I'll go first.

Rainy night, 73 D-jet, it simply shut down in traffic leaving a crowded stoplight in rush hour madness. Crossed three lanes coasting onto the shoulder. No tools, no flashlight, barely a streetlight to see with.

Fussed with the ignition, since the shutdown seemed so final, but the dist cap looked ok. Dash lights worked but no fire. Tested fuel pump; OK.

I remembered my cold start injector bypass, that I had wired to a toggle switch, because the thermal timer switch had failed.

It started, revved up and sputtered. By toggling the switch I was able to keep it from flooding itself, until I got going, when I left it on and opened the trottle slightly. I was able to keep up 35 mph going, and by timing the lights, made it the 18 miles home through heavy traffic without further incident.

It was a bad central D-jet ground, the one on the intake manifold. FI was offline.

Michael Pergiel, Elmhurst, IL
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'74 145e T-5 'Orange Alert'

In the late 60s I took vacation in Spain and met 4 German lads. They had a Deux Chevaux and an Isetta (a little box with the door on the front, when the door was opened, the steering wheel swung out of the way.)

All the way down from Germany they drove the Isetta in front in case the brakes failed on the Deux Chevaux, it would hit the Isetta instead of an innocent party.

When they got to Barcelona they traded places, and the brakes failed on the Isetta, it hit the Deux Chevaux and bent in its front door so that they could not depress the clutch

For the rest of the trip, and the trip home, the passenger had to open the front door so the driver could shift gears!
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96 855R, 95 855,854, 90 744 Ti - 343,000 Volvo miles put on 7 bricks

This was with my 121.

A few years ago I drove (alone) from my home in Belgium to Sweden (1500km) for a week's holiday at the end of October. Everything went without a hitch until the day I was heading home. Suddenly overnight winter had started, it was -10C out. The weather was fine though, and I hit the road about 8 in the morning. After about 100km, it began snowing lightly. I parked on a small rest area for a break. The car refused to start when I wanted to leave. That is, the starter refused to run. I started to get uneasy when suddenly it started after trying many times. All went well for a while, except the weather got worse and worse, to the point where the roads looked like a war zone. Many cars in the ditches, visibility maybe 10 meters if you were lucky, and I almost crashed with a tow truck rescuing one of these cars because it was hardly visible through the snow.

In the afternoon the weather got better, but after having lunch at a rest area in Göteborg, the starter was completely dead. I tried rigging it with a cable directly to the battery etc, to no avail. I wanted to call the towing service, but I had no cell phone, my Swedish phone cards were empty and the phone refused my Visa card. Getting nervous, I debated whether I should walk to the city to call. Until I understood that although the starter was broken, the engine itself ran fine all the time. So I waited for somebody to pull on the rest area so I could ask them to help me push start the car.

When the car was going again, I braced myself for a run against the clock: I had a boat to catch in the evening, and about enough gas to get there without having to stop. I got there, stopped to fill up the car, had it push started again and went to embarkment area in the port. I arrived an hour early, the boat wasn't there yet, and I manifestly did not want to stop the car to wait for the boat. So I went back and forth a few times on the highway between Malmö and Trelleborg until I was sure I could drive on the boat without having to stop...

The next morning, when getting of the boat, the car started miraculously. I babied the engine until it was fully warm, and prepared for a long run through Germany and Holland. I had about 800km to go, so I should be able to make it with only one stop for gas. Everything went well until just after the fuel stop. I had noticed a strange sound coming from the right rear a few times when driving slowly, and when I accelerated to get back on the highway, the most horrifying crashing sound almost gave me a heart attack and made me pull over immediately to the emergency lane. I slowly crawled further to the next rest area.

Thanks to a kind anonymous German couple, I was able to call the tow service, and when the technician took off the wheel, the drum and the brake plate we saw a completely, totally, utterly destroyed wheel bearing. My trip ended there... I had to take the train home, and come back a couple of days later to pick up the repaired car. They replaced not only the bearing, but also the half shaft because it had heated up so much it was not usable any more. They did however not fix the starter, so again I had to get home in one go, without stopping.

I made it, after a stop where I filled up 10 liters in the tank with the engine still running. After taking apart the starter it turned out that the big cable from the relay to the motor had broken where it entered the motor housing. When cold, it made enough contact to enable the starter to run. When warm, it didn't.

-30 degress, ice in fuel line, my '65 120 ( best winter car ever, very toasty warm) starts sputtering, I manage to get to a an exit off the main highway (4 lane) pull into a side street. Had some fuel hose in the trunk, siphoned enough gas to run the engine into a window de icer bottle. ran the engine off the container, ran another line to the fuel pump input took a line from the output and forced gas plus gas line anti freeze back into the fuel tank, cleared out the blockage. I have never had the fuel line freeze since, and still don't use fuel anti freeze, of course I don't run a 120 in the winter anymore but that old girl sure was great in the winter, always started, except the time I had to change starters Xmas day (-30 again). Canadians are tougher than you might think, not just anybody can handle the winters up here.

