Show us the hack work you've found

[Roscoe]

Sometime in the future, provided that this forum exists in 40 years or so, my grandchild/whoever gets my old rides will probably enter them in this thread....LOL.

Having said that, redoing/trying to improve my '52 has led me to find a few suprises. 1) the front bumper bracket apparently broke and were rewelded with pieces of rebar as bridging material. 2) From the brake light switch (which was no op) back, all the wiring was replaced with extension cord. 3) one hole in the inner kickpanel was repaired by a Bugler's Teal blue metal tobacco can, smashed flat,attached with pop rivits, and bondo smeared over it.  4) The passenger side running board was secured to the rear fender by way of a welder. Oh, and my favorite, which I genuinely regret that I'm gonna have to repair- the grill apparently came lose on the driver's side, upper corner. It has a nice spot weld holding the grille in.

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

4 minutes ago, Roscoe said:

Sometime in the future, provided that this forum exists in 40 years or so, my grandchild/whoever gets my old rides will probably enter them in this thread....LOL.

Having said that, redoing/trying to improve my '52 has led me to find a few suprises. 1) the front bumper bracket apparently broke and were rewelded with pieces of rebar as bridging material. 2) From the brake light switch (which was no op) back, all the wiring was replaced with extension cord. 3) one hole in the inner kickpanel was repaired by a Bugler's Teal blue metal tobacco can, smashed flat,attached with pop rivits, and bondo smeared over it.  4) The passenger side running board was secured to the rear fender by way of a welder. Oh, and my favorite, which I genuinely regret that I'm gonna have to repair- the grill apparently came lose on the driver's side, upper corner. It has a nice spot weld holding the grille in.

 

 BUT, Sam is still here. Some "hacks" were/are just repairs of necessity.

 

  Ben

[TTR]

Ben, with all due respect but I’ve always believed the difference between “ necessity” and “hack job” is in the intent.

One for the “necessity” is a temporary roadside repair to get you home, while “hack job” is use of whatever, i.e. bailing wire, bubble gum, duct tape, etc, intended as permanent solution.

The difference may seem subtle (apparently to most), kind of like the one between collector and hoarder, but if you think about it, it’s clearly there.

Edited September 18, 2022 by TTR (see edit history)

[Restorer32]

How about rocker panels made from woven together paint stir sticks covered with bondo.

[rocketraider]

On 9/15/2022 at 9:14 AM, Matt Harwood said:

but there was a weird rumble from the front of the engine...the harmonic balancer (the rumble) was barely hanging on. Instead of a press-fit with a woodruff key, he just sprayed it with Lok-Tite and drilled a hole in the balancer and used a set screw to hold it in place. You could move it around with your fingers:

 

😳

 

I think I now know why I once found a 327 Chevy balancer welded to the crankshaft.

 

If that Camaro hadn't still had its original engine I'd have chucked the whole works in the scrap pile, but the 24 year old who owned it wanted to keep the car as built. Which in early 90s was an anomaly in itself- round here anyway.

[Zimm63]

7 hours ago, Restorer32 said:

How about rocker panels made from woven together paint stir sticks covered with bondo.

Had a 67 GMC pickup with rocker panels made of rolled up newspaper covered with bondo.  One fell out in a big chunk.  

[Brianbo]

This was the fuse panel in my VW. Worked good, no smoke, so I left it alone. The thermometer is my move. Stole the wife’s meat thermometer and epoxied it into the fitting 🙂

Edited September 20, 2022 by Brianbo (see edit history)

[Paul Dobbin]

I have no pictures, but I have bad memories.   Bought aused engine with a verbal guarantee that it was good.   Lasted 5 miles and started smoking like a mysquito fogger.   Turned out the rebuilder didn't have enough rings for all the cylinders and wraped a rag around #4.   When t rag sell in the pan, it became a fogger.  Seller, not the rebuilder stood behind it and fixed it, no charge.  I sold it as soon as I got it back.  (With the whole story)

[Terry Harper]

My Dad always told the story of how my Great Uncle Chauncey had bought a used Hudson. It was in great condition but it had a miss in it. Chauncey decided that it probably had a sticking or burned valve. When he removed the head  - low and behold one of the pistons was missing and a wood block had been wedged tight in the bore. Needless to say he moved it on to a new owner but was (somewhat) honest in telling them it had a miss if not forthright in disclosing the source of said miss.

[mcdarrunt]

This is not the worse one we have worked on but it had a big torque 455 Olds in it for several years before owner told us to put an LS in it and maybe "clean up his welds a bit". Nova IFS grafted to a 50 Ford pickup frame.

