Your favorite Macgyver moments\tricks

[Daamud]

Originally Posted by Aviatordoc

Here is a small tip.
To prevent keys (other keys) on your key ring from tearing up the paint/finish around your ignition switch as it happens when riding:
Cut a small length of heat shrink tube which fits the key (the cut edges of the key), heat it up a tad so it conforms to the shape of the cut edges of the key but is still removable as a sleeve. Works well. Just be careful and do not heat it a lot.

This reminds me of a tip an old biker guy told me.

Your bike key should always have a spare masterlink on the keyring.

I went one step further and heat shrinked mine so it don't rattle as bad or loose the clip.

[davsato]

Originally Posted by Daamud

This reminds me of a tip an old biker guy told me.

Your bike key should always have a spare masterlink on the keyring.

I went one step further and heat shrinked mine so it don't rattle as bad or loose the clip.

my mate has his keys on a bolt with a spring washer between each, kind of like a key swiss army knife

[davsato]

Originally Posted by hilslamer

Aluminum doesn't change color when it is heated, even to a plastic or molten state. You were likely working with steel...

+1 and when it goes, it goes fast! rub aluminium with soap before heating, when the soap goes black, the metals soft enough to bend

[dorkpunch]

Originally Posted by stretch160

3 loose spark plug wires going zap zap zap while forcing fuel vapor from 3 cylinders. How did dad not go boom burn scream.

It takes a lot more than you would think to light gasoline on fire, 'specially when it's "uncompressed"... Try sticking the spark plug of anything next to the spark plug hole while its cranking over and see what happens. Nothing. I've gotten it to go boom ONCE- after dumpming about a cup of gasoline down the sparg plug hole. The resulting fireball was so cool my 16 yr old self had to try it agian, couldnt ever get it to work again though.

VERY cool idea though, will have to member that one!

[phreakingeek]

as i was unloading a bike from the truck in a downpour...i nearly slipped and busted my ass on the wood ramps. Luckily i was home and could grab my trusty dewalt drill and a handful of screws. I spent about 15 minutes driving approx 50 screws into the ramp i needed to walk down. I put them in as rows of 6 accross the board and spaced the rows 6 inches apart all the way down the board. I noticed that i had to back out a few screws since the driver tended to countersink the head. When they were all in and above the surface of the board, it turned a wet slippery board into a nice easy to walk on surface.

[Wlfman]

Originally Posted by phreakingeek

as i was unloading a bike from the truck in a downpour...i nearly slipped and busted my ass on the wood ramps. Luckily i was home and could grab my trusty dewalt drill and a handful of screws. I spent about 15 minutes driving approx 50 screws into the ramp i needed to walk down. I put them in as rows of 6 accross the board and spaced the rows 6 inches apart all the way down the board. I noticed that i had to back out a few screws since the driver tended to countersink the head. When they were all in and above the surface of the board, it turned a wet slippery board into a nice easy to walk on surface.

When I was using boards as ramps I applied 2 strips of this stuff down the entire center of each board. No problems at all with slippage.


http://www.lowes.com/pd_27300-56131-108214_0__?productId=1177559&Ntt=tread+tape&pl=1¤tURL=%2Fpl__0__s%3FNtt%3Dtread%2Btape&facetInfo=

[phreakingeek]

Way back in my youth, grip tape on a skate board worked fine. More recently though, my attempt to use that tape on anything that gets wet and muddy seems to remove the tape in a hurry.

Since this is a McGyver thread...i thought my quick fix was a fitting addition.

[42]

Originally Posted by phreakingeek

Way back in my youth, grip tape on a skate board worked fine. More recently though, my attempt to use that tape on anything that gets wet and muddy seems to remove the tape in a hurry.

Since this is a McGyver thread...i thought my quick fix was a fitting addition.

Worked great on my gas tank. Gave my knees something to grip.

[jknight611]

On an unsupported solo camping trip on my Ural Tourist I made a midnight ride to the "bathhouse" to..... Well in the AM the bike just wouldn't run smoothly. After a brief inspection I saw that I had kicked the right carb and the rubber on the carb mount had split. I found a guy in a very old RV that had a bit of dried up Permatex. So I cut the seam on the bottom of my T shirt, squished the sealer into it, then removed the clamp wrapped the bandage around the compliance boot let it dry, it ran fine for the next 600 miles till I could get home and replace the rubber flange. Carry a spare now....

