The bodge. It’s a British term for a questionable repair that works for at least some period of time, an act we’re all too familiar with thanks to experiences with questionable vehicles. Today we’re asking you what your best bodge of all time is, and we’re kicking things off with mine.
Back in 2016, I was driving my new-to-me Crown Victoria to…a date, I guess? Hindsight may be 20:20, but I’m still not sure what the mission was that night. Anyway, several miles into the journey, I heard a quiet *twang* that was quickly followed by every dashboard light illuminating simultaneously, attempting an impression of the main Veld stage. My serpentine belt tensioner had sodded off, taking the belt, water pump drive, and alternator drive with it.
Limping the car home entailed a procedure of revoking mechanical sympathy, but once under the harsh fluorescent garage lights, I could see that the serpentine belt bearing self-destructed, the pulley had gone crooked, and a nice chunk had been removed from my timing chain cover. Do you really think I’d replace the timing chain cover on a $500 car? Hell no, it was time to break out the bodge.
This tired 4.6 needed a patch, and a patch was made by slathering a cut piece of sheet steel with JB Weld, slapping it on the timing cover, then covering the whole thing with more JB Weld and pray. Add one junkyard serpentine belt and tensioner, wait for the epoxy to cure, and season for taste. Problem? No problem.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this ended up being a lifetime repair. Although I heaped thousands of miles on that Crown Victoria, its 4R70W four-speed automatic transmission switched professions to Powerglide somewhere around Niagara Falls, bringing about the end of the last automatic daily driver I’ve owned. It’s funny to think that more than 17 feet of red menace is now several Maytags, but that’s the car cycle, baby. Needless to say, I’ve learned and grown a lot since then, to the point of proactive replacement rather than roadside incidents, so this bodge will stand as my greatest for a while. However, I’m sure our creative readers have stories of even better bodges, so let’s hear them.
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
Which New Car Delivers The Most Bang For Your Buck? Autopian Asks
-
What Are The Car-Interior Features You Can’t Live Without? Autopian Asks
-
What Are The Best Engines You’ve Experienced? Autopian Asks
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.
Had a friend with one of those sweet mid-80s Honda Civic Wagovans with AWD and a granny first gear. Unfortunately, the Civic spent its whole life in the upper Midwest, so the floors were looking very swiss cheese by the time my friend picked it up in the mid-2000s. The most problematic holes were in the front floor wells, especially on the passenger side, and my friend just lived with it and the cold air and junk they let in. I cooked up a quick fix so I wouldn’t get sprayed with road grime when I rode in the car – two old license plates sandwiching the floor boards with some RTV and metal screws holding them in place. They became semi-permanent (at least until the rust holes grew beyond them), and while I cringe at the thought of the fix, my not-mechanically-inclined friend would, and probably still does, brag about it to anyone who would listen.
After a particularly heavy weekend at a friends, I was driving my S14a 200SX home (gently) when there was a slow and steady tapping noise started coming from the engine, and a loss of a cylinder.
Pretty sure id done something major, and in no state to investigate, i got recovered home (which was an awful 6 hour tow…) and threw the car in the garage. At this point is was 3am and I needed the car driveable the next night.
Closer inspection with a borescope showed some light scoring to the top of the piston, and a random chunk of metal in cylinder 4. Spent almost 3 hours trying to work out what it was, where it came from, and never really worked it out!
Checked over the air intake system with no holes I could find.
Turbo blades seemed OK inlet side.
Dropped the oil, no metal in there.
Eventually (about 6am) managed to pull it out through the spark plug hole (rectangular piece, was a pain to orient as I kept dropping it) using chewing gum on the end of the dipstick.
New spark plug, fresh oil, started straight up and ran like a champ for a few more years. Still chasing that high!
After a head gasket fiasco in my NEON the shop fitted it with the wrong spark plug wires. The wires kept popping out.Before I could get it back to the shop I “fixed” the issue by using my gaffer’s tape. It worked, and didn’t melt or leave too much residue compared with duct tape and could handle the heat. But with the price of good gaf today, I’d have gotten to the shop sooner.
Two recently that I can think of, although I’m not sure how much of a bodge the one is.
The ball joint on my lawn tractor’s steering system failed this summer and I got tired of it popping out and leaving me with no control of the direction of my driving. I wrapped some electrical wire around it a bunch of times and that held it well enough until I was able to get a replacement part.
I also have a butt splice connector on one of the wires going to my transmission. At some point the insulation got nicked and the wire inside corroded completely away. Rather than replace the entire wiring harness (which I’m sure is what the dealer would have done), I cut out the bad section of wire and spliced the remainder back together. I used a waterproof connector so although I’m sure it’s not by the book, I expect the repair to outlast the transmission (with its “lifetime” fluid).