 

Right frame rail splice and left frame rail splice:

 

 

 

[rocketraider]

🤭

 

How that torque monster Olds didn't manage to turn those gussets upside down and the truck with them is a mystery for the ages!

[Frank DuVal]

Maybe they got it running as well as they did welding!😆

[dodge28]

The topic on HACK was very informing to newbies. I was born in march 1936 and have witnessed all kinds of hacks , from selling mules and donkeys by sprucing them up for sale. Steeling the neighbour's white cow and painting black spots to make it look like a Holstein  to cars through the years.Newspapers filled holes in body and filled with body filler. Rotted Wood spokes filled with body filler and painted over. The reason I bought an none restored original DB 28 . I spared no expense at restoring . New wood spokes from Calima , rebuilt generator from AER rebuilders. One needs not be a coward to be in this business. A co worker told me this joke ." 2 brothers, One  lived in Toronto ,a business man and one lived in Vancouver, a fish hawker.The Toronto brother  was having a party and asked his brother in Vancouver to send him some fish. The party guest got sick after eating the fish. The Toronto brother phoned the fish hawker and complained of the rotten fish. "why did you not tell me you wanted for yourself ? I thought you wanted it to sell"

That is the mother of all hacks

Edited September 25, 2022 by dodge28
error in spelling (see edit history)

[Restorer32]

I have a "friend" whose father taught him how to sell scrap copper pipe.  Smash one end of the pipe, drop wheel balance weights into the other end then smash that end closed and sell to your local scrap dealer.

[Angelfish]

On 9/15/2022 at 1:16 PM, drhach said:

It seems nobody here wants to admit that at one time, they were "that guy" too. I think every complaint here should be followed by a confession. 

This site doesn't have enough memory for that. 

[drhach]

[edinmass]

Ok, hack work I have found……..how about today? Two days ago I was working on a car. Today I was cleaning up and found a fairly important part that I had dropped while rebuilding a component. Didn’t realize it then. But was puzzled by the end play in the shaft. Thought that Buick just had a sloppy fit. Nope……my head was up my ass, and the extra end play in the fan was due to the shim that I dropped and didn’t see. So, I get to redo the job tomorrow. So, I was the hack…….but I will fix it. Fortunately no damage done. Everything is a learning curve restoring cars…….and none of it is easy.

[JV Puleo]

How true. About 35 years ago I was reassembling a 1922 Silver Ghost that a good friend had pulled from the shop of a "professional" restorer. The paint and upholstery were fantastic but the mechanical work maybe not so...In any case, I was going through a box of miscellaneous "extra" parts and found one of the retaining clips for the rear wheel bearings. Obviously, it wasn't where it belonged and I had to take the rear wheels, and hubs off to put it back. As luck would have it, the first one was ok. It was missing from the second wheel. I'm not comfortable working on "finished" 100 point (or nearly so) cars so it took nearly the entire day to do this but, if I hadn't, there was a chance one of the wheels would have come apart on the road.

 

And Ed...it's not hack work if you found the problem and fixed it!

Edited September 27, 2022 by JV Puleo (see edit history)

[Gerczak]

I had a well placed aaca badge placed over a very bad crack and weld on my 37 Hudson bumper.  I was very disappointed to find that one.

 

On the flip side, I must confess when I was in high school and had no money, I made a few crack pot repairs.  My brother gave me a 1981 Porsche 924 that was destined for the crusher.  Sure chicks dig Porsche's, but they don't dig 4" of water with floating cigarette packages in the passenger footwell.  The door handle didn't work so someone stepped on the mirror to hop into the sunroof to get into the car and dented the door so the window would not go up.  I pounded that out and had everything reasonably aligned and fixed the window/interior and then it rained.  Another 4" in passenger side showed up.  Further investigating a 3" hole had opened up under the battery which was directly under the windshield and all the water from the wipers ended up on my sweethearts feet.  Determined to fix this, I snagged my Dad's roofing tar and flashing and pached her up, put the interior back in again and then it rained.  Then there was 1" of water in it after using 2 tubes!  The sunroof also leaked so since it was a gray car, I duct taped it up, put the interior back in again and then declared victory.  I am older and wiser now and I will never own a water cooled VW/Porsche again let alone a car with a cut hole in the roof.

[Restorer32]

Buddy back in the '70s had a car that was hard to start because the choke didn't work.  No problem.  Fill the windshield washer bottle with gas, redirect the spray from the windshield to the carb, hold the hose in place over the carb throat with a paper clip. Press the windshield washer button for a second and fire her up.

