vintage repairs

One of the interesting things about old cars is the old repairs that have been done in the past. Here we have a failed freeze plug on a 1916 Oakland four that was repaired with a whittled piece of wood and some fabric. Freeze plugs today only cost about a dollar or so for the fancy brass ones and probably didn't cost much more than a nickel or so when this was done. It must have been too far to the parts place or something. The last picture also shows a cork where there is supposed to be a screw in stopper to fill the front dipper trough of the engine.

Has anyone else got some interesting repairs from the past to show?

My 36 Chrysler has a small hole torched in the bell housing to access the flywheel from under the hood. There is also a brand new starter on it. Or atleast pretty darn new compared to when the car was put in storage. My guess is the starter bendix went bad and would lock in the flywheel so they made it so you could open the hood and turn the flywheel with some sort of small bar to get it to unlock. Fortunately they got the starter fixed or rebuilt before they ruined the flywheel although it did round the edge of the teeth a bit but not enough to ruin it. Starts great with the fresh starter.

Not to show, But I can tell you about an old friend. There was a 1924 model T Ford involved and it has a rusted out core plug center of the side of the engine.. He went to the local NAPA store to see if he could get a replacement. When the parts man showed him the replacement and told him it was ten cents he looked at the nickel in his change pocket and handed it back to him. Yup, he stuck that nickel in the hole but it did not hold. One day when I was driving the old Tin Lizzy the nickel popped out and I had to whittle a similar plug from wood and fill the radiator with water from a nearby stream to get home. That old wooden plug stayed in there for quite some time after that. It would shrink in the winter when the car was drained, and leak water every spring until it swelled up and stopped leaking. Pete Martins and his Nickle. Tight wad that he was. Dandy Dave!

Years ago, my father rammed a wall with his 66 Jeep Waggoneer. After he got the Jeep back from the shop, he asked me to change the oil for him. I got under the Jeep and discovered that the wreck had sheared off the rear tranny mounts and the shop had wedged a piece of 2X4 between the frame rails to hold up the tail end of the transmission. Dad had a good friend that was a lawyer, and, he made the shop put a new tranny and mount in the car on their nickel.

Regards:

Oldengineer

Well Dandy Dave, maybe this was a common method to use when repairing freeze plugs. After all, a nickel is a nickel and why waste one. Another one that I remember that was really scary was a very rusty Jeep CJ from the seventies. It had had a large portion of the frame rusted away and someone had gone to a great deal of difficulty to basically make a new frame out of treated lumber. It was extremely well crafted with the body mounted in all the right places. It was not a vehicle that I would have taken for a ride.

I told this story before. I was an electrician's mate in the Navy. The ship was assigned two trucks which were put in storage while we were on a cruise. When we got back to Norfolk the trucks were waiting on the pier. Another fellow and I were sent to town to get some needed parts in the 70 Chevy pickup. After a couple miles we noticed the generator idiot light was on, then the temperature light or gauge came on. Stopping to investigate we saw the generator had been stolen and the belt was cut. In the bed we found some stray avis strap. This is flat woven strapping that you tie around pallets of cargo when it gets transferred over to another ship during replenishment at sea.. We made a loop and tightened it around the pulleys to at least turn the water pump which was enough to get us back to the base service garage.

Well Dandy Dave, maybe this was a common method to use when repairing freeze plugs. After all, a nickel is a nickel and why waste one. Another one that I remember that was really scary was a very rusty Jeep CJ from the seventies. It had had a large portion of the frame rusted away and someone had gone to a great deal of difficulty to basically make a new frame out of treated lumber. It was extremely well crafted with the body mounted in all the right places. It was not a vehicle that I would have taken for a ride.

LOL.. Sure, spend a dollar for gas, and the time to go to town and comeback. And then have the fix fail anyway because the nickel was a few thousands of an inch too small. God Rest his soul.

I was preparing an unusually large diesel engine for painting for a customer and I discovered a 6" X 5" plywood patch bolted in the side of the cast iron crankcase covering a huge hole where a rod must have gone threw.

It was all covered with grease and dust so it had worked successfully

for many a year.

