Tell us your best engineering bodges

[Tree Man Tom]

Hit one of the security posts at the yard and broke the locking mechanism.

I rang the manufacturer up but they could only supply me with a complete post

 

I stripped the post and couldnt believe the poor quality of the components so decided to get a mate to machine up the broken piece of die cast in stainless, well chuffed with the result

 

Definetly not a bodge but a way around the problem and a saving on buying new

 

 

I got a mate who works as a machinest at rolls royce, you tell him what you want and he will make it. Very usefull

[Tom D]

If you have a landrover and want a more comfortable seating position, cut some spacers out of 20mm od tube and fit under the seat, about 50mm at the front and 25mm at the back, fit longer bolts and you are sitting slightly higher and the whole seat is supporting your weight as opposed to just your bum with your knees in the air. worked well for me, those with a different build may not agree.

[mistahbenn]

Hmmm,

Most successful, back in about 1993, driving the wee petrol Polo on a filthy februrary night far from home, & the car conked out.

Heavily pregent wife plus 10 month old wean on board.

gulp! (as I did the car maint)

I lifted the bonnet and immediately espied the distributor cap was askew.

On removing it the rotor arm was mangled with the brass bit completely chewed & useless.

Hmmmm,

A lump of Blutack and a paperclip fabricated a new electrical contact for the distributor arm, which worked perfectly the first attempt.

After I bought a replacment I ran the car for 6 or 9 months on the impromptu repair.

I belive I may NOT have told the wife that I was the guilty party with respect to the incorrectly fastened distributor cap.

People have asked me bytimes why I always carry a lump of Blutack stuck to the dash, even in a new car.

One never knows.

 

Ha! I too had an old Polo, and once, driving home from Chester, something broke, and the accelerator was on full tilt. I opened the hood, found the problem (broken spring on the carb), had a look around, found an elastic band, and Robert's your dad's Brother, that rubber got me home, and lasted until I used a stronger rubber band

[difflock]

I remembered!

A mate (a wheen o year ago mind ) ran an, even then, old Peugeot 405/504? pickup.

The glow plug timer unit/relay failed, so she widnay start in the winter.

As a very temporary "bodge" John ran a couple of old cooker weight flat twin & earth cables , one direct from the battery, toher direct from the glow plugs.

Both these cables came out from below the bonnet and were then fanked, i.e. wisted around the drivers door mirror.

To start, twist ends together, count to 30/45 seconds and untwist.

It worked so well John did not ever bother replacing the faulty relay/timer unit.

I liked that one.

[blazer]

Mate had an old sidecar on his bike - well it was a few planks on the sidecar frame with a car seat fixed onto it. All went well on a trip to Devon in Winter when the upper bracket holding the sidecar to the bike broke, so the bike leaned in - so he walked into a wood and came out with a forked branch, put the forked end into the bike and jammed the other end between the sidecar seat. With the bike now leaning out off we went, but the branch kept coming out, so we stopped by a cottage and asked for a 'hammer & nails', the old boy watched in disbelief as the 'bodge' went on nailing the branch to the sidecar planks. He waved us off and we drove 100+ miles home no probs:thumbup:

[log dog]

my bodge was a fuel line leak was repaired with a plastic pen ! fuel line cut either end slid over pen temporary repair complete got the job done

[Goaty]

A bit of elm drilled and knocked on to dowel to save tapping file handle on teeth after sharpening. Got fed up off tatty file handle.

File shown for size, Its like playing a xylophone now easier and quicker.

[Tyz05]

The end broke off throttle cable on me van this morning,crimped 6mm electrical eyelet on the end of the cable,hooked it on,sorted.

[WorcsWuss]

I had a Range Rover Classic once with air suspension. It packed up and in the intervening months before I could afford to fix it, the front prop gave up and flew off...

 

When our TD5 Disco gave up at the back more recently, knowing from previous experience that the props don't like running that tight I jacked up the back of it, cut two 8" lengths of 4"x2" treated timber and zippy tied them to the axle beneath the bump stops...

 

It was my wife's car so the bone crushing ride until I swapped the compressor was less of an issue for me than it was for her... prop didn't fly off this time though....

[fergusonforestry]

I had a Range Rover Classic once with air suspension. It packed up and in the intervening months before I could afford to fix it, the front prop gave up and flew off...

 

When our TD5 Disco gave up at the back more recently, knowing from previous experience that the props don't like running that tight I jacked up the back of it, cut two 8" lengths of 4"x2" treated timber and zippy tied them to the axle beneath the bump stops...

 

It was my wife's car so the bone crushing ride until I swapped the compressor was less of an issue for me than it was for her... prop didn't fly off this time though....

 

did something similar years ago with an old wreck of a series 3 with knacked springs 4 blocks of wood wired to the axles! it also had a vw golf radiator tied to the front of the grill had only 3rd and reverse gear no brakes and to start it you had to blow easy start down a tube sticking through the dash! needless to say it was an offroad farm hack!