1961 Mini - fuel pump failed. Made an IV out of an old oil can and ran a rubber windshield wiper hose through the dash to feed carb.

I brought a free 1966 Dodge home using my Honda 175 fuel tank and a hose to bypass bad gas in tank. Tied tank to windshield wiper.

Drove our '90 745 GL home with a cat pipe repaired using lead flashing, two joist hangars and plenty of repair wire.

Drove a '56 Ford convertible for a year with no gas pedal. The ball at the end of the linkage wore a nice hole in my sneaker. No one else could drive my car!
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96 855R, 95 855,854, 90 744 Ti - 343,000 Volvo miles put on 7 bricks

I've posted this one before, but here it is again. 1981 240 Wagon. Rain storm. Sunday Evening. 70 miles from home. Broken windshield wiper linkage.

I removed the glove compartment and operated the wipers by hand with my chin on the dash while my wife drove.

One time I was driving back home in my old well used '63 122s. I had gotten a flat on the rear and had the bald spare on. Not a great idea but at the time having a spare that held air was doing pretty good for me! Anyhow, it was gently raining, and the roads were curvy country 2 lane blacktop. As I went aroundone corner I hit a patched section that was slick asphalt, very unlike the graely rough texture of the rest of the pavement. When the slick rear tir hit that the rear end came very suddenly around, and despite some full lock conter measures I went sideways into the ditch. No sheet metal was bent, not too hard of a hit at all really. But the rear wheel was now bent at a pretty significant angle from vertical. I was stuck walking until I notced the hub was bent about half the total amount. So I took off the bent wheel, turned it about 180 degrees (or as close as 5 lugs gets you) and bolted it up to the bent drum. Voila - the two bends countered each other and the wheel was fairly close. So I took off very slowly and made it the 10 miles home. The brakes weren't happy at all about that drum wobbling, but they didn't quit.

The axle got replaced with a 142E unit a few weekends later.
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I'm JohnMc, and I approved this message.

AH Bugeye Sprite:

Replaced broken throttle cable with hand-operated string

Replaced broken throttle return spring with several rubber bands

Replaced generator brushes in the dark and cold in a small Oklahoma town by cutting and filing brushes taken from generator in early 50's Plymouth

Drove 50 miles in second gear with ruined clutch through several small towns in Pennsylvania

BMW 2002:

Substituted 5 gallon can and a couple of rubber hoses in trunk for gas tank that had gotten punctured - good for 100 miles

Motorcycles:

Towed one MC home behind another using a 20 ft length of barbed wire after mechanical problem out hill riding

Returning from college weekend rode last 10-20 miles holding engine flywheel onto crankshaft with the edge of my boot sole

More but I can't think of them at the moment.

My 1958 445 has a mechanical oil pressure gauge in the dash, supplied by a flexible hose connecting it to the engine. One winter day (Sunday, of course), about 20 years ago, I driving on a back woods road in New Hampshire when the hose blew. Had tools, but no spares, so I removed the hose from the connection to the engine. I constructed a small plug of rubber out of a bit of mud flap, stuffed it into the end of the hose, and reconnected it to the engine. This blocked the oil flow to the hose, and allowed me to get home, where I had a new hose made by a hydraulic hose company. Still have the car, and it still has the same hose.

I have a complete short story describing the purchase and drive home with this car back in 1978. Purchased the car in Atlanta, drove it to Rhode Island over Thanksgiving weekend with an engine that used more oil than gas, no electricals except running lights, no heat, leaky gas tank, exhaust system that ended mid-car, hood held on with bungy cords, front tires that had about 2" of toe-in, weak starter that required starting the car like the old airplanes (spin the fan while the driver engages the ignition), and, of course, the car wasn't registered or insured. But, I was young and stupid then. Now, I'm just stupid.

From Elmhurst, eh? I's born there...

Geez... I can't think of that mny, but one of my favorites happened to my brother... Accelerator cable broke on his '73 144 smack dab in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge... To avoid the immediate and expensive tow, he routed the cable and coat hangers through the dash so he could operate it by hand. Then proceeded to leave it htat way until he got home... to Colorado.

I'll surely think of plenty of my own...

-Matt
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-Matt '70 145s, '65 1800s, '66 122s wagon, others inc. '53 XK120 FHC

In 1979 with my 1972 164 bought used about two months earlier, while driving from Atlanta to Charlotte at 2AM on open Interstate, I floored it. It did about 100-110 for about 10 minutes when alarming crashing came from engine. Fan disintegrated completely and put large holes in radiator. Cleaned up as best I could with no flashlight and drove to next exit about 2 miles away. With my only tool, a small visegrip, I curled and tightly crimped each one of the broken water tubes (12 maybe?), top and bottom of hole produced by fan shrapnel. Added water and continued trip, 75-100? more miles. Next day I installed a new "flex" fan, but I didn't replace radiator until over a year later when I found one at a junkyard. Car never over-heated during that time, even with the A/C on.