The person who repaired the '16 Oakland would be able to hold his/her own with any car owner in Cuba!

My 69 vette uses a flex cable for throttle linkage. One day it broke so no way to give it gas. I threaded a piece of cord through a hole in the fire wall and tied it to the carb with a loop for my fingers in the car. My wife and I both drove it that way for a couple of weeks until I got the parts and time to fix it. once we got used to it it was as natural as a gas pedal. Any one who has ever worked on a farm knows how to fix or make do with whatever is at hand. BTW, if a tie rod end ever comes apart a coat hanger and a pair of pliers will get you home and then to the NAPA store.............Bob

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> Back in ’76, I bought a new Ford (Mercury) Capri for a daily-driver. No one was aware of it, but there was a problem with the design of the 4-speed’s shift lever. I was a service manager for a tire company at the time and had taken my wife’s car in for some routine maintenance, so she was driving the Capri for a day. She went to the post office and parked in a nose-in space next to the building. When she tried to put the car in reverse, the shift lever snapped off about an inch from the top of the transmission.

She called me at work, more mad than upset. I drove over to the post office to see what I could do. I always carry a basic tool kit with me, so I pulled out the 3/8” socket set and started trying different sizes until I found the one that would barely NOT fit over the stub. I pounded it onto what was left of the shift lever with a hammer and stuck an extension in it. We drove it like that for a couple of weeks, until the Mercury dealer could get us a new shift lever (which were mysteriously back-ordered). They later had a recall on that part and reimbursed me for the one I bought.

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If your car is old and worn out and the choke no longer functions properly, making it hard to start, you can fill the windshield washer reservoir with gas and reroute the hose so it squirts gas down the carb when you press the button.

If your car is old and worn out and the choke no longer functions properly, making it hard to start, you can fill the windshield washer reservoir with gas and reroute the hose so it squirts gas down the carb when you press the button.

I hope you were kidding with this suggestion. This could go bad in so many ways.

I hope you were kidding with this suggestion. This could go bad in so many ways.

Wize old Injun Chief say. Never use um rubber hose to feed um gas to camp fire. Dandy Dave!

No joke, a friend did this years ago. I certainy wasn't suggesting it as a safe repair.

Restorer

That person must have worked in the recap shop..those fumes could greatly affect the mind.

Phil

Dad had an employee in the recap shop who was stealing rubber solvent and running it in his car. I'm thinking "rubber solvent" is pretty much lacquer thinner but don't really know. In any case it destroyed his engine in short order. Dad, always flexible when there was money to be made, loaned the thief money to repair his engine at of course an interest rate that would make a loan shark blush.

When I worked in garages years ago I saw some funny repairs, and did a few myself. Mostly it was a matter of saving money for a customer who had none, or keeping a car on the road that was one step away from the junk yard.

One time a Nissan 4 wheel drive truck came in with the clutch frozen. The truck had been sitting unused for a couple of years. Rather than do a clutch job which would have required taking out the transmission and transfer case, I drilled a hole in the bottom of the bellhousing with a hole saw and freed the clutch with a knife blade and some Brake Kleen spray. This saved the customer about $1000. Once the clutch was freed up I put an electrician's knockout plug in the hole and it was good as new.

At a Renault dealership another mechanic specialized in what he called "open heart surgery". The engine on a Renault 5 or Le Car, is backwards in the frame with the front of the engine pressed against the firewall. To replace the timing chain you are supposed to drop the whole powertrain out of the car and replace it on the shop floor. Instead, he would cut into the firewall with an air chisel and replace the chain. Then, pop rivet the firewall back together. When the carpet was replaced you could not tell it had been touched.

In Minnesota around 1970 there was a 59 Chevy 2 door that had the front seat attached to two 2X4's to keep the seat from rocking on the drive shaft hump.

There were no seat belts or anything to attach them to besides the 2X4.

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> Back in ’76, I bought a new Ford (Mercury) Capri for a daily-driver. No one was aware of it, but there was a problem with the design of the 4-speed’s shift lever. I was a service manager for a tire company at the time and had taken my wife’s car in for some routine maintenance, so she was driving the Capri for a day. She went to the post office and parked in a nose-in space next to the building. When she tried to put the car in reverse, the shift lever snapped off about an inch from the top of the transmission.

