Or at least finish the stage, or get back to service.
Inspired by Gene's stuff I've seen wrong thread, and Dave's pic of the Hintz bros. solution for missing suspension. Herr Clarkkonnen had an integral role in my favorite juryrig, at the rallysprint in the Hoquiam log sort yard. So there we were with a GTX with a slipping clutch. Dave pointed out as to how putting some manner of sugar in the bellhousing will burn to carbon, providing a better friction surface and maybe making things slip less. So we drained the water outta the windshield washer reservoir and rerouted the hose to the bellhousing and filler 'er up with Dr. Pepper. Clutch starts slippin again? Just hit the windshield washer and let 'er drink some refreshing sody pop. It got us through the rest of the event.

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Jay Woodward
Snohomish, WA
'90 Mazdog Frankenprotege
Chronologically, 46...

The old Coke in the clutch trick!

Max and I hung ourselves out of the hatch on Jim's rabbit so that he could drive out of a stage after ripping a rear wheel off. I don't think that they let you do that anymore!

On the 1991 Safari rally my car came into service with a carabiner and a double offset box end wrench for a control arm.

I once had to hammer a screw driver into the ignition of a service van because my boss lost the key.

I did the Strongbow cider can fix on a broken exhaust at T-Bird a few years ago.

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Robert.

"You are way too normal to be on Rally Anarchy." Eddie Fiorelli.

not rally related, but I broke a thrittle cable on my Xr 600 40 miles from the truck. I threaded a piece of safety wire through the housing, made a ball on each end, and rode it out. You had to twist the throttle off as well as on, but worked like a champ. I have also driven a Baja bug 50 miles home with a shoe lace throttle through the window.

Once was navigating in a Skoda Estelle and a rock managed to knock a banjo connection on a front caliper loosening it causing a leak resulting in no brakes for half the stage.
After the stage a bit of investigation discovered the issue so tightened up the banjo bolt. But there was no fluid left in the reservoir.
Bit of head scratching and I thought to carefully remove the hydro clutch reservoir and pour that into the brake reservoir and there was just enough fluid to bleed the brakes with that.
Then just filled the clutch one up temporarily with water from a little stream running along the ditch next to the road. That was enough to do the next stage and then bleed both brakes and clutch properly at service.

I also recall servicing for a 4x4 Hillrally vehicle in wettest Wales. It was absolutely pouring with the heaviest rain I have been in.
The vehicle limped into service with no rear axle drive. So whipped off the diff cover of the Dana to find lovely glittery metal soup with chunks of gears.
Let all that drain out then proceeded to turn the welder up to eleven and weld the fook out of what was left in the housing.
I was already soaked to the skin and wondered if holding a high power welder powered by a generator as a stream literally flowed through my slicker suit as I lay under the car was wise.
But the added bonus was the driver completed the remaining stages and commented that the car had never handled so good! Bonus.

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Disappointingly not yet a Jackass

2nd year of competition..1984...Plymouth Arrow. Middle of the nite, Olympus I think, I smell coolant in the air. Ho boy, guy in front of me must be losing head gasket... doh, wrong. Temp gage starts climbing, shit ..it's us. Stop on side of stage, heater hose leaking in the middle. So quickly grab 12mm deep socket from small tool kit , cut hose at rupture and install socket as a splice. Top radiator with Pepsi, ditch water and urine...finished event with no further issues.

Got home from real RallyX once, went to start car '73 510, nothing. Popped hood, starter had fallen off and was laying on skid plate. Thankful for teflon skid plate.

1973 510 , rolled car off road into big assed tree. Landed about 20feet up the tree, floor first, slid to ground. Crunched door sill into door and twisted chassis bad enough the factory fuel tank broke and leaked into trunk. Towed out, porta powered floor down, put chewing gum on tank, spray paint and ran Sunday. Last event for that shell though.

This has to be one of my favorites...

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Grant Hughes

Defi '04, Andrew Wallbank came into service with a strut top poking through the hood.