Jay

[svejkovat]

Came across a guy stranded on the roadside one evening. I was in my car, He was standing next to an older BMW airhead. I stopped to see what was wrong. Out of gas. Angry at himself for having the petcock on reserve all the while so he'd screwed himself out of getting the last few miles to get to a station. His bike was set up like my own with one petcock on the left hand side. There was a ditch next to the road. I wheeled the bike parallel to and on the edge of the ditch and told him that between the two of us we were going to tip the one third of a gallon of gas remaining in the right tank saddle into the left. Besides being quicker and easier than scrounging around for a siphon tube of some sort or removing the tank and wrangling with the fuel lines it just felt more 'macgyver'. Not particularly brilliant but it worked and he'd never even realized that gas was in there. Got him back on the road and pretty surely to a station.

[Wlfman]

Originally Posted by svejkovat

Came across a guy stranded on the roadside one evening. I was in my car, He was standing next to an older BMW airhead. I stopped to see what was wrong. Out of gas. Angry at himself for having the petcock on reserve all the while so he'd screwed himself out of getting the last few miles to get to a station. His bike was set up like my own with one petcock on the left hand side. There was a ditch next to the road. I wheeled the bike parallel to and on the edge of the ditch and told him that between the two of us we were going to tip the one third of a gallon of gas remaining in the right tank saddle into the left. Besides being quicker and easier than scrounging around for a siphon tube of some sort or removing the tank and wrangling with the fuel lines it just felt more 'macgyver'. Not particularly brilliant but it worked and he'd never even realized that gas was in there. Got him back on the road and pretty surely to a station.

That's the Reserve Reserve, KLR riders know all about it

[Bob_M]

Maybe not a McGyver moment but I had to torque a crankshaft bolt on my Grand National to 310 lb-ft. with no way to keep the motor from turning.

Didn’t want to risk stuffing rope into a cylinder to lock the motor. First tried to use a piece of 1” dia EMT pipe with the end notched and wedged between one harmonic balancer bolt and the floor.

Lifted the car up off of both jack stands with torque wrench, cold sweat emerged when one of them shifted out of place, managed to kick it back in place and let car down since I was on a creeper under the car at the time.

Waited for heart rate to drop below 100 then looked for some wire rope, ran it through a hole in the harmonic balancer and tied it to the frame, was able to torque the bolt no problem.

I’ve been home on vacation this week sick as a dog, but am now fully prepared to fix absolutely anything, since I have read every post in this great thread.

Keep it going.

[svejkovat]

This morning my kitchen smelled like a toxic chemical dump. WTF? Really nasty rubber chemical burning dioxin yada yada.

I followed it to the back of the fridge. The compressor was trying to start and not having any of it. I removed the starter relay and starter cap and diassembled. Plastic was burned inside right next to a thermistor chip about the size of a nickel. Thermistor chip was shattered (due to heat and age) and the chips and debris were causing its spring loaded holder arms to short. Thermistor is used as a primitive but generally reliable relay. Closed circuit when cold, open when hot. Starts the run capacitor/starter windings when energized, heats up to open circuit within a quarter of a sec, then blocks current to the starter windings. Thermistor was broken up into three large pieces and a bunch of dust. Realized I had to get a new starter relay at the very least to save a fridge full of food until the part could be had.

Studied up on the web what was happening and a blog described the exact same predicament. A TRUE Macgyver hero on the board suggested his own fix that worked for him. It should have been obvious but I just wasn't thinking in Macgyver mode (no coffee yet). Just clean out the arc causing debris and reinsert the largest of the broken pieces of thermistor between the holder arms. A thermistor piece has pretty much the same resistance curve as the whole. Voila!!! It worked beautifully. I'll only run it while in the house so that I can keep an eye on it and unplug it while sleeping. It would probably run trouble free for another 5 years like this but until I can get the replacement relay or, more likely, replace this 10 year old Gibson, my food wont spoil!!!!

[svejkovat]

The mother of invention may be laziness, but also a good portion of determined thrift. The part at the local appliance store was 75 dollars and a few days' wait. Figured I'd just use my rigged one as is until I buy a new fridge.

On a whim I stopped at the scrap yard on the drive back and looked at the dozen or so fridges on the lot. The relay is just a snap-in that's exposed in the back of the fridge.. 15 second removal tops. There were two of them with identical part numbers heading for the heap. I snapped them off and gave the attendant a buck for them.

Snapped one in when I got home and all is golden. Good for another few years anyway.

[liquidsmile]

If you ever strip a screw you can use match sticks to put in the hole and put the screw back in until you can fix it properly. Used this just the other day on my boat on a carpet cleat that came out of the fiberglass.