OTT 9/16/2025: Jankiest Repair

[Adam]

Off-Topic Tuesday 9/9/25

This week’s topic comes from @Rauq:

Jankiest repair, when you did something you weren't proud of just to get home. And of course, you immediately fixed it the right way when you got home, right???

Sometimes you just have to get the car home. Doesn’t matter if it’s safe, pretty, or even makes sense, as long as it works for a little while.

What’s the jankiest repair you’ve ever pulled off?

• What broke
• What you did to “fix” it
• How far you actually made it

Looking back, are you impressed with your ingenuity or embarrassed you ever thought it would hold?

Pics welcome if you’ve got them.

 

[Ross]

The axle pulled out, spreading grease everywhere. I managed to coast off the side of road, and walk home. I got my van and I wanted to tow the goblin home, but the axle was flopping around, as it was only attached to the wheel. So I used a ratchet strap, did one lap around the axle, and secured the 2 ends. The grease prevented the nylon strap from overheating, and I was able to tow it 3 miles home. Next time Ian says "T bet you can't get air over the railroad tracks", I will not try, as success is sometimes messy. The goblin got cleaned up, and new axles, once the parts arrived.

Looking back, well that was a pretty dumb thing to do... yes a goblin can accelerate quick up a hill, but I spun up the rear wheels as we flew over the tracks, and when we landed, the sudden stopping of the tires is when the axle popped out. I wonder if the AT version of the goblin has limiting straps?

 

[Desert Sasqwatch]

A friend put a big gash in his oil pan on his Jeep TJ and all the oil leaked out. He got the engine turned off in time to save it, but we were miles from anywhere and too far back in a canyon for any kind of tow vehicle to get to. We cleaned up as much of the spill as we could. Tried to tow him with my Jeep TJ, but too many obstacles to get over and broke the tow strap twice. After looking at what we had available, found that a plastic cooler liner fit perfectly snug around the bottom of the oil pan. After some trimming and applying almost 2 rolls of duct tape to seal it up, we put 4 quarts (the total of what we had) in the engine and started it up - it held oil and the oil light went off on the dash. We crawled the 8 or so miles very slowly out to the road, where the duct tape finally gave out. Called a tow and made it home to enable an oil pan replacement so we could try to do it again the next weekend.

 

[Rauq]

I had a buddy drive halfway across the country to come spectate a race with me. He did a brake job shortly before making the trip, brought his tools, and reported on his way that he was getting some wicked vibration in the pedal when using the brakes. He made it out to us, and we got to tearing into the brakes. We discovered some runout in the front left rotor, so we assumed it was a bad rotor, but couldn't recreate the runout when we swapped the rotor to the front right. The front right rotor also showed the same runout when installed on the front left. DIY runout pointer actually showed us it was runout in the wheel hub flange. We couldn't find a new hub or wheel bearing assembly anywhere near us, so we cut a shim out of a beer can and sandwiched it between the rotor and flange with some antiseize to hold it in place during reassembly. It worked perfectly, so of course the hub assembly was replaced as soon as he got back home, and definitely was not left in place long term.

The only way it ever made sense to anyone was if the original OEM rotor that was replaced was warped in the opposite direction (and unfortunately it was discarded prior to investigation). This was all on an OEM wheel bearing/hub assembly. The wheel bearing was super smooth with no catches or abnormal rhythms when free spinning, no play, and no other issues. All the lug studs were concentric and even, it was literally just the face of the flange. We couldn't even find runout on the back of the flange, as if the flange were not fully installed in the wheel bearing- just the face of the flange.

 

[Rttoys]

Our trail fixes were the best.

once at an off road park (really no public lands here). We had a great weekend of wheel’n with the jeeps. Sunday after breakfast, everyone is tearing down, so me and the girlfriend (now wife) take “one last run” around what we called the loop. Not overly difficult for our rigs, but still can be challenging. Anyways. We make our journey. We are only about 1/2 mile out and I have no steering.…well half steering. Center link broke. Cell phones don’t work out there and cb’s are off because we are going home. Yell a few time and my buddy heard me. He comes as close as he could and I told him to bring the welder and generator. He brings all of that, plus some other tools. Tried to weld the 2 ends back together, but that really wasn’t going to hold. Looked around and there was some steel fence post over in the brush. Grabbed the portaband and cut a piece off. Stuck it to the link and welded the piss out of it. Fired it up, hit all the bypasses to get back to camp, loaded it on the trailer and was gone.

one time we were wheeling and by buddy snapped a tie rod on his wildcat. We ended up taking the handle to our bottle jack and sliding it over rod and ratchet strapped it together.

when I bought my first cj 20 years ago, I drove it to the tag office to get plates, title change and such. When I leave there, I’m not even out of the parking lot and “pop”. Snapped a unjoint on the rear shaft. I crawled under and used a multitool, I just happened to have in the center console to remove the rear driveshaft. Put the jeep in 4 wheel drive and drove it home.

