Not car related but cool nonetheless, some kind of sound processing component failed in my MP3 player just before a long trip. I reached for the first two things on my bedside table, a roll of duct tape and a paperclip. I cracked open the casing, jammed the paperclip in there, fiddled with it until I got clear sound, and duct taped it in place so it wouldn't move. It worked until the death of the MP3 player 6 months later, when I dropped it hard enough to cause total screen failure. I did a similar bodge to fix my headphones today. Then there was the time I saw a guy's oil pan attached with zip ties and RTV. That was impressive.

Ignoring the problem until it went away.

bgkast wrote: Ignoring the problem until it went away.

When I see a vehicle on the side of the road I assume they did exactly this.

My Dodge Dart had some minor rust in the floor pans and a few small holes that my dad and I "fixed" with Rust Block and a few old flannel rags soaked in epoxy. Eighteen years later, it's still holding up fine.

bgkast wrote: Ignoring the problem until it went away.

This worked for me the other day. I thought the power folding mirrors on my Lincoln Navigator were busted. Procrastinated looking at it for months, then went to take a look the other day and realized the one I thought was busted probably just needed recalibration and was working again.

One of my work vans, just prior to a job, started pouring coolant out of the middle of the radiator for no damn reason. Rather than lose the gig I dumped a bottle of stopleak in there. That was somewhere around 1997. The rest of that van has decayed to the point where it only gets used for hauling firewood and making dump runs, but the radiator still holds. No idea why...

I used a compression fitting to hold a broken power steering line together. I was told it would never hold, and it held for 5 years until the car was junked.

See the spring hangers? On my '78 Cordoba the body part they attached to rusted out and the front of the springs poked into the trunk. Being very poor and possessing a car worth about $5, I grabbed two of these:

Yes, that is a pressure treated baluster from a porch railing. I raised the rear end until the hangers dropped, stuck the wood into the hangers, and then dropped it down. Not only did then not snap, they worked for months and months until the engine blew.

dropstep wrote: Had a truck come into work to be serviced and 2/3rds of the oil pan was coated in silicone to fix the rust hole oil leak. Current owner didnt even know it was repaired that way and had put over 20k on it. Also had an s10 come in a guy had just purchased used. Had a peice of 1/2 copper line siliconed into the stripped drainplug hole with a watervalve style shutoff on the other end.

Amateurs! You use JBWeld, not silicone!

Speaking of JBWeld, I once used a piece of Pig Putty (epoxy dough like stuff) to plug a hole in my radiator, where an electric fan zip tie wore through a tube. I hoped it would get me through the rest if the autocross, and home. It turns out, it withstood operating pressure for over three years.

Also, a buddy of mine had his engine block crack right by the fuel pump boss (Chevy 350). JBWelded that, too. It lasted a few seasons, until we built a new engine when we went from Street Stock to Late Model. When the Late Model engine let go, we put "The JBWeld engine" back in.

In reply to pinchvalve:

But how did the soft Corinthian leather hold up?