I thought about making the excuse that I was thinking of an airhead BMW motorcycle engine but I really just wasn't thinking.

 

Rufus Sanders, it's a pre 85, and you need a "universal joint"

They sell universal joints for your socket wrench. To pull my AFM off the air box, I used a 3/8" drive socket, a 4" 3/8" extension, a 3/8" universal drive, and a 11mm socket.

I belive the same will work easyer with a 1/4" drive set up. I just don't have the 1/4" drive tools.

 

Anybody else have a set of the sockest with the universal joint built in? How many of you have stacked those ball-ended extensions together to make it around a bigger corner? Run in to the scale to determine today's weight (about 190 this morning by the weigh...) and then added the Big Bar to the load on the scale to get the weight in the middle of said Big Bar, then calculated where you needed to stand on the Big Bar to get the axle nut torque just right? I though I remembered using an "F" in "Big Bar" at one time too...

I have a 3/4" torque wrench on my list of "things to look for" at pawn shops and the like. I was in Colorado Springs on a project, and went for a pawn-shop "tour" with one of the construction supervisors one evening. Mission: recover as many company tools as possible. I was amazed that the shops would buy tools and equipment that still had big orange lettering on them with the company name. Anyway, there were quite a few interesting finds that didn't come from the job too. I'm impressed with what little money those tools bring when you bring them in.




Good thread, by the way. On the Ford Truck Enthusiasts listserver/website, the garage guys havd a running list of "never do this" items. Worth a read, and maybe worth starting one here for the P-car specific "learnings".

Formal education is nothing more than learning from somebody else's mistakes.

 

Anybody else have a set of the sockest with the universal joint built in? How many of you have stacked those ball-ended extensions together to make it around a bigger corner? Run in to the scale to determine today's weight (about 190 this morning by the weigh...) and then added the Big Bar to the load on the scale to get the weight in the middle of said Big Bar, then calculated where you needed to stand on the Big Bar to get the axle nut torque just right? I though I remembered using an "F" in "Big Bar" at one time too...

I have a 3/4" torque wrench on my list of "things to look for" at pawn shops and the like. I was in Colorado Springs on a project, and went for a pawn-shop "tour" with one of the construction supervisors one evening. Mission: recover as many company tools as possible. I was amazed that the shops would buy tools and equipment that still had big orange lettering on them with the company name. Anyway, there were quite a few interesting finds that didn't come from the job too. I'm impressed with what little money those tools bring when you bring them in.




Good thread, by the way. On the Ford Truck Enthusiasts listserver/website, the garage guys havd a running list of "never do this" items. Worth a read, and maybe worth starting one here for the P-car specific "learnings".

Formal education is nothing more than learning from somebody else's mistakes.

 

i think this was my greatest achievment/Ghetto device. Simple physics. Let the weight of the car do the work for you. I think i loosened the axle nut with a beer in one hand...not spilling a drop!

To tighten the axle nut, i used Dr Bobs, breaker bar and "todays weight " principle and a bounce or two for good measure.

 

Being the working owner of a mountain top apple orchard, I make my own "tools" on many occasions. Usually to fix something I broke.

I have two complete sets of 1" ratchets and sockets........Even then I have in four different sizes, the indispensible BFP for additional leverage.

I do highly recommend the 3/4" torque wrench, preferably the "click" kind as it will adapt to the BFP extension......

I had to make a hub puller for one of the bush hogs, when we managed to FUBAR a seal in the gear case. Made and bent three of them before I finally built one strong enough to pull the hub off the spindle. Used 1" bolts to tension the puller and a BFhammer to persuade the hub to "budge". When it let go, it near put a hole in the concrete floor.

We don't call it "Ghetto tech", cause hillbillys don't know what a ghetto is, we call it "being clever", as in "That Clive, he sure is a clever somuvabitch"...

 

Has anyone got description / specifications for the hex key spanner to remove the thermostat housing bolt closest to engine under the fuel line?

I would imagine that it is a hex key with 2 * 45 degree bends in it..

 

Needed a clutch alignment tool for my pickup, but of course nobody has one. So I found a 1/2" socket that fit the inside of the clutch disk and a 1/4" long socket that fit the pilot bearing. Wrapped the 1/4" socket with masking tape until it friction fit in side the 1/2" socket. Worked like a charm.

Looking for a dead power lead and needed a voltmeter which of course I didn't have. Since the voltages were really low and the sun was out I couldn't test by sparking against a ground. I ran a couple of leads through an old transister radio speaker and used the speaker as the tester. when I found power the speaker made noise as the connection was made and lost.

