Not really a fix--more like a "just dealing with it."
I was driving to the airport in our old Subaru Impreza rallycross car when a front caliper started to stick. I had a flight to catch. I could just about see the tower as I was that close. I also had all-wheel drive.
AWD>sticking caliper
The upshot of the thread (besides the usual cool "how I made it home" stories) is:
Analyze the issue (E36 M3 broke)
Define your priorities (need to get home, or at least a place where I can repair it more betterful)
Use every resource available to you to solve the issue enough to satisfy your priorities (stuff in the car not otherwise important to priorities, stuff found on the side of the road, stuff you could find at the gas station open at 3am, etc)
KEEP MOVING.
If you need to use your horn relay to replace you fuel pump relay and buy 15 coffees so you have enough pee to fill the radiator after you patch the broken heater hose with freebie Sunoco bumper stickers and then use a twig to keep the radiator cap from sealing... you do it, as long as it keeps you mobile.
I had put an Accel blueprint distributor in my 302 Ford. It would occasionally stop running, and I was able to fix it by just unplugging the distributor and plugging it back in.
It it only happened a couple of times in about 6 months, so I didn't do anything else to fix it. I was halfway between Florida and North Carolina when the engine quit right next to an exit ramp.
I stayed with the car while my wife walked up to the auto parts store we could see from the highway and came back with a set of 4 way trailer light plugs. I cut out the original connectors and replaced them with the trailer light plugs.
As I finished, I realized that there was a screw missing in the distributor, which was needed for a ground. It had been sent to me that way, and I didn't catch it before I installed it.
I rummaged around in the toolbox, found a small self-tapping screw and finished the only part of the repair that had actually needed to be done.
No more problems after that.
Had an air pump and a baggie of bolts in the car. One of the bolts got sacrificed to get me off the side of the road. Made it the 10 miles to the nearest exit so I could buy the entire truck stop's supply of plug kits. The hole needed four or five plugs to seal and I could only make it about 20-25 miles before it would spit them out and I had to plug it again.
Buddy's 1977 AMC Hornet, logging road in Western Washington, buddy, me and wives. Suddenly car loses power and coasts to a stop.
He pops the distributor cap off and finds the rotor in three pieces. After a little thought he steals the rubber band from some fireworks to hold the pieces together and off we go.
The story I was told by my father went like this--
My parents would take a scuba trip some where warm while it was sub-zero in the midwest, parking the Triumph Spitfire at O'Hare for about 10 days in artic conditions. Upon returning, the first application of the clutch pedal essentially emptied the fluid reservoir for the clutch past shrunken seals on to the ground-- or at least the reservoir was near empty by the time the seals had broken free enough to do their job again.
My father found a discarded plastic straw and used it to transfer enough fluid (one straw at a time) from the brake reservoir to the clutch reservoir to limp home.
I'm quite postive that after this the first time this happened, they always took a can a brake fluid with them.
redstack said:Buddy's 1977 AMC Hornet, logging road in Western Washington, buddy, me and wives. Suddenly car loses power and coasts to a stop.
He pops the distributor cap off and finds the rotor in three pieces. After a little thought he steals the rubber band from some fireworks to hold the pieces together and off we go.
I'd lay a pretty good bet it had a Prestolite distributor. The vacuum advance diaphragm would rupture, and gas fumes from the carb would come down the vacuum line, which then caused a small explosion, which generally stretched the cap clips, which would then move over and interfere with the rotor and break it.
Yet I can't remember the names of people I've known for 20 years. berkeley.
Field expedient repairs? Seems relevant.
I have used many of these.
In reply to Toyman01 :
The tire inflator one won't work. It'll seat the beads, but if you don't have an air source, it'll immediately pop back off.
Still cool though.
vwcorvette said:
See that wire in the pic? That was always kept in any A1 VW I owned. Best roadside repair tool. Still have the original in my tool box.
I have a wire just like that, except blue wire, and yellow crimps. It is just about the same length and its first job was pretending to be a fuel pump relay in my '84 GTI so I could get to the store. I used it multiple times for diagnostic work and it has lived in the door pocket for over 20 years.
Matthew
Hit a deer somewhere in the middle of nowhere late at night (maybe driving from Nelson Ledges to Baltimore) with my friend's van, puncturing the radiator. We sawed the fins away, crimped the damaged rows, and kept the cap half tight so the system wouldn't pressurize. Fortunately, it was relatively cool and we had water in the cooler.
This was Back in the Day. No phones and IIRC, it was a good 40 minutes before a local sheriff happened to roll up.
And holy crap, I just looked it up. That's a 6 hour drive from Baltimore. I am so soft. I would never do that now. We would leave after work on Friday and sleep outside the track. I'd sleep in the dirt on a foam foldy-chair-thing, my buddy would (somehow) sleep in the van with fixed back seats.
Last couple of weeks the heat in my Silverado was iffy. Eh it worked well enough for FL I'll look at it later. That always comes back to haunt me.
This morning after the junkyard my message center pops up check guages. Oh E36 M3 I'm over heating. Pull into a gas station and get three gallons of water. Pouring most of the first in I hear water hitting the ground. It's coming from the heater core who's barb had broken off.
The right one was the broken one. I broke the left one fixing it. Half inch extension hose clamped in one hose and the 1/2 inch racket in the other. Finished just as my alarm went off to remind me to go eat lunch with Lil Stampie.
In reply to Stampie :
Well done, Mcguyver.
In reply to Stampie :
3 months from now you will wonder WTF happened to the ratchet, probably left it at a junkyard or something...
In reply to Knurled. :
I have a feeling you're right so I just ordered new barb fittings. We'll pick them up on the way home from school and do them this afternoon. Plus you never know when we'll have another cold snap in Florida.
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