Waynebaby Posted November 6, 2015 Report Share Posted November 6, 2015 Hi All, Since you're on this forum it's probably safe to say that the car in your garage has had some periods since first being commissioned which are now a little "hazy". I've got a 1974 Mk3 GT6 which has had various bits of work done down the years when in the hands of previous owners: not all of which has been done to even half-decent engineering standards. I came across the worse one yet yesterday and wondered if anybody had any other horror stories they might want to share? This particular story relates to a drive shaft UJ, the changing out of which went fine until I came to fit the new spider. One of the caps would not go far enough into the flange yoke to allow the circlip to be fitted. I checked to see if one of the rollers had fallen over in a cap but that wasn't the problem and as the new UJ was a GKN from the club shop I assumed it wasn't at fault (but I checked with another brand of UJ and found it to be dimensionally identical) To cut a long story short, the problem was eventually tracked down to one of the circlip grooves in the yoke having been machined fractionally too far into one of the cap locating holes - the UJ was never going to fit in that flange yoke. So how come the original UJ had fitted I wondered? When I looked at the spider of the old UJ it became apparent that some bodger had got it to fit the faulty yoke by grinding down three of the four spider arms! I have no idea how long the car had been fitted with the faulty flange yoke but i can't believe it left Canley like that. Needless to say the car now has a correct flange fitted to the drive shaft and the new UJ is snugly in place. I should offer a name check to Tim at Willow Triumph in Darlington for tracking down the problem and supplying a new flange at short notice. Can anybody beat that for historical engineering ineptitude? Wayne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mishmosh Posted November 6, 2015 Report Share Posted November 6, 2015 Most bodges I come across involve large amounts of filler. Waynebaby 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougbgt6 Posted November 6, 2015 Report Share Posted November 6, 2015 My first car was an Austin 7 Ruby. It had wings from 3 other cars that weren't Austin 7s! And I've mentioned on here lately my friends Big old Austin which had a rotten chassis repaired with a baulk of timber. Unfortunately the timber was also rotten and the car failed the MOT for woodworm! Waynebaby 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnD Posted November 6, 2015 Report Share Posted November 6, 2015 There's filler and filler. The donor car for Silverback had a lot of corrosion around the wheel arches, including holes, that the owner had dealt with by pouring molten bitumen into the crack between the arch and the side panel. It had worked well! He must have scraped off the excess outside, burnished and painted it. I knew nothing, except that there was a lot of rusty panels there, until I started to weld new metal in, when the bitumen melted, caught fire and dripped out, like napalm. If you have ever had a welding spark down your shirt, think of a welding spark that sticks to your skin and GOES ON BURNING! I had to go over the whole car with a torch, burning out the bitumen, leaving an awful mess on the floor! John Waynebaby 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Moss Posted November 6, 2015 Report Share Posted November 6, 2015 Fibreglass is a particular pain. 1/2 an inch of filter instead of banging out the dent. Floor patches 4 sheets thick in places with only tack welds to hold them in place. A rear vertical link which had the shock mount thread removed drilled and M8 bolt tapped into it that could not meet the required torque. Front axels with nylock not engaged due to the end being cut off due to enthusiastic attempt to remove them with a hammer, not a press. How long have you got. Waynebaby 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve C Posted November 6, 2015 Report Share Posted November 6, 2015 I had a mad relative who once repaired the chassis rails over the rear wheels on a knackered Bedford CA by cutting up the angle iron frame from one of the kid's beds, and "brazing" it onto the rotten rails with a Ronson variflame blowtorch! He took the kids out in it too - scary! Steve C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Moss Posted November 6, 2015 Report Share Posted November 6, 2015 Oh yea. Forgot to mention brazing. Used on sills. Proved to be quite strong though when I attacked it. Even a bit flexible. Don't they braze up rally cars to make the monocock chassis stiffer. Duno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freyasgrandad Posted November 6, 2015 Report Share Posted November 6, 2015 Years ago my father repaired an elderly neighbours 1930's Morris Minor that had started running on three cylinders after about twenty years of apparently trouble free ownership. A compression check showed no compression on number three and taking the head off revealed a hole in the piston crown. This piston was also heavily carbonised, unlike the other three which was not surprising as it was made from wood. It would seem that the original piston had failed during or shortly after the war when parts and materials were in short supply so someone had turned one up on a woodwork lathe. Does this count as a bodge though as it lasted a long, long time? Waynebaby 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unkel Kunkel Posted November 7, 2015 Report Share Posted November 7, 2015 I always think "bodgers" are bit maligned ! Many restorers, it seems will self -righteously at some stage, condemn the awful "bodges" a previous owners has done to their vehicle, pointing accusing fingers at filler or lumpy welding and by this means somehow hoist themselves upwards into the realms of "proper" enthusiasts. This is a bit unfair. Bodgers have extraordinary imagination and resourcefulness (and show undoubted have courage with some of their more imaginative problem solving!) and it is important to remember that if it was not for their valiant efforts in the 1970s with chicken, wire pop rivets, scrap metal and anything else that came to hand , your cherished restoration project would have ended up teetering on a pile in the breakers.when wide bottomed trousers