[Restorer32]

Bought a '68 VW Beetle new. Actually one of the least reliable cars I ever owned.  After 50k miles or so the trans would not stay in high gear.  Shift into high and as soon as you touched the gas it would pop out of gear.  Being a poor college kid I had no money to fix it so I cut a loop of rubber from a bike tube, attached one end to the passenger side seat brace and looped the other end over the shifter.  Easy, shift into high, stretch the loop and slip it over the shifter.  It held the lever in high with no problem.  After a while it became a reflex.  Shift into high, flip the loop of rubber over the shifter and proceed on our merry way.

[edinmass]

11 minutes ago, Restorer32 said:

Buddy back in the '70s had a car that was hard to start because the choke didn't work.  No problem.  Fill the windshield washer bottle with gas, redirect the spray from the windshield to the carb, hold the hose in place over the carb throat with a paper clip. Press the windshield washer button for a second and fire her up.

 

In the early 80's we would fill the washer bottle with ATF and stick the hose in the top of the carb. At a stop light we would power brake the car at about 1200 rpm's, and hit the squirter. Would make so much smoke the cars behind couldn't go through the light. Funny as hell. Stupid also. 

Edited September 28, 2022 by edinmass (see edit history)

[Restorer32]

We built an ALF Speedster for a client.  Google ALF Rhino for pics.  He wanted to be able to generate a smoke screen so we plumbed up a hand pump, a storage tank full of ATF and a long but small in diameter copper tube which we  inserted  into the exhaust manifold. A quick  push of the hand pump and it made an incredible amount of smoke.  

[JACK M]

7 hours ago, Restorer32 said:

We built an ALF Speedster for a client. 

Funny thing, I had an ALF V12 that smoked plenty on its own.

[Frank DuVal]

15 hours ago, Restorer32 said:

Easy, shift into high, stretch the loop and slip it over the shifter.  It held the lever in high with no problem. 

Dad had a story of a depression era car that had the not stay in high gear problem, but the family cut a piece of wood to fit between the dash and lever. When it stalled on the railroad tracks, the family could not get the piece of wood out fast enough to restart the car and drive away in first. Result-fatalities. 

 

He told me this story when a Chevrolet school bus (no longer in school bus service) I was working on would not stay in 5th and they were thinking of cutting a piece of wood....   I took it apart and replaced the input shaft (which has the teeth that had worn in a triangular shape) and the synchro mating part with also worn teeth, thus forcing the lever out of high gear going down the road.

[28 Chrysler]

Maybe 45 years ago I bought a 1937 Chevy 1/2 ton PU that was next to a field rock pile and was stated "Ran When Parked"

The engine was stuck but not from rust but from a rock on the gas petal and cylinder #3 had a custom shaped connecting rod.

The rear end had a good part of an 6X16 inner tube cut in hundreds of pieces that was to fix a whine or clunks. (used car dealer ?)

 

Ever seen an Olds engine with shop rags over the rocker arms to muffle the sound ?

[Matt Harwood]

I feel that I would be remiss if I didn't post some of my own work, which happened just yesterday. Was doing some shakedown driving of the 1950 Chevy tow truck in preparation for Hershey when it started to lose power. I coasted into a parking lot and had a look around under the hood. It would idle but any acceleration and it just choked out. Not getting any fuel. Using the screwdriver that was in the glove box, I first removed the inline fuel filter thinking it might be clogged. Nope. Had to be the fuel pump, which is virtually the only part on this truck I haven't touched. Ugh. I walked to the auto parts store about 1/2 mile away and bought a few supplies: an electric fuel pump, one of those little boxes of electrical fittings, a package of zip ties, and some rubber fuel line. This is the result:

 

  

 

I was rather proud of pulling power from the resistor there on the inner fender, since I knew it would only be active when the ignition was on.

 

Anyway, it didn't cure the problem, it's the carburetor. As a last resort, I rapped on the carb with the end of my screwdriver and the thing started running properly, although it was dumping fuel from around the throttle shaft. It was enough to get me back to the shop, but the carb needs to be rebuilt or replaced. 

I guess the tow truck isn't going to Hershey. Very disappointed. But massive hack work got the truck home.

[rocketraider]

A common thread here is:

 

"Necessity is the Mother of Invention"

 

And bad as I hate to admit it redneck engineering has often saved the day.

 

That is an interesting little fuel pump though.🙂

[Grimy]

"Field Expedients" get us home, and should not be considered "hack work," which has at least a semi-permanent connotation, but personally I would have been absolutely impelled to cut the tails off the zipties--OCD, I know....

