Macgyvering

[racer1]

So, I just had to post my latest Macgyver engineering feat tonite. I'm on the laptop, battery getting low. Grab the power cord, oh ****, It's dead!...Ok no big deal, grab the cord for wifes laptop. OH NO.. It doesn't fit.....Ok Think-----Don't panic..Must have garage Journal, And Yellow Bullit. I can't go without.....Think, Think, AH ha.....Laptop is 18 volt DC. Dewalt drill batteries are 18 volt.......2 alligator clips, a little wire. Cut the end off old power cord. Its junk anyway...Hooked clips to cord and Battery, HOT DAMN...I'm in business. I love it when a plan comes together. Like they always say, there's more than one way to skin a cat.
How about sharing some of your Macgyver moments..


Jim

 

[DpSyChO]

Laptop battery = Lithium and Dewalt charger= NiCad?
Keep an eye on the temperature of your battery.

 

[racer1]

No, I'm just using the battery, not the charger.

 

[raddksn]

I once welded a connecting rod together with some jumper cables and a nickel! Not but that always made me laugh!

 

[skiingman]

I'm not the only one who couldn't wait to watch reruns after school right? Macgyver was the hero of my youth.

 

[PWC Repair]

Several of us went out for an all day jet ski ride. My buddies throttle cable broke at the carbs and we happen to be about 10 miles from the launch ramp. I had a zip tie, and a paperclip on my insurance papers. Fabbed up a new cable end with the paperclip and looped it onto the broken cable. The zip tie held it all together. We rode the rest of the afternoon with him only reaching about 2/3 throttle.

 

[Farmall 1066]

One night my high school girlfriend and I were out parking. Went to go home, and her car, a 79 T-bird, wouldn't crank. Jumped the starter relay with a piece of wire from her bra!

 

[jmlcolorado]

I drove a POS Honda for a period of time. Water pump,seal went out and poured coolant everywhere. Luckily, as a meth head at the time, I had a car FULL of random pointless ****.
Turns out the housing had a groove in it just large enough for a length of telephone cord to fit in snugly.
Drove that car for a long time like that.

 

[LS6 Tommy]

My old sport bike club was out for a Sunday ride about two hours from home when one of the guys laid his bike down & broke the clutch lever off. Took 4" Vice Grips out of my tool bag & twenty seconds later he was ready to go...


Tommy

 

[HotwheelsYJ]

Back in college (pre cell phone days), I was on my way back to school after visiting my parents. I was cruising along a lonely stretch of I-75 in my 73 VW bug & the throttle cable broke.
I had plenty of tools but nothing to repair the cable. I used a combination of speaker wire, hoodie drawstring & my belt for a make shift cable. I hooked from the carb linkage - around the back bumper - over the driver rear fender & in the driver window.
I made it the 2 hours back to my dorm & drove it like that another 2 days until the new cable came in!

 

[coljar]

Walked through one of the production units the other day while I was working Safety and one of the conveyor guides had a pipe wrench attached to it to line it up, with the handle duct taped down to put tension on it. Me and one of the regular HS&E guys decided there wasn't anything unsafe about it, but we told them to write a ticket to get it fixed.

 

[Streetbu]

When I was stationed in Korea we had a MLRS spring a coolant leak in the radiator. No radiator anywhere in the country, already had two other to tow back from the field, this one HAD to drive back under it's own power and not over heat. I dumped a dozen eggs and a QUART of pepper into the radiator, topped her off & she ran fine for a month until the new radiator showed up from the states. Still hard to believe it actually worked!

 

[nicksnothereman]

So, I just had to post my latest Macgyver engineering feat tonite. I'm on the laptop, battery getting low. Grab the power cord, oh ****, It's dead!...Ok no big deal, grab the cord for wifes laptop. OH NO.. It doesn't fit.....Ok Think-----Don't panic..Must have garage Journal, And Yellow Bullit. I can't go without.....Think, Think, AH ha.....Laptop is 18 volt DC. Dewalt drill batteries are 18 volt.......2 alligator clips, a little wire. Cut the end off old power cord. Its junk anyway...Hooked clips to cord and Battery, HOT DAMN...I'm in business. I love it when a plan comes together. Like they always say, there's more than one way to skin a cat.
How about sharing some of your Macgyver moments..


Jim

Aren't those polarized cords for the laptop? OMFG those are a pain in the *** to solder back together. I've done it before and it has ALWAYS been a p.i.t.a.

 

[cousin eddie]

Once used a hotel room door/doorframe as a brake to bend up a bracket.

 

[cousin eddie]

Here's another one: wife's cousin brings her baby to stay with us. Took a pool ladder, some nylon rope, and baby's carseat and made a swing so baby could sleep, and let the rest of us sleep. Wish I could find the picture of my son testing it to make sure it would hold safely.

 

[mikeburris]

Took a trailer to Kentucky to bring a car back to Kansas. On the way home in the hills of Missouri about 2 a.m. the fuel pump went out. Well luckily the challenger on the trailer had an electric fuel pump. 45 minutes later we had that thing rigged up on the tow truck and were on our way.

