MacGyver fixes

richard h said:
Here is a story from the old days for you.
Buddy welded his steering shaft onto the splines of the steering gear on his beam front end. NO UNIVERSAL JOINT. Kid took car out and smacked the left front and bent frame and beam back. We straightened the frame best we could, got it about 95% back in shape. Steering shaft was no longer straight and after a few turns the metal fatigued and broke. NO STEERING WHEEL.
We weren't ready to quit and wanted to go to comp hill and run. SO, we took motorcycle die down straps, one for left, and one for right. We hooked these where the tie rods attached to the spindle third arm, ran the Parrell with front beam around an upright between upper and lower side rails and back, one to right seat, one to drivers seat. Then we sat in car and when driver pulled his for left turn passenger would relax tension and opposite for right turn. "Rope steering". It worked so well we went down and raced other cars at the hill. Scared the crap out of those who saw what we were doing. Think there was some beer was involved.
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Steering cable end mount- I had to do just that with the pontoon at the river this summer. I was turn left guy and dad was turn right guy.

Thought the bolt went through the housing and was secured with nut. Lost the nut, got back and used baling wire to finish out the weekend. Got home and realized the housing was tapped and we could’ve just screwed it back in and kept an eye on it. When looking at it “there’s no way that bolt fits in there. Must’ve lost a bracket also”. Nope.

Easy fixes are nice though!
 
My most memorable is about 1993/1994, testing buggy on an off weekend by ourselves no other people anywhere. Few tools, no straps. Front heim joint breaks into two pieces, now wtf. We cut our shirts into strips and tie the front end together along with my buddy riding on the back to attempt to transfer weight off that corner. We were a few miles out so it was a bit of a slow journey back into darkness. Young and dumb.

2nd time was on quads, we got to dunes at about midnite, off weekend about 1990. We are leaving ranger station area and in the dunes about a half mile in from hwy 78. I keep hearing whistling. I stop ask my buddy what’s up and he tells me he can’t whistle and either can I. Here comes some guy from the bottom of a bowl. We don’t trust the situation so we stay on high alert and separated a bit. In the end he had never been to dunes, ran out of gas, his buddies go to get him gas and never come back or find him, he claims to have been out there about 3 hours. We get him towed out bring him to our camp get some fuel and water, but he doesn’t know where camp even is. All he knows is he was near trees and the highway, we find his camp pretty quickly along sand highway. He tells us to drink their beer as he lights them up, by the way they were all asleep in their tents. The sun came up as they ran out of beer so we left. Just weird
 
Way back in the day I had a 95 Nissan. I was Off-roading with some friends in Mule canyon “Barstow” I lost a front axle that ultimately ripped out my brake line. It was an IRS set up. The fix was to remove the axle shaft, cut the brake line clean, insert a bolt with Teflon tape and a hose clamp to hold it in place. Once I got all of the air out of the brake system I was good to go. I 4x the rest of the weekend and even drove home 80 miles on it.
 
Hi, my name is ZigGyver. 😁
Countless times I have managed to keep things rolling somehow. From stuffing grass & weeds into flat tires to a ballpoint pen saving a bachelor party Moho stranded on the side of I-40. Never really prepared but just kinda figure it out on the fly. And yes, I've used a paperclip to bypass a relay & replace a broken hoseclamps.🤗
 
A diesel mechanic taught me this while working on my dodge/cummins. Turns out you can start any 12 or 24 valve cummins with 2 of these. No keys required. I kept 2 of them in the tool bag in my buggy.

It will replace just about any relay or switch, in just about any (-ish) buggy.

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behind china wall my rzr caught fire the return pipe for the turbo oil came loose and blew the gasket out got the fire out thank god we have radios other wise by the time i would of realized i was on fire it would of been to late. with very limited tools tool the pipe off made a gasket out or a business card stole a bolt from the clutch cover and got it back. and then found out there was a recall for this exact issue
 
Ripped a brake line off one time, easy fix with the vicegrips bend the line over and clamp it off, but out of brake fluid. Seems that Coors light works fine. Probley still some in that old cars brake system today.
 
Had a plastic fuel filter imploded because it was clogged. Had a pen from north county Yamaha to by pass. Was on a skid steer my buddy used to move trailers around. IMG_0061.jpeg
 
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