What were your best "Macgyver fixes"?

[quicksandfarmer]

Set the points using a hacksaw blade as a feeler gauge along the side of the Alaska Highway. I had hit a pothole so big it shook the points out of adjustment and the engine quit. This was 30+ years ago when cars still had points.

 

[oosik]

quicksand farmer - - you were lucky. When we went to Alaska permanently in 1965 - driving a VW up the Alaska Hwy - drove into a pothole - got lost - never been heard from since.

Four wheeling in Alaska. Something UKN tore the rubber "bungie cord" that held the exhaust pipe. Several wraps of household aluminum foil around the tail pipe and a goodly amount of duck tape got us to where a fellow member donated a wire coat hanger. The reason I even remember all of this - the stupid replacement OEM bungie cord - - $17.95. This was in 1970.

 

[PILOON]

I had an aviation business based at Montreal airport.
A Cessna owner came to us with his throttle control in his hands.
They are typically 'push pull' devices very like a choke cable only heavier gauge. Since parts would be a waiting game I resorted to using a HD (but correct sized) stiff wire that was actually a piano wire. (don't ask what key, do re mi or ??)*
For the pilot we heated and formed a ring so that he could grab and push/pull like the real thing, only instead of a big knob he had about a 2" coil or ring to grab.

*crazy, but think it was 80 thou/inch

 

[jaxs]

Had an alternator belt break (back in the 70's) while out on a date, convinced her to give up her pantyhose to use as a temp fix. Got us through the night,

That sound's like a con job to me. Wish I'd thought of it when I was a young feller.

 

[Wagtail]

Salty Sea Ditty (Sailor story)... [early 1990's] I was the radar tech on a Navy Tanker/Supply ship {Important NOTE: a mixed gender crew} and was called to the bridge around 0330 (as is always the case :laughing for a joystick problem on the pedestal mounted radar display. The officers seemed to think that the harder they pushed on the joystick, the faster the 'cursor' would go on the display. No, but that didn't stop them from stripping the metal thread of the joystick shaft where it went into the X/Y unit. They also managed to ruin the rubber 'shaft protection/dust cover'. Naturally there were no spare parts onboard and we were in the middle of the Pacific + a week or so from the next port-of-call.

Fixing the shaft to the X/Y was a simple matter of epoxy cement... but I needed to replace the dust cover so that nothing would drop down into the guts of the display. I knew of a piece of soft leather that I could cut as a 'gasket' and also cut an "X" in the middle to allow the joystick to move in the X/Y plane but I still needed something for the shaft of the joystick... something 5-6" long, flexible, open at one end and closed at the other... :scratchchin:

So (0530) I was knocking on the Medical Officer's cabin door and asked a very sleepy Surgeon LEUT for a condom. He surreptitiously looked around to see if there was anyone of the female persuasion with me whilst asking why I needed this particular item at this specific time of the morning. I explained, he thought a moment and then asked if a non-lubricated latex finger glove would suffice. Perfect! Thank you Sir.

The fault was fixed. I asked that the bridge officers refrained from 'cranking' on the joystick ("Use a slow touch and an easy hand.") and the jury-rig lasted fine until a replacement arrived weeks later.

 

[stuckmotor]

That sound's like a con job to me. Wish I'd thought of it when I was a young feller.

I wasn't quite sure what, "got us through the night meant myself".

 

[stevem5215]

I've got a bunch of em' but i think one of my best was of course another broken throttle cable but this one was on my 1976 Mercury Trailtwister 340. The end at the throttle block broke off leaving me with no throttle and we had just unloaded to ride for the day at our family farm. I looked around for a solution and we had a old burned out house on the farm that had some old light switches. I took one apart and used the wire clamping end for where you'd put the wires to it. I took that piece and clamped my cable and reassembled the throttle and rode it like that for two weekends till I got the new cable from my "Buddy Bob" in Wisconsin at the Mercury parts place.

Was one of my best fixes but there's a lot of others. Another good McGyver move was on our Chinese Farmpro 2420 tractor. The alternator blew and I wasn't messing with the junk chinese electrics on it (as they were pretty bad). I replaced it with a 727 alternator from a 74 chevy something or other for $35 it was a three wire version so I needed some connections. Put it together and found I needed more clearance due to the belt and pulley differences on the old one. The new one already had the pulley on it so I wasn't messing with that and I looked around in the barn again for something that might work. I ended up using the latch side of a barn door lock for the stalls. Just a short piece of metal that had two holes and allowed the belt to extend and mount the new alternator up. Worked perfectly and is still on the tractor today close to 10 years later.

Steve with lots of McGyver fixes over the years. I even called some of them that when people would ask about some of them I did at work. I had several on some early versions of Laser printers that had engineering bugs in them.

 

[sixdogs]

After tiring of trying to stir 100% peanut butter (with the oil) I gave up and chucked my wife's portable mixer dough hook in my Makita drill. In 30 seconds I had creamy PB with no effort. I did a thread about it with pics on the TBN. You have to run the drill backwards and start slow or PB will be everywhere.

 

[/pine]

Set the points using a hacksaw blade as a feeler gauge along the side of the Alaska Highway. I had hit a pothole so big it shook the points out of adjustment and the engine quit. This was 30+ years ago when cars still had points.

The cover of most paper match books was .018...used to see many tune up mechanics starting there...hardly ever saw an actual feeler gauge...or a dwell meter...

 

[Tractor Seabee]

Driving my service truck across east OR in the middle of the night, and no traffic. The fuel gauge was on the fritz so I ran out of gas out in nowhere 50 miles from any thing. Scrtached my head a little plus another location. Hooked up the O/A welding outfit and stuck the Acet hose in the carb. Started at real low flow and tried to start up, it worked, ran fine. Set the O/A set wher I could reach the regulator handle. Started up again and controlled engine speed with the regulator. Afraid to get going too fast so limped along at 30 MPH to the next town.

I am not sure I did a very safe thing, it could have all blown up on me. My guardian angle was stronger than Ole Man Murphy that night.

Ron