She called me at work, more mad than upset. I drove over to the post office to see what I could do. I always carry a basic tool kit with me, so I pulled out the 3/8” socket set and started trying different sizes until I found the one that would barely NOT fit over the stub. I pounded it onto what was left of the shift lever with a hammer and stuck an extension in it. We drove it like that for a couple of weeks, until the Mercury dealer could get us a new shift lever (which were mysteriously back-ordered). They later had a recall on that part and reimbursed me for the one I bought.

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I had nearly the same thing happen to me on a 1985 Ford F-150 that was also bought new. A year or two later, the shift lever also snapped off about an inch or two from the top of the transmission. I was still a ways off from home. The only tool I had with me at the time that could work was a pair of vice-grips. I set them as tight as I could get them to lock them onto the nub and drove home like that. I also used an appropriately sized socket with a long enough extension to get the job done until a new one arrived from the dealer as well. I don't think there ever was a recall for my truck.

When I worked in garages years ago I saw some funny repairs, and did a few myself. Mostly it was a matter of saving money for a customer who had none, or keeping a car on the road that was one step away from the junk yard.

One time a Nissan 4 wheel drive truck came in with the clutch frozen. The truck had been sitting unused for a couple of years. Rather than do a clutch job which would have required taking out the transmission and transfer case, I drilled a hole in the bottom of the bellhousing with a hole saw and freed the clutch with a knife blade and some Brake Kleen spray. This saved the customer about $1000. Once the clutch was freed up I put an electrician's knockout plug in the hole and it was good as new.

At a Renault dealership another mechanic specialized in what he called "open heart surgery". The engine on a Renault 5 or Le Car, is backwards in the frame with the front of the engine pressed against the firewall. To replace the timing chain you are supposed to drop the whole powertrain out of the car and replace it on the shop floor. Instead, he would cut into the firewall with an air chisel and replace the chain. Then, pop rivet the firewall back together. When the carpet was replaced you could not tell it had been touched.

Your Renault story got me thinking:

I worked in a Ford dealership in the late 60's and early 70's; and Ford came out with the Pinto, with either a 1600 cc engine, or the 2000 cc, overhead cam engine. Some of the first 2000 cc engines, wore the camshaft lobes off very quickly. Poor metallurgy, poor design, poor oiling, probably all paid a part in this.

So we got our share of them in the shop. And being a young technician, with other young technicians; we got to do all of them. Mostly because it was warranty work (less pay); and the more experienced technicians got the better paying jobs.

That overhead cam had to slide out of the journals, to be removed.

We found it was a lot quicker to remove the defroster plenum, under the dash, use a hole saw, to cut a round hole in the firewall; thus allowing us to remove the camshaft, to the interior of the car. There was a common Ford, rubber grommet type plug that we got at the parts dept, I think for free somehow; and snapped it in that hole.

Otherwise, the cylinder head had to be removed; to remove the cam.

We made good flat-rate on them; and the older mechanics; just said, " why didn't we see that".

Cars were much simpler then; at least the Pinto. The Pinto went on to more exciting experiences. Like maybe, gas tanks !

I worked at Sun Refinery in Marcus Hook, Pa. They had a fleet of late 80s, early 90s Chevy pickups. Electric fuel pumps in the gas tank notoriously failed. The mechanics were quick to realize you could just cut a 3 sided hole in the bed at the right place, fold a flap back, replace the pump, fold the flap back down and weld it in place. Most of the trucks had the welding scar, sometimes multiple scars. It didn't matter,it's only a work truck. Careful with the weld.

There was the true story of a guy so tight, he replaced the old canister type oil filter with toilet paper roll (then wondered why his gauge showed no oil pressure. I recall tire boots put on tractor tires with very large bolts or lag screw -- what can you say, they held air!? As luck would have it, I have dismounted MANY old tires off rims over the last few years. Some of the tube repairs were unbelievable. I have seen patches on top of patches, which themselves were patching a patch! I caught on late that thes colorful patchwork tubes should have been saved for wall-hangers, and so people would believe ya! I did save a couple of these, and will try to post a picture before long. Rubber must have been either scarce, or relatively dear!

