Hagerty Readers Share Makeshift Car Repairs

Hagerty Media readers have shared their most desperate and inventive makeshift car repairs. The stories span decades and involve vehicles from a borrowed VW Rabbit to a loaded Ford 350, often using whatever was at hand to get home.

Ingenious Improvisations

In the early 1990s, a group in a borrowed VW Rabbit overheated in Baja. With no coolant available, they used their own urine to refill the radiator. The repair worked, and they made it to town.

Edward A faced a crisis in 1971 while driving a Renault Dauphine in Death Valley. A rock ripped out his fuel tank drain plug, draining all the gasoline. He improvised by pouring a gallon of Coleman camp stove fuel into a can in the engine bay. He then used the vacuum advance hose to siphon this low-octane fuel to the pump. He drove slowly to the nearest station. The engine ran so poorly it kept running after he turned the key off. He had to choke it by hand. At the station's gift shop, he found a small rubber monster toy. He stuffed it into the tank hole to get home. A week later, it leaked, and he replaced it with a proper plug.

Craig's first car, a 1970 Chevy van, had a faulty neutral safety switch. For three or four years, his starting ritual involved using a screwdriver to arc the solenoid posts on the engine. He sold the van still using this method.

Lasting Temporary Fixes

A Dodge Magnum owner nicknamed Binksman snapped a bolt in the timing cover while replacing a water pump O-ring a year and a half ago. He secured the inlet pipe with ZipTies. The fix lasted so well he forgot about it until the pump recently began failing.

When a wiper motor failed on a friend's Volvo 240, Colton and his college friends removed the glove box. A passenger manually operated the wipers by hand during a drive to fetch a replacement part. On the return trip, Colton spent 30 minutes with his arms in the dashboard, reassembling the linkage as it began to rain.

Ben was raking hay with a 1947 Ford 8N tractor when a generator bracket bolt vanished. To stop the generator from flopping, he wedged his shoe between the engine block and the generator. This got him back to the farm.

John T was towing a Corvette race car with a 1972 Suburban in 1977 when the Suburban's upper radiator hose blew. He took the hose from the Corvette, cut the filler neck off its thermostat housing, and joined hose pieces to complete the trip from Hutchinson, Kansas, to Omaha, Nebraska.

Gerard P once fixed broken driveshafts on a friend's Jeep Cherokee by removing the front shaft and using his belt to secure the rear one. James G blew an air shock on his 1968 Dodge Coronet in Montreal. He repaired it by clamping the air boot, refilling it with tire sealant and air, and driving into Nova Scotia. A mechanic there was so impressed by the temporary fix he hung it on his wall.

Fence Wire Solutions

About 50 years ago, Brad N was driving his 1966 Chevy pickup on Interstate 5 when the rear muffler bracket failed. With only pliers, he cut a piece of barbed wire from a nearby fence and used it to rehang the exhaust. The repair lasted weeks.

Last year, Herbert W was moving family in a loaded Ford 350 on I-10 in West Texas when the power steering pressure hose blew. He cut wire from a roadside fence and wound it tightly around the hose connection. It held temporarily before failing again near a gas station. He then drove 10 miles with a failing pump to a parts house, replaced the hose, and continued.

Cable Throttle Workaround

A reader named rogerd was riding a 1970s Honda CB750 to work when the throttle advance cable snapped. For the remainder of his hour-long ride, he controlled acceleration by pulling the disconnected cable out to the side with his hand.