Bodged jobs!

[Avalon]

Yesterday I finally got round to sorting my O/S headlight motor, once done, I checked the beam pattern and decided to do a headlight bulb upgrade while I was at it. N/S went perfectly, the O/S should have been even easier... old bulb came straight out, new one wouldn't lock in. After 30 seconds of proverbial head scratching I took a closer look at the headlight assembly. What I found was a shiny silver self tapper and a bit of yellow plastic... not part of Mr T's normal parts range, so I had a quick look at the bulb and noticed this:

Yes, to accommodate the self tapper, they had ground a notch out of the bulb's base plate. It had failed it's MOT some years back on a light reflector being loose in the headlight assembly.... clearly the 'helpful local garage' who solved this ride horses to and from work. I've added a replacement headlight assembly to my list of parts to order/fit pre-MOT.

So come on TOC, what ingenious/horrific bodges have you done or discovered?

[PeteB]

My first ever car was referred to as a Mini, but was actually an Austin 7, made in 1960.  I bought it for £15 on new year's day 1974 when I was still 17 (only 3 years older than the car!).  It had been heavily botched by previous owners including a metal plate riveted over part of a wing to which one of the (external) door hinges was bolted.  It had been hand painted with a paint brush, in grey.

When approaching a right turn on a damp day, I was braking quite gently as I started to turn the wheel when the car rapidly spun across the opposing lane (luckily no one was around or it could have been nasty - it had no seat belts and original Minis were not known for doing well in collisions)!

I decided to put the Haynes manual to good use and check the brakes - the front drum brakes both had shoes 1¼" wide, as did the left rear one.  The right rear drum contained 1½" shoes, clearly giving harder braking and explained my unintended imitation of a handbrake turn!  I don't think MOT testers had rolling roads those days, so there's no telling how long it had been like that, but it could so easily have been disastrous.

A few months later I took a hump back bridge slightly too fast, and the door hinge broke away from the riveted plate, revealing it was 90% rust.  I drove it to a scrap dealer who have me £10 for it (and a lift home) - not bad though, 8 months motoring, 8,000 miles for £5 depreciation and a set of brake shoes (which I think cost about £6).

[+robster+]

in the plant game ive seen a lot of botch jobs, if its not cable ties holding stuff together its

safety systems bridged out, warning lights with tape covering them ( not even bothering to remove the bulb) , rags packed under oil leaks, grease packed inside transfer cases etc instead of oil due to the oil leaking out, cataloy applied and smoothed over scored hydraulic rams to help retain the seal effectiveness, nuts and bolts instead of proper hardened pins holding steer linkages etc together, chocolate block connector holding together broken control cables, duct tape holding seat bolsters together, bad wiring like scotch locks or twisted and taped wires, the list is endless

yeah its rough out there and ill stop there as i dont want to give bad habit solutions to anyone

 

[Avalon]

It’s slightly different with commercial stuff, it usually comes down to time is money and if something can be pushed to complete a job, it will be. Ideally that fix should only be needed till a part arrives or the next planned maintenance cycle (stop laughing - I have been assured they do exist along with Santa and unicorns). I would however reserve a special place in hell for people who butcher electrics and use scotch locks, they’re just sadistic.

[PeteB]

I know were getting a bit OT here but anyway...  I rather suspect someone obtained a voodoo doll and some pins for an electrician that set fire to the computer centre of a firm I worked for a long time ago.

The building had been designed to house a £5M mainframe, and the computer kit filled a whole floor of  the office.  A small electric hoist linked the computer room with a Data Preparation room on the floor above and the post room on the top floor.  It was mainly used to ferry large printouts and magnetic tapes between the floors.

One day it stopped working, and an electrician from the maintenance firm arrived, found a burnt out fuse wire which he replaced.  Shortly after he left, it blew again and he was called back, only to replace it again with the same result.  When he returned again he decided some higher rated fuse wire was needed, and shortly he left that blew.  The highest rating wire was then installed, only for that to do likewise just after he left.  On his next visit he decided to put a double strand of top rated wire in (which doesn't double the impedance, it quadruples it!).

This time, it didn't blow - something else did, rather more spectacularly - and he wasn't called back, the Fire Brigade were!

As an aside, this firm was very hot (sorry) on safety drills, and once a month an evacuation test was carried out at a random time.  The Admin Manager, who was in charge but left it to the receptionists to chose the timing, always had an old fashioned stop watch on a rope round his neck, and started it as soon as the alarm sounded.  Stopping it when the last of the 150 or so staff arrived outside, the evacuation time was announced over the Tannoy, plus where it sat in the rankings of top ten fastest evacs.

The Fire Brigade were always most complimentary, saying the firm set a shining example.  Be that as it may, on this day, with a real fire, the fact the lights went off a couple of seconds before the alarm did instilled a more genuine sense of urgency and they knocked 25% of the previous record!  The Fire Brigade, as always, arrived quickly and not too much damage was done.

[Avalon]

Finally got round to fixing this today, after careful evaluation of the available options:

Used - pretty much any used headlight by this stage will require sanding/polishing/sealing.

New non OEM - Generally not as high quality as OEM, ideally replace both so they match.

Genuine - £££

So, I used a high performance industrial gel based bonding agent designed for metal and plastic and hey presto... it’s back in the right position and accepts a standard bulb. Finally have matching white bulbs and much better viewing distances. Unfortunately, I probably qualify for my own bridge thread now 🙈

[IanML]

That bonding agent sounds good.  What's it called?

[Avalon]

It’s leftover from a former business where it was used to bond plastic to aluminium, the retail version would be Loctite Ultra Gel - I’m pretty sure it’s the same product as it’s what we were told by the supplier to go out and buy to get a job out the door when we ran out and the courier lost our delivery.

[IanML]

Thanks!