On Sunday, whilst at the WSM meet, MY Fabia decided to throw a big white cloud out the back as I accelerated up a hill. My first thought was that the turbo has blown, but as I pulled into the conviniently placed layby, I noticed the temp guage rapidly dropping which pointed me towards a cooling system issue. It turned out that the clip for the coolant temperature sensor had come loose and the sensor fell out it's housing. Bad times.

Whilst pondering an appropriate course of action, i looked at my ccv elephant mod hose and came up with a bright idea. I mangaged to slide a bit of the hose on with a blanking plug in order to cap the hole. Fortunately I had just enough water rolling around in bottles in the back of the car to replace the lost coolant and it was up and running again

The bodge got me round the rest of the weekend and all the 130 odd miles home again albeit just without a working temp gauge and a slight drop in fuel economy. £2.04 later for a new clip and o-ring for the sensor and it's all good again.

So, what bodges have you done to get you home?

Haha top effort.. Where do I start..

I remember being stuck 300 miles from home on a Sunday a few days after christmas with a snapped throttle cable, I went into halfrauds about 10 miniutes before closing time and got a mountain bike gear change cable and threaded it up through the old throttle cable outer. Epic win.

Another time I was driving a Renault home from devon for my dad and the thermostat jammed up so it boiled over and spat most of the coolant on the road, all I had was the screwdriver from the renault tool kit in the boot, so I took the thermostat house clip off, poked a tiny hole in the thermostat by levering it open as far as I could, all I had in the car was 2 500ml bottles of ribena so that went in, I also needed to go for a pee so that went in too, carried on driving with the heater on full. Win

I popped a vacuum cap off my intake manifold, car was popping and banging and acting like a coilpack had failed.

Bought some insulating tape and wrapped some around the end of the port. It stayed there for a week

This:

Now this:

I once had a brake caliper fail on a Mini Moke, the bleed nipple would not hold pressure and was leaking brake fuild everywhere which meant the brakes were as good as useless.

Solution; i had a pair of mold grips in the car so clamped them onto the brake line of the leaking caliper and used some insulation tape to hold them out of the way. Only braking on a single wheel makes stopping interesting..

I have to add that this was not in the UK, but miles away from any help in Cyprus.

I could, all I had in the car was 2 500ml bottles of ribena so that went in, I also needed to go for a pee so that went in too, carried on driving with the heater on full. Win

LMAO

Ribena and ****, the coolant of choice for the discerning motorist.

Not me personally but I was in a RS Turbo Orion of my mates on our way back from Glastonbury and he stopped just off the Severn Bridge ran down to the water and filled the engine with Severn Estuary water, also saw him put out a slight engine fire on the same car with a can of Carling.

had a artic trailer air bag blow once, drop the trailer on its knees (lower suspention right down to non hgv mechanics / drivers ) take opposite air Bag pipe out and kink it over, ratchet strap axle to chassis, put the suspention in ride height, bobs your uncle its now a tandem not tri axle trailer

Edited 27 March, 201313 yr by danny4646

Clutch pedal fell apart on my Clio the month it was due to be traded in. Small part broke but only the full pedal assembly could be bought at about £200 + fitting. Pulled it together with 2 cable ties which worked fine until trade in time. Cost ~5p.

There are very few things that can't be fixed with the liberal application of cable ties, duct tape and silicon sealant.

had a artic trailer air bag blow once, drop the trailer on its knees (lower suspention right down to non hgv mechanics / drivers ) take opposite air Bag pipe out and kink it over, ratchet strap axle to chassis, put the suspention in ride height, bobs your uncle its now a tandem not tri axle trailer

you've been watching too much Ice Road Truckers, methinks :p

was waching the repeats have done it in real life though

I had the one of the radiator plugs blow out of my Defedner 90 after I filled the rad with mud offroading.

I filled the hole with a bolt from the slam panel in the middle of a lump of that chemical metal stuff you get in tubes.

Fortunately I had some water in the back and that got me home from Wales to Essex.

About 3 years ago my first Felicia developed a fault where headlights/wipers/heater etc started flickering on/off before stopping working all together.

Turned out to be a loose connection on the starter motor. Wedged it in place with a Bic pen lid. Its still there.

I forgot about my rad mounts, bought the mounts years ago, looked at changing them, saw that crash bar had too come off.

A piece of polystyrene and some black gaffer tape(for colour coding)

No more rattly rad, new mounts still in the draw at home.

About two years ago I discovered that an annoying rattle was my centre exhaust mount broken, so I temporarily fixed it with two jubilee clips and they're still there today, good as new