Oddball repair jobs...list yours here

[JDgreen227]

In high school, I normally drove my dad's stick-shift (3 speed on the column). I had a job delivering doughnuts from the doughnut shop to the "roach coaches" at 4:00 AM. My boss had me use his car. It was an automatic on the column. One time, accelerating through 15 MPH or so, I up-shifted to second (or not...) - fortunately there was no transmission damage from slamming it into park (at least none immediately apparent)

On older cars, that would be easy to do, no detents to block careless shifting. I may be wrong but I think on most newer models there are electronic controls to prevent wrong engagement.

 

[tommu56]

A friend had an old fire truck with a broken rod no block damage
It was just a grand kid hauler on the farm and campground.

Pulled the rod piece off the crank and wrapped a piece of leather belting around the rod journal and 3 hose clamps around that.
Puled the intake and exhaust rocker arms and push rods. drilled the piston through the spark plug hole put a bolt in it to hold it up.

We fired it up and it ran that way 10 or so years till the body rusted so bad it wasn't safe but the motor still ran!

 

[Taylortractornut]

Had a water pump on an old Hough loader with a Hercules motor on i go bad. THe new one was going to be 550 bucks plus the counter weigt for the loader had to be pulled to change it. I went out in the shed and found an old open back water pump off another machine. I traced the outline an a sheet of steel and burned it out and dressed it up a bit and drilled the housing holes in it and bolted it off to the side of the frame with a longer belt and hoses to the engine. The old girl is still running today like that.

Back in 03 when we were closing down the landfill when our parent company closed I bought m table burner from a Surplus store in Alabama. I went to get it and on the way back I saw an old huge home built furniture trailer / camper be hind a late model Ford Crew cab dually with an elderly couple looking at the hood. I stopped to see if I could help and THey said the tensioner bearing went out on the serpintine belts. I told the old man it was 430 in a friday and it wasnt likely. The Ford dealer didnt have a belt or Idler But Auto zone did. I had to run 21 miles the other way to get it. No Idler anywere. These folks were goingto A big furniture show in Nashville.

I told them I had an idea. we got the tensoiner off and me and the old man came to the shop. I burned out the old race and made a sleeve for it. I had a tone of smaller bearings from Makita drills . I pressed them into the sleeve and reinstalled them on the tensioner. I called them a few months later and the old man said it was still on the truck.

 

[Heavy Metal Doctor]

Similar to some other stories here.....In my early twenties and still a fairly new mechanic.....During our deployemet to Somalia, one of our contact (service) trucks threw a rod in a 3 cylinder air compressor. "Old Sarge" (supervisor) asked me to see if there was any way to make it semi-servicable, and not just sit useless 'till we got back to the states...so I pulled the connecting rod peices out of the crank case. Rerouted the air tube away from / eliminating that cylinder and it ran on the other 2 for a few months -- slow as heck to fill HEMMT tire, but it worked!

Same deployment - had a driver snap a PTO off the side of his transmission in a 5-ton truck --- I removed the remains or the PTO. Then I burned a piece of plate out of a 55 galllon drum top and made a decent gasket and bolted it on to cover the hole. It seeped a little oil, but it was good enough for temporary field repair.

Later, I had a crappy old Chrysler minvan (I realized why my brother-in-law GAVE it to me:laughing....it died one day along the side of the highway. I was a good ways from any help and didn't have a cell phone back then....I thought it seemd like no spark so I took the distributor cap off and found it had burned a hole through the rotor and was obviously throwing the juice everywhere but the plugs. All I could come up with for a fix was a quart of oil......dumped the oil in the engine and then cut a disc of plastic out of the bottle. Put the plastic disc under the rotor to insulate it. Put the cap back on and fired it up -- drove about 50 miles that way to get home and get the right parts.

 

[lockhaven]

I had a John Deere B 1940's vintage. While mowing pasture the tractor suddenly lost power. It was running but I knew that something was not right. On inspection I found that one plug wire had been pulled off and was missing. searching was not successful. I did have some bailing wire, after a few bends and twists I had a new working plug wire. It lasted a few years till I finally got around to replacing it with the "factory" wire. It only had two cylinders to begin with and I always think that the days of bailing wire plug wires are over.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I had a John Deere B 1940's vintage. While mowing pasture the tractor suddenly lost power. It was running but I knew that something was not right. On inspection I found that one plug wire had been pulled off and was missing. searching was not successful. I did have some bailing wire, after a few bends and twists I had a new working plug wire. It lasted a few years till I finally got around to replacing it with the "factory" wire. It only had two cylinders to begin with and I always think that the days of bailing wire plug wires are over.

Those old magnetos carried a jolt. I'm sure just about anyone who started one of the old 2-bangers got bit once while closing the petcocks. Once was all it took. I'm sure all you had to do was get the spark somewhere in the vicinity of the plugs and it would fire.

 

[lockhaven]

You sir have had experience with those I think. Easy to work on and had lots of power.

 

[Taylortractornut]

I had a crane operator that was new ly out of union crane school. Knew every thing about a crane but never been on an old friction rig. I had told him not to walk id backwards far as it would walk the sprocket out of the track. THe old Cast pads were alot different than excavator tracks. I cant think of the name now but on the 5299 American it had a sprocket with big knobs that fit into pockets on the chain. He was walking in and steered backing up a hill and sure enough she walked out of the track.


I was working on it I realised that ma jack wouldnt do to lift it. To tension the track theres alarge nut and bolt set up to tighen it. But the track had to be lifted to get the track on. To lift it I boomed the 120 boom down and dogged it off and then backed a little D4C down to it and hooked the chokers to it. A little power up and the track was in the air. The new operator was amazed that the the 50 ton crane could be reared up by a little D4.

 

[crash325]

Those old magnetos carried a jolt. I'm sure just about anyone who started one of the old 2-bangers got bit once while closing the petcocks. Once was all it took. I'm sure all you had to do was get the spark somewhere in the vicinity of the plugs and it would fire.

Ask me how many times I turned the right hand petcock off the wrong way.:laughing::thumbsup:

 

[Ken]

Today took the foot clutch off the A/C WD45 and bushing worn so bad needed a new bushing.
looking around for something that would work found a set of rod bearings left over from a engine repair. With a bolt the size of the needed bushing and with vise curled around bolt and with hack saw cut off the excess. It formed a tight fit and reinstalled on tractor. Knew there was a reason for keeping replaced parts.

Also had bought a old "B" John Deere that had set in to rain for couple years. And my Grand Daughter was with me when went to load on trailer. With jumper cables attached to starter with pet cocks open the engine turned over and black fluid shot out right side of engine and missed my G-Daughter age about 6 by few inches. She just stood there surprised then said "Is it supposed to do this."