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So, being Jeep people I know have all Macgyved things in our Jeep or just because it was needed.
Post your Macgvering prowess here...
I one kept a car running by using a bungee cord to keep a spark plug in a cylander head when it decided to distance itself from the engine. Popped and was loud but we made it home.
I bought a '68 Pontiac Tempest when I was in my teens. It didn't have any interior so I got creative with a milk crate , some wood and a ratchet strap. I waited till dark and and set off in a multi colored beast with a 400 and glass packs. I got pulled over within 5 minutes. The officer shined his light in the car and told me in some colorful words he didn't want to see my car in his town again. No ticket , just Get out! The good old days.
BTW, tech inspect at most dragsrtips frown apon a tool box (seat) and a rope (seat belt) as safety equipment!
Another Macgyver time:
Pulled a vehicle about a mile on two floor jacks before an officer stopped us. He was laughing so hard as he explained that all he did was follow the tracks in the road!
i had to move the tractor that day but the battery terminal clamps were corroded and useless, cut the old ones off and used hose clamps to attatch them, everyone said i was crazy and it would never work somehow they still havent been changed, that was about a year and a half ago.
Had a Chevy pu 4x4 and the Transmission got to where it would not stay in 4th gear so I took a bungee cord and hooked it to the back of the bottem seat and when I would put it in 4th I would hook the other end on the shifter. It kept it from popping out of gear and I drove it that way for over a year.
I've always said you can keep a Jeep running as long as you have a coat hanger and a pair of pliers... Have kept exhaust system from dragging the ground, held battery in place, etc... Heck, I've got bungee cords holding my battery right now
Had the fan blade come un put together in My J-10. destroyed the fan clutch A/C idler pulley, alt belt and stuck in the side of the battery.
Had a spare belt, pulled what was left of the fan and clutch bolted the pulley on the pump direct and drove home.
You would be surprised how long a battery will work with no acid and how little you need a fan once you are on the road. got home and bought an electric fan,replaced the battery and fabbed the A/C idler arm and life was good.
As my first car I had a 98 GMC van... (not a mini van) didn't have A/C. I got hit on the driver side mirror and broke off, didn't shatter the mirror just detached from the door. didn't have money to buy a new one, so I picked it up, put exterior grade liquid nail (construction adhesive) then wrapped a bungie cord around to kept it till it dried.......2 years later I sold it with the bungie still on it.
For a couple of years in 1975, we lived AMC 150 miles from my late father's front end alignment and brake shop. During this dark time, dad lived in the shop M-F and came home for the weekends.
As a nine-going-on-ten year old, I hated Monday through Friday and always tried to make the most of Saturday and Sunday.
One weekend, he'd intended to refresh the alignment on mom's car, but he forgot his toe in tool.
Mom was out using his car for shopping or something equally uninteresting.
I was in the garage with him while he lamented forgetting his toe in tool.
I thought about what it looked like, remembering. Then I told him to wait in the garage and I bolted into the living room.
I pulled down the curtain rod, which was one of those white, grooved, adjustable pot metal curtain rods, and freed it from the curtains.
I went back into the garage with the curtain rod, found two nails - for the scribing ends of the toe-in tool - and duct taped the nails on to the 90 degree ends of the curtain rod.
"Hold this," I said.
He stood there, holding a conscripted curtain rod, paralyzed with amazement (as I am using way, Way, WAY too much duct tape to lock in an eyeballed length).
"That's plenty of tape, Jon" is what a remember hearing just before I ripped the roll free from the tool and tossed it onto his rolling tool box.
We jacked the front end of mom's car into the air and set the jack stands.
I grabbed a can of silver spray paint and set it on the ground, aimed it at the driver side tire.
Using my left thumb to hold down the spray can's nozzle, I sprayed while my right hand spun the wheel. Then I moved to the passenger side and repeated the action.
I can still smell the paint.
Dad used my toe in tool's nails to scribe reference marks in my wet paint.
I remember being on the ground and setting my side of the toe in tool's nail on the line.
Turning the loosened collars, he set the toe in to 1/16th of an inch (or something like that).
Just as he was locking it down (with a ratchet I cherish to this day) mom came home.
He jumped up from the garage floor, so proud, and started bragging enthusiastically to mom about how I shoved defeat into the jaws of victory and how she won't prematurely wear out her tires.
... and mom was.... deaf.
That's how I learned exactly how traumatic, horrible and deafening it is to come home to find the world's most important front window curtains casually discarded, disrespected and left to rot the living room floor.
How could I be so insensitive?
Whatever.
-Jon
PS: now that I think about it, the curtains weren't casually discarded. They were hurled aside with great enthusiasm!
On my last Rubicon trip, 2 days in on a 4 day trip, one of the guys had a motor mount give way and the clutch linkage bell crank fell out of position when the motor torqued over. After chaining the motor down, I noticed that one of the idler bushings for it was gone and the other one was beyond using again, so I made some new ones out of the plastic tops from Coleman propane cans. He finished the trail and made the 7 hour drive home.
Other issues on that trip included a tire piercing from a tree root, I broke three of the five bolts that held on the 4wd hub switch, two of the rigs had steering problems and one of them required welding twice. I was an outstanding Jeep run to say the least.
Fuel Tank Pickup Photo by lovetojeep | Photobucket fuellinehookup_zpsb6b59c88.jpg Photo by lovetojeep | Photobucket
This weekend I had to do even another McGyver, I had the engine quit on a trail not far from my house. It seemed like it ran out of gas, but had more than a half of a tank, and had filled it earlier in the day. I disconnected the fuel line to the pump and was not able to siphon any gas out even with the fuel filler cap off. I could blow into it and not hear any bubbles, just air rushing out. So I used a length of 1/4" air line from my onboard air system and ran one end into the fuel tank and the other into the fuel pump as shown in the pics, I have an electric pump. I was able to drive it home like this but have yet to figure out just what the problem was.
Once, I some how fried my electrical system that runs the lights, instruments etc.
I used duct tape to hold down two mag lights on the hood of the old jeep. Then drove it about 10 miles out of the woods. Then another 20 on the paved road very late one night just to get home. Also used a 3rd light with red lens on the back as a marker light just in case.
I always carry at a minimum 2 lights, spare bulbs, and batteries.
I think the best one I did was after I tore the left rear spring hanger, complete with a piece of frame, off my 3B about 15 miles into a pretty challenging trail. This was a solo run and before the on-board welder made an appearance. The only thing that kept the rear axle under it was that I still had the stock drawbar on it and the shackle couldn't go rearward any further. I jacked up the Willys and got everything back in proper position. After scratching the head for a bit thinking of what I could do to keep things in place, I remembered a small abandoned mine we had gone by-one which used 1.5x1/4" strap on wood timbers for rails. I didn't have a hacksaw so just worked a piece back and forth until I broke off about an 18" length. I slid that inside the hanger, ran the winch cable back along the frame and made 3 loops around the bar stock and frame both fore and aft of the hanger. Tightened the cable and set the spool brake. It stayed there for the 50 mile trip home with no problems. The fall-out of that trip was that there is always a hacksaw in the tool box now, along with an on-board welder.
3 foot zip tie long ways from engine to frame across z bar to hold the clutch linkage together on neighbors CJ7 on the trail. chain bolted to engine and k member on 71 Dart because of bad motor mount
