legacycentral bbs

Amusing "emergency fix" happened on my car today.

a rear caliper locked up on the guide pin (the slide) and messed up my left rear pads. I went to replace the pads and the pin actually broke off in the caliper carrier. after a long while of work, I got what was left of the guide pin out, and found out that there is no place locally to get one until MONDAY (leaving me without a car for the weekend, and without a ride home from work tonight as well) so, instead of doing the normal thing and wait for a part and spend money on a rental or something, I modified my plans, and cut the pin, welded a bolt on the pin (8mm bolt, of the highest hardness I could find, SAE grade 8 equivalent) and after a bit of grinding, welding and testing, I polished the pin and greased it and put the brakes back together (with new pads) and it got me home tonight. "ghetto garage", but in an emergency, it kept my winter beater alive for another few days...
I know this is one of those "you should never do this" type of things, but it proves that done right you CAN do it in an emergency... if you have some skill and a lot of stones...

I've done ghettoer...


Good use of ingenuity!

yeah, I have too, but I HATE to have to "ghetto garage" something... it REALLY bugs me. what is worse, I had a licensed mechanic staring at it the whole time I was welding and fabricating my "new" guide pin, and from his facial expression, I got the impression that he didn't believe it was possible, and was amazed when I finished and it actually fit right and worked... and if I didn't say before, this is TEMPORARY... not a "permanent" fix.

those mods are the best though b/c you did them yourself
nice job!

anything you do that makes it work..safely... for what you need to do to get home is anything but ghetto. i really hate people, ESP grown men that bring there cars to a garage for any little repair..its very weak. good job, im glad to see people are self reliant. good luck on your final repair

I read of a guy fixing a broken suspension on, I think, an old MG with an umbrella handle to finish a long distance trial.

my favorite emergency fixes are the ones that rally drivers try.

like using shoe laces to replace a missing alternator belt.

what.... is that for real?

they better be leather shoelaces

+1 for the ghettoness.

I lost the bottom bolt from my rear p-side caliper one day. All of a sudden, I heard a grrrrrrrrrrrrrdunkdunkdunkdunkdunk when I hit the brakes doing about 25 or 30 coming up to a stop light. I pretty much figured it out right away and killed the motor while gently braking with the e-brake. Needless to say, a co-worker saw me and stopped, and about an hour later I had scammed one from my parts car and had it reinstalled.

I've heard duct tape can make a spare belt if you really need one.

Let's face it, these cars ain't exactly under waranty... what ever gets ya home.

I was pretty proud of my coolant hose block-off with a DVD cake spindle the other day... still running that way.

What sort of tools/supplies does everyone keep in the trunk for emergency repairs?

I carry a small set of metric sockets, a Leatherman, roll of duct tape, small spool of 16g wire, adjustable wrench, a bunch of zip-ties, a tire plug kit, & a small 12v compressor. Also a set of work gloves & a few Tyvek whitesuits...breakdowns invariably occur when your wearing good clothes.

ok try being in the middle of nowwhere(in between two cities) and a rear drum falls apart while you are driving.

Then you only have a couple of tools and a pair of vise grips. The vise grips saved the day, i don't think i could do it again if i tryed.

just a leatherman and a BUNCH of writing utensils.... for some reason?...

MacGyver would be so proud!

funny, that's what they call me at work...

i had the top coolent line on my radiator explode on me.

after it cooled down enough to stop spueing out. i used some scotch tape. worked awesome.