 

[comegetjoe]

Ok, so I read "janky" and got excited. I had a '83 Shelby Charger (carbureted, no turbo) that was leaking rain water into the passenger side quite badly and was also quite the rust bucket. To alleviate the puddle of water on the passenger floorboard area I simply took a tire iron and stabbed a hole through the carpet which punctured the floorboard as well and drained all of my rain water issues.

This was also the car that caught fire in my parents driveway. What a gem

 

[Rauq]

The axle pulled out, spreading grease everywhere. I managed to coast off the side of road, and walk home. I got my van and I wanted to tow the goblin home, but the axle was flopping around, as it was only attached to the wheel. So I used a ratchet strap, did one lap around the axle, and secured the 2 ends. The grease prevented the nylon strap from overheating, and I was able to tow it 3 miles home. Next time Ian says "T bet you can't get air over the railroad tracks", I will not try, as success is sometimes messy. The goblin got cleaned up, and new axles, once the parts arrived.
View attachment 53860

Looking back, well that was a pretty dumb thing to do... yes a goblin can accelerate quick up a hill, but I spun up the rear wheels as we flew over the tracks, and when we landed, the sudden stopping of the tires is when the axle popped out. I wonder if the AT version of the goblin has limiting straps?

Did you strap it like this? How confident were you that it would hold? Were you able to watch the axle spin in its new home for a few feet before you started rolling down the road??

Also, watching Stadium Super Trucks taught me you never keep your foot to the floor when airborne, I'm pretty sure your grand scheme would've gone off flawlessly otherwise.

 

[Rauq]

Ok, so I read "janky" and got excited.

Janky is one of my favorite underutilized words.

 

[MeltedSolid]

I needed a longer clutch line after a transmission swap, and I was about 3 days out from a cross-country move, so I cut my existing clutch line at the soft part, went to napa to get a short length of pre-flared brake line and 2 hose clamps, and put it all together. It lasted the full 1100 mile drive towing a trailer and a few weeks of commuting afterwards until the correct line arrived, no leaking!

 

[Ross]

Did you strap it like this? How confident were you that it would hold? Were you able to watch the axle spin in its new home for a few feet before you started rolling down the road??View attachment 53867

Also, watching Stadium Super Trucks taught me you never keep your foot to the floor when airborne, I'm pretty sure your grand scheme would've gone off flawlessly otherwise.

I wasn't very confident it would work, so we walked beside it when being towed, and it seem to be working. I knew not to keep it floored in the air, but still it did wind up a bit on liftoff. Of course the axle angle is pretty extreme when the suspension is at full droop, so I was taking my chances. It ended up being pretty good father/son time, as walked 3 miles home, then got the van to rescue the goblin. We got to bed at 3AM, but had a story to tell.

 

[Mahkoi]

My ignition switch on my 90 ranger went bad so you had to key it to run. Then push a boat horn button on the dash to crank the engine. (I worked at a boat shop and had to use what was available.) I took a sharpie and wrote "start" on the dash with an arrow pointing to the button. It stayed like that until the truck got scrapped years later..

 

[Rttoys]

I still have a starter button on my cj. The steering column is jackled up a bit and I got frustrated trying to fix it, so button it is.

 

[Scott #321]

After overheating and blowing the head gasket on a 87 Dodge van I removed the thermostat (poppet only) and seal on the radiator cap and continued to drive it for 20,000 miles. could go anywhere just when I stopped it would boil water into the recovery tank and I would have to wait 30-45 minutes before continuing the journey. When I did tear it apart finally piston #4 was slightly melted actually showing the top of the compression ring. hammered out the old ring cleaned with a file and installed new rings. drove an additional 30K miles before selling. never used more than a half qt every 3000 miles.