[SC38dls]

Always carry duck tape for emergency fixit jobs. Much more useful than zip ties. But as duck tape is a handy, multi use wonderful fixit, it should be considered beautiful and never a hack job. 
dave s 

[rocketraider]

On 9/28/2022 at 11:42 PM, Frank DuVal said:

He told me this story when a Chevrolet school bus (no longer in school bus service) I was working on would not stay in 5th and they were thinking of cutting a piece of wood....   I took it apart and replaced the input shaft (which has the teeth that had worn in a triangular shape) and the synchro mating part with also worn teeth, thus forcing the lever out of high gear going down the road.

Back in the Dark Ages when Virginia allowed high school students to drive school buses, I drove one. Matter of fact it was the same brand-new-in-1963 bus I rode to school in first grade in 1963- a 42-passenger Ford B600.

 

By 1973 old Bus #68 was tired. My route included a long uphill grade coming out of a river bottom and I had to get the kid riding the front seat to hold the shift lever in high gear going up that grade, otherwise it would pop out of high gear under load. Sometimes you'd still have to downshift and that's where I learned double-clutching. With vacuum wipers, scaling that hill in rain could be an adventure!

 

About midway that year the county replaced 68 with a 52-passenger International. I was in high cotton! One of the substitute drivers took the afternoon route when I had a dentist visit, and the girl forgot to release the hand brakes. Burnt the rear brakes up! And when I got home that afternoon there sat old 68, newly named "A-68". Took the bus garage three weeks to repair the new International's brakes.

[Harold]

I don't have pictures but many years ago my friend was buying late-model cars from a junkyard that rebuilt totals.  One car he bought was a repaired Olds 98 that pulled to the left.  The seller said, 'no problem' and cured the pull by installing a grossly oversize tire on one side.

[HarryLime]

Some years ago I did some work for an acquaintance on his Italian Stanguellini race car. Supposedly restored in Denver. I found the front control arm bushings missing and replaced with pieces of electrical conduit, no rubber. I found a set of Fiat 1100 bushings for it. Also the pinion gear was missing a tooth. It is still missing as a search across Italy didn't find one . He would not pay to have a gearset made. I see it for sale in northeast Ohio .  

[Matt Harwood]

More awesome hack work. Some genius thought he was smarter than the engineers at GM and decided that positive should be a black wire and negative was a red wire and rewired the whole starting system backwards. This is a 1972 Chevy pickup so it's not like it was something exotic. Red wire is ground with a black cover on the terminal and little minus marks drawn on the terminal. Black wire has a red cover on it and goes to the starter solenoid.

 

JUST PUT IT BACK THE WAY THE FACTORY DID IT FOR GOD'S SAKE!

 

 

Man, I'm so damned sick of this crap.

 

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by Matt Harwood (see edit history)

[Frank DuVal]

Yep, never trust a red wire to be positive. It just depends on what was on the shelf when the ground cable went bad....  Seen it more than once.

[Bloo]

This is typical of over the counter parts store replacement cables, or used to be. They didn't make more than one color in whatever configuration you needed. Just to pull an example out of the air, if you needed something about a couple feet long with one small pigtail, it would probably be red, negative or not. Universal parts.

 

1 hour ago, Frank DuVal said:

Yep, never trust a red wire to be positive. It just depends on what was on the shelf when the ground cable went bad....  Seen it more than once.

 

I have seen this so much I don't even look at the color. I follow both cables and see which one goes to a ground. 99% of 12 volt cars are negative ground.

[Lahti35]

1 hour ago, Matt Harwood said:

More awesome hack work. Some genius thought he was smarter than the engineers at GM and decided that positive should be a black wire and negative was a red wire and rewired the whole starting system backwards. This is a 1972 Chevy pickup so it's not like it was something exotic. Red wire is ground with a black cover on the terminal and little minus marks drawn on the terminal. Black wire has a red cover on it and goes to the starter solenoid.

 

JUST PUT IT BACK THE WAY THE FACTORY DID IT FOR GOD'S SAKE!

 

 

Man, I'm so damned sick of this crap.

 

 

Reminds me of this for some reason...

[Gerczak]

Just saw this on Facebook today.  Not sure who this car appeals to but the original looks better than this.  Does this count as a hack job?

 

[Billy Kingsley]

1 hour ago, Gerczak said:

Just saw this on Facebook today.  Not sure who this car appeals to but the original looks better than this.  Does this count as a hack job?

 

That was such a popular conversion in the 1970s (for some reason) that AMT made a model kit of it. 

 

[billorn]

9 hours ago, Gerczak said:

Just saw this on Facebook today.  Not sure who this car appeals to but the original looks better than this.  Does this count as a hack job?

 

It counts as a nose job. 

 

Sorry. I'll show myself out.