Alright everybody, Ghetto engineering you've done or seen, go!

"McChiken116 - Patrick H." (mcchiken116) 06/27/2014 at 13:30 • Filed to: DIY

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My greatest feat of Ghetto rigging was with my first car, a 2001 Hyundai Elantra that had sat for a year after my Grandfather died, and the wiring to the headlights had been eaten through by rats. The solution my father and I came up with, rather than splicing new wire, was drilling a screw into the existing wires in the socket, and then wrapping more wire around the screw to complete the circuit. It held, and continued to hold, even after the car got pushed into another car, totaling it. Now, what can y'all throw at me

Nibby > McChiken116 - Patrick H. 06/27/2014 at 13:32

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Substituting engine coolant for blinker fluid. I'm a pro.

crowmolly > McChiken116 - Patrick H. 06/27/2014 at 13:35

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Twizzlers can double as vacuum line in a pinch. Gotta mind heat resistance though.

McMike > McChiken116 - Patrick H. 06/27/2014 at 13:36

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Electrical tape for a stereo install. No wire nuts, soldering, crimps, or terminals needed. Just twist and tape.

As a teen, I also figured put an inline switch with my taillights fuse so I could drive around and kill the lights to be a stealthy & shit. Also used electrical tape.

mr_gofast > McChiken116 - Patrick H. 06/27/2014 at 13:37

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mcseanerson > McMike 06/27/2014 at 13:39

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A friend of mine installs stereos on the side. He uses electrical tape and a butterfly knife. He does very clean installs and takes about ten minutes. Did one for me on a lunch break in the parking lot once.

extraspecialbitter > McMike 06/27/2014 at 13:41

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If this is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

mcseanerson > McChiken116 - Patrick H. 06/27/2014 at 13:44

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Worked at a sam's club. If a customer bought an oversized item and adamantly insisted on driving it home in their too small vehicle this is how we did it.

McChiken116 - Patrick H. > mcseanerson 06/27/2014 at 13:47

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That's.... Not too bad.

Nibbles > Nibby 06/27/2014 at 13:51

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LOL mis-reply

Nibbles > McChiken116 - Patrick H. 06/27/2014 at 13:52

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Hokay, here we go:

1985 Camaro base coupe - bad cat - jammed a crowbar in there and pulled it clean. Dad actually welded the glasspack on this one. When I bought it it ran on five cylinders. Had to manually adjust the timing between cold/warm, so I just left the distributer loosened. Ended up fixing more redneck repairs than I made on this car.

1987 Toyota SR-5 Turbo 2wd. Sealed muffler leaks with silicone caulk. Removed cat and replaced with "Test pipe": flex hose wrapped in duct tape, held in position by more tape. Eventually replaced exhaust with pipes sourced from an '89 F-150 (which gave its life to bring our '55 project to life).

1997 Jetta - headlights wouldn't work unless the key was torqued nearer to the start position. Bad switch, didn't care, I'd start the car and use a bungee cord attached to the center console to hold the key in place

1987 Saab 900 - hall effect sensor wires were corroded which would sometimes kill the car at random. Used electrical tape to hold the entire distributor steady. When the electrical tape failed due to heat, moved on to HVAC tape. Chrome distributor FTW. Actually all the electricals and vacuums were deteriorated to the point of nonuse, so the engine bay was a monument of electrical tape, duct tape, mismatched hoses that I snaked off other cars, oil spray and some baling wire holding the downpipe hanger in place.

1995 Dakota - the exhaust is made of the 900's original piping, held together by HVAC tape and mounted with baling wire. No immediate plans to fix, it works well enough as is so who cares the pipe is only there to pass visual inspection

Nibbles > crowmolly 06/27/2014 at 13:53

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As a Saab owner, I need to keep this in mind

mazda616 > McChiken116 - Patrick H. 06/27/2014 at 14:01

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My car has a hole in the splash guard directly under the engine. The guard has to be removed to change the oil, but sometime before I got the car, someone got lazy and just pulled the guard down to access the filter instead of actually removing the guard. This created a stress fracture in the plastic that led to a hole.

A new splash guard is almost $100. So, being the cheapskate I am, I cut a chunk out of an old oil jug and zip tied it in - covering the hole. Voila, no more rainwater and rocks/dirt chewing up my serpentine and a/c belts. It has held for four years now.

unclevanos (Ovaltine Jenkins) > McChiken116 - Patrick H. 06/27/2014 at 14:02

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my 96 740il wouldn't stop throwing catalyst codes even with new aftermarket catalysts, so I threw on some spark plug anti foulers on the post cat o2 bungs. It worked and that's the best shadetree mechanic trick I've heard.

EL_ULY > McChiken116 - Patrick H. 06/27/2014 at 14:06

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I needed a wiring harness for my e28 535i because some rats from the junkyard I got the car from had damaged it big time and the turn signal flasher was not getting any power. Solution... I ran a hard wire from the positive terminal on the battery, through the outside of my A-pillar, under a weather seal, and just kind of had it hanging around the steering wheel area straight into the flasher. Fusible link for obvious reasons. It still didn't work because I had a bad ground. So I just found a random ground cable and YES my turn signal worked.....but it was now tied to the door lock switch for some reason. So yes, when I hit the turn signal stock, my door locks would go up and down at the rhythm of the turn signal lol.

McChiken116 - Patrick H. > EL_ULY 06/27/2014 at 14:08

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I imagine that's actually pretty cool at first. PS, are you working tomorrow?

EL_ULY > McChiken116 - Patrick H. 06/27/2014 at 14:11

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i'm off tomorrow, going to be at the Grand Prix Saturday and Sunday whooo hooo!

yamahog > McChiken116 - Patrick H. 06/27/2014 at 14:21

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My XJ now has two power and two crank windows:

http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/power-windows-…

And ohmylord, my battery harness. It didn't come with one, so my dad took a piece of 1/8 x 1 1/2" aluminum, drilled a hole through each end, wrapped it in electrical tape, and shoved some scrap rags between it and the battery. Voila!

Also, the AC in my dad's old Jetta went while on a long summer road trip, so I stripped the wires of a desk fan he had in the trunk, crossed with an old 12V car charger for a CD player, a little bit of electrical tape, and hung the thing from the rearview. ThereIFixedIt.jpg

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > McChiken116 - Patrick H. 06/27/2014 at 14:22

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199x Toyota Previa (SC & All-Trac FTW) - A fusible link somewhere in the dash gave and the 12 volt outlet stopped working. We were on a road trip at the time and about 800 miles from home.

I don't think I need to tell you how much of a disaster it is to have three kids in the backseat on a 26-hour journey with no portable VCR player.

None of the parts stores we tried had the links in stock, so my dad sacrificed his phone charger and used the cable to bypass the link and wire up the outlet directly. The repair held for the next six years that we owned the car.

Do-Rif-To > McChiken116 - Patrick H. 06/27/2014 at 14:22

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Pulling all the 20 Amp fuses in our rental minivans when my Design, Build, Fly team started blowing fuses so late in the competition that all of the other teams had either left or were down to their last fuse too. Didn't even bother to check what the fuses went to, nor did we replace them. Somewhere out there a man is baffled by why his aftermarker Nissan Quest steering wheel heater isn't working.

tromoly > Nibby 06/27/2014 at 14:30

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Blinker fluid, I see what you did there.........

bob and john > EL_ULY 06/28/2014 at 16:30

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LOOOOL