 

[ctjohnson]

Shoe laces for throttle cable.

Windshield washer fluid motor for a fuel pump.

Vise grips to twist bailing wire (found on the side of the road) to replace a snapped turbo pipe clamp on a powerstoke.

 

[oldwino]

Electric fuel pump died on an old Ford Courier PU in the middle of nowhere. Pulled gas tank from portable generator in back and duct taped it to driver side mirror with piece of garden hose running to carb. Worked fine but would run out of gas every 15 miles.

 

[Tejaas]

When I was stationed in Korea we had a MLRS spring a coolant leak in the radiator. No radiator anywhere in the country, already had two other to tow back from the field, this one HAD to drive back under it's own power and not over heat. I dumped a dozen eggs and a QUART of pepper into the radiator, topped her off & she ran fine for a month until the new radiator showed up from the states. Still hard to believe it actually worked!

Steel Rain and Scrambled Eggs!
Sweet!


~Tejaas~

WTB: Armstrong 1/4" 10-972 Ratchet!

 

[gsport]

Shoe lace as a fan belt. It turned the water pump, but not the alternator. Drove about 40 miles home with it

 

[Mattlt]

Used a length of barbed wire to pull a pickup out of a Nebraska ditch once.

 

[gayler]

Mine are more like Macgrubering!

 

[Steevo]

Let's see . . .
One time I used a Bic pen tube to replace a clogged fuel filter to get me home.
Another time, I removed the antenna (unscrewed from the base) of my old Explorer, bent the tip using the safety chain eyes on the trailer hitch, and used it to slip down between the driver's window and rubber to unlock the door, when I locked the keys inside while out fishing.

There are others, and when I can recall them, I'll add them.

 

[mygarageone]

One time a friend backed up his car into a well casing , put a big hole in gas tank , fiull of gas.
I knew he had a sack of potatos in the front seat , got a large one shoved it in the hole , stopped most of the leak enough to get us home , we were out in no mans land at nite 40 miles from a gas station in Colo.

 

[metalhead212121]

Had to bring a POS car from NJ through NYC and into CT. Bought as a project but ended up needing more work than I wanted to put into it. No trailer so I registered/insured it and drove it to CT. Got 3/4 of the way there and stopped for gas. This is where it gets bad. Put a couple $'s the tank and try to start it. Won't start. Im on a slight hill (with a manual trans) at the gas station and the parking brake is broken... The guy that was buying the car GAVE ME HIS WORD that if **** hit he fan he'd come and help me. I called him and he did come and help me. Car had weak/no spark... I told him to be careful with pulling off the old spark plug wire because they looked old.... we all know what happened next. BROKEN SPARK PLUG WIRE! We start pushing the car into a parking spot and I yell out pop the clutch for the hell of it. It starts up on 5 cylinders!! We decided to snip the fuel injector wire to the one broken spark plug wire. Drove 30/40 miles like that. Max speed was about 60mph.

 

[mygarageone]

Years ago I had a truck that a couple of hydrolic lifters collapsed , because I was Poor I just turn the nuts down on the rockers arms. Not recommended but it worked long enough.

 

[aka Larry]

I love reading these stories, so here's mine.

Years back I stayed at my G/F's house overnight and we got 4" of snow overnight. I figured no big deal, I'd just lay out of work and me and the G/F could find 'something' to do if ya know what I mean. Well, my boss called and said I'd better get my *** to work so that ended my plans for fun with the G/F.

When I went outside to leave in my '86 Camaro it wouldn't make it 3 feet w/o getting stuck. Mind you this car had an open diff, and it would get stuck in wet grass so this wasn't exactly a surprise.

While trying to find someway to get my car out to the highway (it had been plowed) I had a 'MacGuyver moment' as I looked at the windows on the G/F's house. I took the screens off some of the windows and used them like snowshoes under the tires. I could only move about 3 feet before having to re-position the screens, and it took me about 30 mins to make it to the highway, but it worked like a champ and I was able to get to work!

Fast forward to last year at a friends house and we were trying to get a car out of a very wet back yard with a steep slope. His F-250 just couldn't get any traction in the muddy yard, but I remembered my trick from the past using the window screens. The problem was this house didn't have any so what to do? Recently he had taken down a chain-link fence and the gates were left laying beside the house. I placed the old gates under the rear wheels and it worked like a champ again!

 

[wnstwolf]

Out doing a little 4 wheel'n and not wanting to turn town a challange took the truck over this nasty rock bed of shale and granite. got to the other end of the 100 yard run and was all proud of how easily truck and driver made it through. got out to make sure I did not puncture the ****** or oil pan and all was good but heard a hissing sound. **** had what looked like a nail in th tire but it was a piece of stone. Dufuss that I was back then had no spare. Friend had a compressor in his truck and the remains of a plug kit but no plugs. After about 5 minutes of yelling at the tire and kicking the sand the lightbulb went on. What every 20 year old should never leave home without was in the map pocket on the door. Good ole Trojan wadded it up and "jammed" it in the hole.. Sealed enough to get us back to the main road and a station to fix it right...