My friend drifted his Subaru in the snow into a curb. The rear wheel had bad negative camber. So we simply rammed the top of the exposed tire with MY Subaru and bent it back with the impact. He drove home just fine and then replaced the control arms that were bent.
Friend bought RV at charity auction. I was following in car for the drive home. He started smelling gas. We investigated, the metal fuel line leading to the fuel pump (carb motor) split parallel to the direction of the tube. Remembering my finest off-road quick fixes, I knew we needed to find some soap. We quickly found a hotel and raided the housekeeper’ cart for a bar (we asked). Rubbed it on the leak, it fixed it well enough to get home 200 miles. Why this works is gas both expands and hardens the soap, when you rub it over the leak it gets down in there pretty well.
I’m glad you pointed out this fuel system goes to a carburetor. I don’t imagine soap holding up to fuel injection pressures. …though it’d be fun to see, on somebody else’s vehicle!
Aside from the couple of incidents noted in the replies below:
A friend broke the crankcase of his VW Thing while off-roading. I mean, cracked one half of it into two pieces. He had it towed to my place with the intention of replacing the case halves. Instead, after tearing the engine down to the bare parts, we used a Dremel and ball-burr to cut a reglet the length of the crack, rinsed well with acetone, and JB welded the two pieces back together (took two sets of JB Weld). Two years later, he finally blew a small-end and sent a connecting rod through the case. The JB weld still held!
I was driving my Mother’s Austin America irresponsibly on dirt roads in Central Oregon when the right-hand out side CV joint blew. We had enough money for gas to get back to Ptown, and no more. We could have walked into town–ten miles–and tried to get a buddy to come out and tow us home (pre-cell phone by several decades), or…. Finding a length of bailing wire on a fencepost, we disconnected the outer end of the axle stub, bent it back perpendicular to the body of the little car and tied it off to a frame member. One wheel-drive will get you home!
We were mostly broke back then (not much has changed for me), so we made do when possible.
Many years ago (when I was in my twenties) I did a timing belt & WP service on my twin-turbo Dodge Stealth. I did it in January in an unheated, uninsulated garage in Chicago (way below freezing temps). Only when you’ve seen the engine bay of a transverse-mount quad-cam V6 with 2 intercooled turbos and AWD in a low-profile sportscar with pop-up headlights, you can appreciate what a pain this job is, the freezing temps were not helping..
After I was finished, I started it up to ensure the timing was correct, then I proceeded to take a test-drive.
Less than a couple of minutes into my drive, when I saw the coolant temp gauge shoot up I realized I forgot to put coolant back in after I checked timing and BEFORE I took it for a spin.
2007 Infiniti G35, needed a new VVT solenoid (per a mechanic’s advice) switched it out ($800 part), ran fine for a couple days, then slipped timing anyway and blew the engine. Engine had 150K miles on it. Sold it for parts for $1600.
The most terrifying of repairs always involve the fuel system.
Helping a friend out with a mid-00s Honda CRV. It’s leaking fuel (quickly) from above the tank, probably where the sender connects to the fuel line. We let it dry out until we’re as confident as we can be (not very) that it’s not going to immolate, pull back the carpet, and (fire extinguisher in-hand) cut a hole in the floor with an angle grinder. Sure enough, a rusty hard line is leaking. We then proceed to cut the hard line AND the plastic line that connects to it and bridge the gap with rubber fuel hose and hose clamps. Never leaked again.Restoring an old Honda Motorcycle, all the float bowl drain screws sheared off when breaking the carbs down. Quiksteel plugs all around. Fuel stabilizer in the winter.The REAL winner, but this time I was only a witness: I’m on a test trip in which a special truck with a special engine has been shipped out from [redacted] for a special test. Something isn’t right. We’re finding fuel under the hood, but can’t locate a leak. The vehicle has a 30,000 PSI common rail direct injection system. The vehicle came with a couple of engineers from [redacted], one of whom had ZERO hesitation to climb up on the bumper and stick his head down inside the engine bay while someone else put the vehicle in gear and stood on the brakes wile loading up the engine so the rail pressure setpoint would rise and he could spot the leak (an insufficiently tightened compression fitting). Everyone present knew what hydraulic injection is. Zero fucks given, those guys are nuts… They fixed the leak, though.
Well… this was separated into paragraphs when I wrote it, but it’s not now.
in highschool My buddy had a mitsubishi eclipse 1998? and the brake lights would not turn off. there was a button that was depressed when your foot was “off the brakes” telling the lights to turn off when the pedal was pressed down it would un-press the button and tell the lights to turn on. I guess there is a rubber spacer that is attached to the pedal that pressed against the button that fell off?? so there was a gap making the brake lights never turn off. I wrapped a rubber band around the pedal stalk to fill the void and it fixed the problem. was not supposed to be a “permanent fix” but i think the rubberband was there for years after that.