I am hoping one of our friends from Australia shares Wheel Bearing 101 experience with you all. It is a true classic!

There was the true story of a guy so tight, he replaced the old canister type oil filter with toilet paper roll (then wondered why his gauge showed no oil pressure. I recall tire boots put on tractor tires with very large bolts or lag screw -- what can you say, they held air!? As luck would have it, I have dismounted MANY old tires off rims over the last few years. Some of the tube repairs were unbelievable. I have seen patches on top of patches, which themselves were patching a patch! I caught on late that thes colorful patchwork tubes should have been saved for wall-hangers, and so people would believe ya! I did save a couple of these, and will try to post a picture before long. Rubber must have been either scarce, or relatively dear!

I've seen some real winners for tractor tire repair myself. One old Farmall F-12 comes to mind. The owner took the tires and laid them on there side, cut holes in the side walls, and filled the inside with concrete. put them back on when they dried and had no more flats. Welcome to Hillbilly Heaven. Dandy Dave!

Dismantled an early 1930's car steering gear years ago for rebuild and found that someone had replaced a failed bearing with one fashioned from a chunk of what appeared to be maple.

They used maple bearings in disk harrows years ago. Why would it not work in a car steering box??? Welcome to Hillbilly Heaven. Dandy Dave!

I had the rear out of an F3 that had a rope all caught up and wrapped up behind the coupler and acted as a rope seal for the rear end grease.

Yup. I've seen more lawn mower deck quill seals taken out by string, wire, rope and other similar stuff wrapped around than anything else. Also farm vehicles driven over raked hay wound around the drive shaft... Dandy Dave!

My '36 chevy came with a scotch taped together valve cover gasket that leaked like the Titanc. Same guy also used one of those expandable rubber plumbing plugs as a master cylinder cap and some nice galvanized pipe hanger strapping to hold the gas tank in place. We wouldn't want to forget the 3/4" thick house carpet he used to replace the front floor mat either, felt great with no shoes on!

My '36 chevy came with a scotch taped together valve cover gasket that leaked like the Titanc. Same guy also used one of those expandable rubber plumbing plugs as a master cylinder cap and some nice galvanized pipe hanger strapping to hold the gas tank in place. We wouldn't want to forget the 3/4" thick house carpet he used to replace the front floot mat either, felt great with no shoes on!

Welcome to Hillbilly Heaven. Specially when you got bare feet. Dandy Dave!

We've all heard of pieces of a leather belt replacing babbits in bearing halves.

Either leather belts or bacon rinds!

There are one or two stories in NZ about hunters who got to their block by power boat across a large lake, only to run a bearing in the outboard, preventing their return. These places are very remote. They made new bearing shells by whitling something they cut down nearby. Luckily they had just enough tools (with a bit of ingenuity) to take the thing to pieces to get at the bearings. I can't imagine much hunting would have been done.

We've all heard of pieces of a leather belt replacing babbits in bearing halves.

I did this myself a few times on early tractors just to get them moved to where I could pour a new bearing. Dandy Dave!

I wonder if anyone has pics of what was on the road during the war years,,

1942-45,,,I can recall 12-14 plies of a 10 ply tire all showing at say 20 mph

ON the road,,,there were extra layers not counted next to the tred,,

The car famine wasn't over til around 1950,,,and some new cars had wood bumpers,

Later on painted bumpers,,still no chrome,,Those were NOT ,,,good ole daize,,

Grump,,,Ben

We are within a few miles of the MD/PA border. PA had annual inspection laws long before MD. I recall MD tagged cars being driven on the road missing the occasional door, hood or fender.

My friend told me of the time years ago when he and his wife were traveling in and around Pitts. in a hard rain storm and their wipers broke. He had to stop the car and with some string he tied it to the wiper blade. One end of the string was fed through the drivers door window and the other end of the string through the passenger door window. So Ed would give the string a tug and Renee would relax and so forth. Ed only recalled having to continually keep saying, "Pull Renee, Pull Renee" all the way home.