Needed an invisible stereo system for a work truck. Installed a cheap amp under the seat and 2 speakers in the doors, then bought an adapter wire to convert a small headphone output to RCA inputs for the amp. Plugged it into my walkman or portable CD player and had lots of tunes while cruising down the road.

That's all I can think of for now.

 

Swapped an alternator in an '86 SVO mustang in the Schuck's parking lot with a freebie "leatherman" (made cheaply in china). Then drove it 2200 miles across the country.

fraggle
'87 S4
'75 914

 

A friend's sister was like that, only the other end of the screwdriver doubled as a hammer. Leaky faucet? Grab a knife. Squeaky door? Grab a knive, pop the hinge pin, put some veggie oil on it, hammer back in with the other end. Didn't have a straight, let alone sharp knife in the house.

These are really great, guys, keep em coming...

That's a good one... BTDT with my Ramcharger. Full-time 4WD writ large... the "locking hub" is actually the 1-1/4" splined stub shaft with a slightly-rusty castle nut that's 1-3/4" across the flats clamping the hub to it. I had the front axle up on jackstands, a 1" breaker bar, and... I kid you not... a 20' length of 2-1/2" pipe. Had three people lifting on it, only succeeded in lifting the front of the truck off of the jackstands. We switched to having the pipe extend to the rear so we could pull down on it. With 4 people bouncing off the pipe and the truck STILL trying to jump off the jackstands, it cracked loose. It was easier to put back on(with Anti-Seize... of course ) IIRC it required 400 ft-lbs, which was very easy with that long pipe.


Do you have a link for that list? Sounds like a good idea to start one here... hmmmm...

I look forward to doing my rear bearings... After my Ramcharger it'll be a picnic. I would have been using a wrench that size for horseshoes if I put the kinds of loads on it that were required for the job... BTW, I was fortunate enough to be able to replace/rebuild all of my CV joints on the shark without having to touch that nut. ONE advantage to the earlier cars...

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about... The kind of stuff that just makes people shake their heads when you point to the hole in the floor, the parts that alllllmost snapped.... or did.

Well, if I have my translation correct(if only politically correct because of the astersks) hilbillys would call what I'm referring to as a "*** rig". Ghetto is a slang used by the younger crowd around here to refer to anything patched together in a haphazard and/or dangerous way, as in "that car with the muffler taped on is so ghetto". I was using the term a bit ironically, figuring that people would get it...

I'm not picturing the bolt that you're referring to... but would a set of these wrenches be of any help? Sure beats eating a saw blade or two cutting one off...

Very inventive... The speaker one works great, but be careful how long you leave it hooked up. Speakers and most electrical and electronic systems work on the magic smoke principle: Once you let the magic smoke out of any "magic smoke" device it ceases to function.

I'm impressed... not with the reverse-engineered Chinese Leatherman copy, but with the fact that the SVO made it 2200 miles without further mishap, related to the alternator or not...

Keep 'em coming guys... this is turning into some real fun...

 

