Your favorite Macgyver moments\tricks

One of the sparkplugs came out of the front bank on a Chrysler V6 powered minivan. Made so much of a racket I thought it threw a rod.
Pulled over, popped the hood and the plug was still in the plug cap, just dangling there.
No tools, nothing. Looked around the side of the road and found a burnt out roadflare.
Perfect fit on the hex of the sparkplug. Screwed the plug back in using the flare, and drove home.

Wow, nice one. Lucky you didn't strip the threads with a relatively loose plug.

I had that happen on a subaru turns out the last owner had over tourque it... that was not a easy fix as the plug took a chunk of the head wih it

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In the army around ~'00 friend's car got low on oil due to neglect and the rod broke and blew a hole in the front of the block on this 4cylinder eclipse. After a few thinking drinks at the time I pulled out a long extension, unbolted the cap and knocked the cap off and let it fall in the oil pan telling him to pray the piston stays up in the cylinder. We siliconed an MRE wrapper over the hole and unplugged the injector and he traded it in with a "misfire" of unknown origin...

Amazing. How did the dealer that took it not see a MRE wrapper glued to the block?!

That's the problem with sales driven business organizations. Short sided and foolish.

I would feel bad about this if it weren't a used car dealer. The tech who inspected it probably got so excited when he spotted the injector.

Seems to me that the massive oil leak from the open rod journal would keep it from building enough pressure to lube the rest of the crank bearings.

Oh I'm sure it had a laundry list of other issues. It was one of those dodge neon engines. It didn't go far.

My friend and I were riding in the North Georgia Mountains, when he pulled over and said he felt a twitch in the rear wheel. I immediately suspected the crown bearing was disintegrating, and the debris in the final drive oil was starting to erode the oil seal. I ran a finger under the final drive housing and sure enough there was some oil beginning to leak.

I quickly pulled out my cell phone and called a tow truck. A hundred mile ride on the truck to Blue Moon BMW, five hundred dollars and a night in a motel fixed the problem!

Foul! Illegal fix. No bubblegum was utilized. Loss of ten yards.

That is the "Fat MacGyver" fix, not the "Thin MacGyver" fix.

The Suzuki DR650 fork tool. A 3/4" hose adapter threaded down onto a bit of threaded rod, drilled across and pinned.

from Hemming's newsletter:


http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/...at-are-your-favorite-garage-hacks/?refer=news

I keep a couple old bikes at my cabin and this summer pulled out my '78 DT175 for a ride. It usually fires right-up but this time, no-go. A bit of checking things over and I found some mice had taken-up residence in the air box. The foam filter was in pieces and the intake was clogged with debris. After clearing out the bike fired up and ran fine. But what to do about the air filter?

I immediately went into MacGuyver mode and came-up with this:

I found a new dish sponge that was just large enough to cover the outlet in the airbox.


A bit of light oiling and then put the filter cage over it to hold it in-place.


Put the cover back on and it worked perfectly until I could order a new one!

A few months ago I was with three friends headed out Holcomb Valley (outside Big Bear, CA) to do some climbing. We were loaded down in a Friend A's VW Golf going a bit too fast down the dirt road. He managed to violently bottom out through a big pot hole and got an oil pressure light a few hundred yards down the road. Sure enough, we got out and found a long trail of oil up to the large puddle below the car. Luckily, there was another car that took Friend B back to town to get some oil. Here's our situation now:

Midnight
Wildfire (Lake Fire) burning on the opposite side of Big Bear (not really a big deal, just added to the ambiance)
Two Headlamps
One Leatherman
~1" hole in oil pan
The Bounty of Nature

While Friend A searched for the missing piece of the pan (never found) Friend C and I decided to whittle down a nice piece of pine to make a plug for the hole. ~30 min later we had a well sized plug which we decided to wrap in a torn piece of Friend C's boxers to help the seal. Hammered it in with a rock, poured a few liters of oil in, and drove back to town. Surprisingly it held, and rather than replace with JB weld or find a mechanic, we took the obvious course of action and went to an alternative climbing area for the day. Plug continued to hold, so Friend A & B decided to drive ~3 hours back to San Diego (Friend C and I were in his RV-8). The plug held for several days until Friend A could get the oil pan replaced - he even gave me the plug as a gift.

Turned out to be a pretty cool weekend.

NSFW.




Or, you can just whittle a stick.....if you have a stick to whittle.

Tell me more about the RV 8...

don't underestimate the strength of zip ties

went riding with a buddy on my DRZ. Muffler is held on with those steel screw on hose clamps. Both hose clamps somehow busted or slipped off while riding. Out in the field used zip ties to hook the muffler back on to the muffler mount bracket. Zip ties held for another 100 miles.

Probably goes without saying that the vice grips shifter is one of the most useful McGyvers. Though this pic doesn't show the double vice grip since it utilizes a piece of the original shifter somehow. Back in the day, my first bike I learned on, a Kawasaki 80, stuck in first gear luckily the first time I ever rode it, then with the double vice grips shifter it worked clumsily but ok - and better than just first gear! Was about 10.