and Mexican mustaches were quite the thing. Impoverished folk in the seventies (like me ) kept these things going for you-respect! The worst "bodges" seem to have come out on the assembly line: I heard of a BL car that had an infuriating "bong ..clunk..clunk bong " which was bad on corners- but also up hill ,down hill and also on braking or accelerating After much discussion, a front wing was removed.Inside there was found a 2" bolt suspended on a long string .Attached to the string was a note which said" "Annoying isn't it ?" Andy Moss, ludwig113 and Waynebaby 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren Groves Posted November 7, 2015 Report Share Posted November 7, 2015 Quite mild compared to previous posts, but when changing the UJ's on my Herald's driveshaft a PO obviously had trouble fitting the circlip so tack welded the UJ Cup to the yoke of the driveshaft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 7, 2015 Report Share Posted November 7, 2015 British Leyland !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Lewis Posted November 7, 2015 Report Share Posted November 7, 2015 I guess a bodge lies just below utopia and compromise , many have come across a situation where outside the box thoughts have been made , many to varying standards and idea's of accomplishment. often driven by ... deep pocket syndrome. my worst come across was a rover with a sheared disc due to part seized caliper some guy had removed the disc ,and wedged a lump of wood between the pistons to get 3 wheel braking, it failed a MOT test , Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Moss Posted November 7, 2015 Report Share Posted November 7, 2015 Vanadium23 makes some very good points. How many people have every done everything perfectly on a restoration. Certainly not me. However, I'd like to think I could have a chuckle about my own pragmatic ingenuity in the future. Thanks vanadium23, it's a point well made. Lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted November 7, 2015 Report Share Posted November 7, 2015 Vanadium23 has it about right. Personally I don’t have the imagination to think up the amazing alternatives to doing it by the book. I promise to make my New Year resolution for 2016 ‘ must try harder to bodge my Herald’ Unfortunately I have never been good at keeping my New Year résolutions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddie Posted November 7, 2015 Report Share Posted November 7, 2015 My first car, a Ford Anglia, died three months after I bought it when a rear leaf spring came through the floor. The section of floor that the spring hanger attached to had been carefully reconstructed using chicken wire, filler and underseal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterH Posted November 7, 2015 Report Share Posted November 7, 2015 When I worked for Massey Ferguson I had to take a service course for a dealer in Zambia. In their workshop was a tractor the rear tyre of which had split and been repaired by bolting another piece of tyre over the split. How the bolts didn't rub through the inner tube I don't know. I have a photo of it somewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Lindsay Posted November 7, 2015 Report Share Posted November 7, 2015 Last Saturday... this one came in to me with the female owner, a Polish resident, complaining that it wasn't stopping very well... Two wheel cylinders later and it was vastly improved... thankfully the one on the other side was just weeping slightly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Lewis Posted November 7, 2015 Report Share Posted November 7, 2015 Its that old saying neccessity is the mother of invention many inavations turn into a bodge and many a bodge stems from inavation its the standard of the result thats variable remember in life some have 1 years experience 40 times and some have 40 years experience once. pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnD Posted November 7, 2015 Report Share Posted November 7, 2015 "Fibreglass is a particular pain. 1/2 an inch of filter instead of banging out the dent." Only a bodger "bangs out a dent" in fibreglass. It is properly repaired with fibreglass and ... filler. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thescrapman Posted November 9, 2015 Report Share Posted November 9, 2015 I have mentioned before, but silicone bathroom sealant makes very good brake master cylinder seals when you are too tight to buy the real thing.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Moss Posted November 15, 2015 Report Share Posted November 15, 2015 What I clearly meant was corroded metal repaired with fibreglass. Separately, significant dents in metal inadequately removed thereby requiring excessive amounts of filler. But you knew that John. Very funny my mate, chuckle, smile, lol. 8-)). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david lewis Posted November 15, 2015 Report Share Posted November 15, 2015 i once bought a 1954 ford popular which was burning so much oil there was a rubber hose pipe from the engine breather into gallon can in the engine compartment to collect the oil fumes,,when it was full i just poured the oil back into the engine still the car only cost me £4-50 and i thrashed it around for 6 months before it finally expired-=those were the days ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougbgt6 Posted November 15, 2015 Report Share Posted November 15, 2015 "silicone bathroom sealant makes very good brake master cylinder seals" Shame it doesn't work on baths! How many times have stripped it off, cleaned the joining tiles and bath, to within an inch of their lives, left to dry, applied masking tape, re-sealed and applied the wet finger to make it look professional. 2 weeks and it's separated AGAIN! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Lewis Posted November 15, 2015 Report Share Posted November 15, 2015 Doug, Did you fill the bath with water first then leave the stuff to set overnight bit like toe in..... it sets its ride height pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Lindsay Posted November 15, 2015 Report Share Posted November 15, 2015 Shame it doesn't work on baths! Of course it does! Never had to replace a brake master cylinder seal on any bath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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