The throttle cable on a '76 Gold Wing has a little manufactured on **** dealie that hooks over and rests in a slot on the rotating piece by one's hand. Two cables with these work in a push-me pull-you relationship with the carbs to open/close the works. It was the Sunday before Labor Day and we're in BF Utah and I loose all power, I twist a couple times and end up coasting to the shoulder with the engine idling like it's perfect. It took a while to establish that one of the cable ends had busted off and the cable pulled into the sleeve and caught before I realized the situation.
We were about a mile outside of a group houses and a rural junction that actually had an open gas station. Cranking up the idle a bit allowed me to run upwards of 20 mph in second gear, so soon enough we had a third for our head scratching party. Then the gas jockey had an epiphany and ran away, only to walk back less than a minute later with a look neither of confidence or despair and gave us directions to a home down there and hang a right past the old bus and you'll see a blue house...
"He plays with radio-controlled planes. I think he's some kind of engineer. But he stops sometimes on the way to go flying and he'll show me his stuff. He's got all kind of 'em. I just called and he said you could stop by no prob."
So with faint hope, my girlfriend and I idle off to find Robert. The directions were impeccable, but it looked like everyone had them too.
There were around eight cars parked on the fringe and in the driveway. The garage door was open and I was waved in by a lone man (early 50's) standing in the double- wide portal. Split the parked Olds and Buicks to stop in the spotless open floor the garage. Robert helped my girlfriend off and helped me stand the bike up while introducing himself. It was a nice/warm day but in riding gear a hot day, not to mention being in a semi-panic for the past couple of hours. It was obvious that there was some sort of BBQ/Family Reunion to-do going on out in the back yard of this nicely kept split level but Robert said don't worry about it and set about studying the task before him. About then his wife(obviously) comes in and says
"Hun, don't you think it's about time to put the chicken on?"
" Plenty of time, don't worry about the chicken. Why don't you grab some lemonade for these nice kids?"
Looking around the garage it looked like a miniature machine shop, with small examples of all the major fixtures you'd expect, but these were altra high quality high dollar pieces. A metal lathe with maybe a six inch bed but with all the controls, well, you get the picture. And Robert was very nice and made us very much welcome and basically did most of the talking while bent over the throttle handle of my bike. He explained that the cables on it a silly design, basically a shaped gob of lead stuck on the tip of the cable and hammered into a round tip that could wear and break just like had happened to us and the sticking of the cable in the housing was the natural result of the reflex reaction of the rider when a power loss occurs. Robert cut the made-on metal end of the casing carefully and coaxed the frayed end out and then reattached it, a very important piece that holds the cable shell in place and prevents it from getting kinked, etc.
It's been another twenty minutes and my right handlebar is all torn into and the wife comes in to get our glasses.
"Don't you think it's time to get the ch-
Cutting her off in a surprizing firm voice,
"What did i tell you about the chicken? Don't worry about goddamned chicken!" and sets about relieving the end he'd been forced to cut off so that it could be taken off again with no worries. He was very friendly and told stories for another 20 minutes of so, but nothing about the people in the back yard, who we could hear easily through the back door, There was a third exchange with the wife regarding poultry, with a predictable increase in volume. But instantly Robert returned to the task and conversation as if nothing happened
By then he'd cleaned up and trimmed the cable then he took a tiny little piece of pipe and fashioned it into a coupling that would tighten up on the cable nicely as well as fit into the slot on the plastic throttle handle better than the original ever had. We'd been there an hour and a half at least.
Brenda had jabbed me a couple of times pointing out the wife cruising by the back door but not coming in, and I think Robert noticed as well, but he took his time after it was fixed and asked about/made recommendations concerning our route, washed the fairing while refusing to take the $40 I kept offering while we put our gear back on. He asked us if we'd like to stay for chicken with kind of a smirk and didn't press when we begged off because we'd lost so much time already, but he did finally take a $20 when I promised to get a new cable on it as soon as I got home.
I did get a cable and put it in with the tools for a few years. It's still on the bike now, and that was going on ten years ago. It was a memorable day that my girlfriend and I laughed about for years afterward.

 

OK, here is mine... One winter it was so cold in good cold Germany that the coolant in my engine froze. It had been -32 Degrees Centigrade that night, and I only was covered until minus 27 - more than enough in usual winters.

Well, the engine block of my Renault Fuego had cracked. Over time, more and more coolant sprayed out of the engine while I was driving, until it got really scary. The master technician of my Renault dealer told me to try putting paprika powder (yep, the spice from the kitchen) into the coolant - he said it would get very thick and sticky when it would be pressed out of the block.

Well, tried a nice dose of this, and the coolant lasted much longer. It never completely stopped spraying, and the crack seemed to get wider and wider over time, but it significantly lenthened the life of the engine. The master technician said this would work very well, if you get stranded with smaller radiator leaks. I will always remember that...

 

Hey Joneser,
Didja ever make it back out to see the fellow in BF Utah? Sounds like a likeable fellow! GREAT story!

 

OK, Here are 2 of my dad's fixes.

Lost a fanbelt while driving cross country. Of course it's sunday evening and nobody is open. Goes into the local grocery store and buys . . . . . Pantyhose! He wraps it around the pulleys where the fanbelt went, ties it tight, cuts off the ends and away he goes. Says it lasted about an hour so then he used the other leg and it lasted till he got home.

Another time he hit a HUGE bump and bottomed the car out. It put a small crack in the back of his gas tank. Runs into the store and gets a small box of Tide Detergent, a pie pan and a butter knife. IT seems that when you mix gasoline (slowly dripping from the crack) and Tide together you end up with a plastic mixture. Applied the mix to the crack and it sealed it up. Said he drove around that way until he sold the car.

Well, that's what he said anyway.

 

Bar soap works like the tide, just start scraping the soap on the tank till the leak stops. It'll hold untill you go through a puddle, or it rains.

This is not one I've done myself, but I'd seen other people do it.