1970 Ford Econoline Cargo Van, a well abused JC Penney sevice van, purchased in 1983 for $250. I drove it for two years, then one of the front drivers side suspension mounts rusted away. I fashioned a bracket out of a thin sheet of steel to hold the parts in the general positions, and tied everything together with bailing wire and turnbuckles.
Twice a week, I had to crawl underneath an tighten the turnbuckles. I drove it this way for three months until the steering box rusted away.
’71 Honda CB350 throttle cable broke. Twin carbs in case you didn’t know. Rigged a piece of string to a carb throttle lever and ran it up and over the gas tank to the other carb. With my right hand under the string I could pull up for throttle and rotate my hand to balance the carbs. Ride ’em cowboy!
I did the same thing on a 1967 VW Squareback back in the late ’70s! We broke the throttle cable somewhere near Hart Mt, OR. In the ’70s, you we’re going to find VW parts in Eastern Oregon, so… we rigged a piece of string to the throttle crank of the dual-Solex carbs (aftermarket), propped the rear hatch open at the front and ran the string forward to the driver’s seat left. I drove with my right hand while working the throttle with my left, while a buddy in the passenger’s seat shifted for me. About 800 miles later, we made it back to Portland.
Nice. My second car = ’67 VW squareback, which I bought in 1978 and I still own!
Decided to check up on David and Torch’s site. Hit a paywall and can’t read this article. Clicked on “become a member” and was greeted by a message saying they don’t want to do paywalls and subscriptions are for bonus stuff. Sure feels like I’m missing out on content, not missing out on bonus stuff.
My first car, a ’71 Fiat 128. It had some issue in the trans, I can’t remember what though, but apparently the “mechanic” used pliers to handle a shift rod putting a bih scratch in it. So, when I shifted into reverse, the trans got stuck in second. After driving home from UC Davis to south Sacramento across the causeway at 25 MPH, I took it in. It happened again and dad came out and towed me home. The next mechanic quoted way too much to really fix it, but pushed the shift rod back into position and I drove away. It happened again, but this time armed with knowledge, I took off the trans cover plate, found the shift rod, drilled a hole in the plate aligned with the rod. Put in a self-tapping screw in the hole and put a nail on the dashboard. It happened a couple more times, so I removed the screw, pushed the rod back with the nail, replaced the screw and drove on. I sold it like that without telling the buyer (embarassed now), but left the nail on the dash. Got a call from the buyer a week or so later. Uh oh I thought. Turned out I failed to provide some info on the paper work. Whew! Heard no more from the buyer.
I can’t say.
OSHA might hear.
Clicky pen spring in to a coil pack as the original spring and contact had corroded to dust. Honestly surprised how well it worked for a roadside bodge, ended up changing them all over!
Edit, forgot the car… this was on an RB20, in a Nissan Cefiro.
Just after Thanksgiving last year, my fiance and I were driving back into Chicago from the western suburbs when all of a sudden a horrible scraping noise came from under his Escape. We pulled off the Eisenhower Expressway, looked under the car, and couldn’t find anything wrong. We set out again, only to have the noise return above about 50 miles per hour. We exited I-290, pulled into a parking lot, and took a closer look. It turned out a plastic tray under the passenger side of the car had come unfastened from the front edge — and at higher speeds, it was catching the wind and causing it to scrape on the road.
My collection of zip-ties were in the other car, sadly, so we were forced to use the laces from a pair of softball cleats in the back seat to secure the tray to the body, and drove home in relative peace.
Later, a dealer told me most of the threaded plastic plugs that hold those trays to the body were missing (probably as a result of the crash it had been in with a previous owner). Replaced them a week before Christmas at no charge.
Meant to be temporary, but lasted 3 more years while I owned it. I kept the spoiler on a 97 Maxima SE with 4 toggle bolts. Just went through the factory holes and it was practically better than original.
I could probably just say Project Cactus, but that ute is getting better every day. If I get the chance this weekend I’ll try to write about the latest improvements as we hit one-year since Cactus hit the road.
One bodge that sticks in my mind was when I had to fix a leaking filler-neck seal in my Charger. Someone prior owner had swapped in a later emissions-era tank which has a dome on top and doesn’t sit properly in a pre-emissions Charger’s fuel tank mounting spot because of the dome.
I replaced the seal with a genuine part, this only lasted a few months before it burst and you could only get about half a tank of fuel in there without fuel spilling out.
I grabbed my trusty tube of Stag (https://www.blackwoods.com.au/adhesives-sealants-fillers/adhesives-sealants/stag-jointing-compounds/compound-jointing-stag-200gm-tube/p/05064009) and used about half the tube to essentially make a new filler-neck seal almost entirely out of the product.
The repair lasted well over 2,000km until I disassembled the Charger to start my restoration and sourced the correct fuel tank.
I think there’s a reason that PO stands for both “previous/prior owner” and “pissed off”. 🙂
Either way, that bodge sounds like a good ‘un.