Justy seemed fine, so I said I'd help him out. Took the strut mount off, "welded" (with a wire core running on a tiny generator) a spare Justy wheel bearing to the strut mount. Couple of big washers and sent him on his way with the words "don't go big" Apparently everything worked fine. Last stage he decided it was fine enough to "go big" came back with the strut and the bearing sticking though the hood! Happy though.

Jeff (co-driver) will never let me live it down though. Part way through me fixing Andrew's car Jeff tells me there's a small puddle of coolant under the Justy, I glance over "na, just the overflow, it's fine" It wasn't, we DNF'd...

There's actually a kinda good story there... two stages later we tore a rear brake line and lost the brakes. I kept driving like a savage, grinning the whole time. Soon the temps went through the roof (likely from the leaking rad where we later found a pin hole) until the heater core blew. Windows down to let the steam escape we made it to creek. Filled the rad, and with no brakes and a blown heater core we started the next stage, but that was our final kick at Defi...



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/2013 04:37PM by Mad Matt F.

Heh, awesome. Trying to remember if it was Derek that told me about using shoestrings through the windows to run the windshield wipers or if it was someone else.

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Jay Woodward
Snohomish, WA
'90 Mazdog Frankenprotege
Chronologically, 46...

Jay,

Shoe strings on the wipers is some desperate shit!

Not rally but I was on a bus up near the boarder between Kenya and Somalia when we broke a front main leaf spring. We cut up a spare innertube into one loooong strip and wrapped the spring. It worked long enough to get us to the closest town.

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Robert.

"You are way too normal to be on Rally Anarchy." Eddie Fiorelli.

Quote
NoCoast
This has to be one of my favorites...

Mike Hurst Approved! Window tint = "laminated"

I had Ron Barker co-drive once in Shelton, bad stormy nite and we did the string on the wipers trick. Trick being the key word as 1/2 way thru a stage the string caught on the rain gutter and wipers quit for the 2nd time that nite.

Chad DiMarco started in a pristine old Colt and rolled it on Olympus smashing the hell out of the windshield. They stopped him at service in Aberdeen. I ran down to my shop and grabbed an extra 510 windshield and they racer taped it to his car. His Colt was the smaller MM model and the 510 windshield hung over a tiny bit but passed tech.

Can tell you that an Evo 8 windshield will work on a Mk2 Golf with some massaging, and a copious amount of duct tape.

LSPR 2011 was fun.

Quote
MConte05
Can tell you that an Evo 8 windshield will work on a Mk2 Golf with some massaging, and a copious amount of duct tape.

LSPR 2011 was fun.

2003 Subaru Legacy windshield with two tubes of window weld on a 1996 Civic will let you start day2 of a rally.

Also did the codriver's shoelace when the throttle cable disconnected from the accelerator pedal on my VW for 3 stages at Sno*Drift 2009.

These might say something about my prep effort.

1) Broke rear A arm bolt off in the capture nut - drove two stages with variable wheel base. At service we bolted the a-arm to the skid plate and got on the Podium.

2) Broke Motor Mount, used a large tent stake, a fast pin and rope to make a new one.

3) Moving motor wiped out radiator fan (See #2) so we plumbed wiper water sprayer to the radiator to spray water and cool down the radiator as needed.

4) Broke radiator, jammed all manor of things into the split and hole, taped and Clamped it as best as we could then poured every liquid we could find into radiator to keep going. Also a podium finish.

5) The start the car in gear as no clutch cable left. Makes for odd launches.

I am sure many more I forget.

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In the long run reality always wins.

Black River Stages 2011. Jumps were a bit too much for our engine mount. Failed about 1.5 miles from the end of a turn-around stage. Thank the rally gods for a sturdy skid plate that caught the engine and let us finish that stage. Needed to get back out on the next stage so...



Several other teams were helping us out - I was mostly just worrying and handing people tools. I love rally.

Simon

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Simon Wright
Owner/Driver USUK Racing - Home of the USUK Racing LED Light Bars!

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