 

[icenfire01]

Back in college we would take the guts out of a bic pen, use a lighter to melt a hole in the side of a 2 liter bottle for your down pipe, a hole in the other side for the carb, cut a strip out of a pop can roll in the shape of a funnel and insert into the pen for a bowl. Ahhhh youth...

 

[Speed4Life]

I start campfires with steel wool, dryer lint, and a 9 volt battery.

 

[Fishplate]

I was cruising along a lonely stretch of I-75 in my 73 VW bug & the throttle cable broke.
I had plenty of tools but nothing to repair the cable. I used a combination of speaker wire, hoodie drawstring & my belt for a make shift cable.

Heh. Drove my 67 Doublecab for weeks with a piece of fishing line tied to the throttle arm. Ran it out the engine lid, around the back corner, along the side of the truck and into the window right behind my left shoulder. Pull the string to go faster, slack off to go slower. And the stretch in the monofilament kept me from chirping the tires every time I shifted...

I love me some Volkswagen...

 

[arbadacarba]

My wife and I were heading across country for the weekend on our anniversary.

We were about 200 miles from home when I rounded a corner and she started squirming on the back of the bike. It turns out the clip on the pin that hold her left footpeg on had failed and the pin had fallen out in mid turn. The peg stayed on the bike but not in a way that helped her at all.

I dropped her off and rode down the road looking for it (a 1 inch long steel pin, ya right.) When I got back she was having a laugh with various locals who stopped to check if she was OK… There she was in full armor with no bike in sight.

I looked at it, knowing I had some bolts in a stash tube in the frame of my saddle bag, but none of them would be long enough, and they aren't really strong enough to rely on with her stepping up onto that peg to mount… But then I got looking at the tools themselves, and sure enough, one of my allen keys was just about right. Problem solved and a good weekend was had.

 

[sberry]

This is what I do every day,,, ha

 

[theoldwizard1]

1968 Dodge Dart, Slant 6, 3-on-the tree. The starter quit, so I push started it for 3 or 4 days until payday.

I drove to a starter rebuild shop, and parked on a side street. The starter was on the "downhill" side of the Slant 6 so it was easily accessible from above. Couple of bolts and a shop towel and I walked into the shop with my core. The guy wanted to know why it was so warm !

 

[Craptain]

I start campfires with steel wool, dryer lint, and a 9 volt battery.

Where the hell do you find dryer lint in a place you want a campfire?

 

[PugetDude]

Where the hell do you find dryer lint in a place you want a campfire?

It's the same as naval lint...

 

[Milton Shaw]

I had the pickup tube in the gas tank break off on a pickup truck that I drove for years. This was one with the tank behind the seat. I took the line off and used a smaller piece of copper tube with a reverse flair to go into the tank and then tightened the other line against it and drove it that was for another 15 years. The truck ran out of gas with the tank full when that tube originally broke off.

 

[eyeballengineer]

Been rigging **** back together since I could walk. trying to think of some good ones. Was out fishing one night when the spot light died so we took off the lenses of the bow light. Gave us just enough light to see the channel markers so we didn't hit any or run around getting home. I wanna say the fuse in said spot light had blown about a year before and I just wrapped the foil paper from a cigarette pack around it. Works like a champ on glass fuses.

 

[EarlyBroncoGuy]

Brother wanted to do some welding on top of the roll cage of his lifted Jeep. Jeep was too tall to fit in the garage, welder power cord and cables were too short to reach top of roll cage outside. Used jumper cables as extension welding cables, worked like a charm.

Clutch linkage went out on my 5.0 Mustang at work, had a 20 mile drive home, in traffic. Ended up driving it home by putting it into 1st gear with engine off, starting it in gear, rev matching on up and downshifts (light pressure on shifter until it clicked into gear), and slipping into neutral when rolling to a stop. Easier than I though it would be, the trickiest part was pulling into my steep driveway and up into the garage without stalling it or hitting the opening garage door.

 

[hchinaski]

In college I was in a band that went on the road in a Chrysler minivan. Somewhere along the way the relay for the electric fan went bad and we started having overheating problems, and being the only guy in the band who knew which end of a screwdriver to pound a nail with, it was on me to fix it. I wound up taking the footpedal from my Fender Twin Reverb amp (which was essentially a SPST switch in a metal housing attached to 20' of 16ga lamp cord) and wiring direct to the battery. Worked well enough that we wound up not actually fixing the relay until we got home.


A couple of years ago I bought a 57 chevy off of Ebay and decided to drive it home to California from Texas. This was in the summer, so I figured I'd drive at night and sleep during the day. Ok, Fine, but temp gauge went kaput about 50 miles into the trip, and then that first night I discovered that the dash lights didn't work. So, in the parking lot of a 24hour Walmart in El Paso, I installed an aftermarket temp gauge, and when connecting it's little light bulb to the fuse box had an epiphany - went back into the Walmart, found a 12v indicator light in the auto section, duct taped that in front of the speedo. I don't know why I was so worried about seeing the speedo, top speed was about 50!