Highway Dispatch:Emergency repairs save vacation after breakdown in middle of nowhere - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Carrameow · #1 07-13-2005, 05:32 PM

Hi I am writing this in the backseat of a Volvo on a highway near Canada on a laptop and posting to the Internet through my wife's ffriend's employers cellphone....
Ha ha this was to be the family vacation with no work on cars!
I'm kind of naive and goofy but when your wife starts telling you that her friends say "There's now way I would let my husband spend that much time on cars!" , you dont need to be pyschic to realize what your wife must have said to them to get that response...Time for a family vacation...so off we went!

There we were aboard the family car escaping NJ Sunday in a 91 Volvo. I've been suffering from fatigue lately so much I have to take a 45 minute nap every half hour and so I had to let my daughter drive.
So with my daughter driving and me sleeping and my wife tending to the puppy my teenage genius hit branches in the road, which tore off my Volvo's under pan.
That was okay, I stuck it in the trunk.
Then she repeated the feat 30 minutes later by hitting a dead truck tire and this time we lost all our belts and an oil cooler hose to boot!
There we were Sunday afternoon , puppy daughter and wife in in a small town inNew England with the only store a convenience store with two shelves of odd sundry hardware items... We were supposed to be in Boston the next day so we could meet my wife's friends Flight from California!
A quick survey revealed no major towns, Autozone's, car rental agencies or anything within 50 miles ....For a while I just wandered around in total lethargy, sleepy, downspirited and beaten...
I was beat and I knew it. Until I started drinking the java. One cup led to another until I had five. You know what they say...the battle is won as long as you have fight! Now I had at least some fight which I tripled by swallowing some six vitamin pills. Now I was kicking....
Perusing the convenience store I found copper pipe and speaker wire. Perusing my emergency tool supply, I had everything but a 50 gallon compressor...I always bring everything!

I didn't need an AC belt, and I even could do without an alternator belt for 3 hours, but I definitely needed the water pump and power steering belt. But there was only two feet of wire!
I reasoned I could do without power steering, but I had to get the water pump running. So i decided to just make an abbreviated water pump/power steering belt without including the power steering pulley.
I delicately wove the precious speaker wire into a three wire strand to make small water pump belt which I soldered shut.

Next I definitely had to seal the oil cooler hose, which I did by cutting it and jamming the copper pipe into the open joints. I put a hose clamp on each joint. It still leaked but buying a case of oil solved that.

I was in business! Autozone was 50 miles away and closed at 9 pm and had all the parts I really needed. Needless to say we made it. My make shift belt broke, but by then I was so fired up, I used tie wraps to make another and even another when that makeshift belt broke too, until we reached the store and i was able to get replacement belts and a hose barb to really seal the two oil hose joints.
Onwards to Boston where I dropped my wife off at the airport and rushed off to a junkyard to find an oil cooler hose...needless to say, at this writing, we have driven 600 more miles and the car is in better shape then when we left home..and even carrying two more people..(total of five and a puppy).
The lesson I learned? Never give up and even if you do, drink lots of coffee....

83mercedes · #2 07-13-2005, 05:50 PM

That's some story!

Aren't the belts toothed? So were your temporary ones functioning simply on tension?

I bet your wife isn't so angry about your mechanical ingenuity now!

Carrameow · #3 07-13-2005, 05:56 PM

The speaker wire clear plastic gets sticky, I guess

barry123400 · #4 07-13-2005, 06:12 PM

They tell me a temporary fan belt can be made from a pair of panty hose. I just cannot quite visulise myself walking up to a strange woman and asking for her panty hose.

So will probably never really know. Your use of speaker wire was really ingenious. Guess you could say that you were wired on coffee and the water pump was wired as well.

H-townbenzoboy · #5 07-13-2005, 07:29 PM

If I ever decide to take my car on a highway trip longer than 80 miles, I will carry spare belts and hoses with me. It's insurance against the inevitable happening, and when you've got an older car, it's as necessary as jumper cables in a newer car.
-Joe

Carrameow · #6 07-13-2005, 07:58 PM

but I reasoned with 5 people the car would be crowded as is, so I left behind a lot of stuff...luckily, not the tool box...

boneheaddoctor · #7 07-13-2005, 08:15 PM

neccesity is the mother of invention..........not a lot of people could pull off what you just did.

Brian Carlton · #8 07-13-2005, 08:28 PM

I have to say, Richard, that you have outdone yourself. This story, if true (

), beats the NYC volvo catalystectomy hands down.

Very nice job.

Bet the wife has a new appreciation for the car junkie.

Carrameow · #9 07-13-2005, 08:46 PM

but thats another thing being 45 begets you...you lose the imagination to make them up

furthermore when u are nutty and goofy like me, yur life will be a little nutty and goofy

and theres no reason to fictionalize too much

Carrameow · #10 07-13-2005, 08:58 PM

Here I am at Autozone

Boston the next day

unkl300d · #11 07-13-2005, 10:25 PM

A bih HOOORAH for you Carrameow !!

What a story.

Hey if you ain't the hero of your fam now, then leave them at the next bus station!

Thanks for sharing !

Denis

CannonBall · #12 07-13-2005, 11:29 PM

ok, so what did we all learn today?

Never let women drive.

Great story! I have a few good ones regarding getting broken jeeps off of trails. It's really amazing what people come up with that works well enough to get a car where it has to be.
-Nate

wbain5280 · #13 07-14-2005, 02:14 AM

Those splash pans are cheap on eBay. The oil filter on my 96 965, when I had it, was right in front of the crossmenber. I was always careful of road debris.

Always carry spare belts, or a serp belt and the special tool to change it and a routing diagram.

One more piece of advice, get the heater hoses, from the block to the fire wall. The heater valve can also break so, when I had my 740T, I went to NAPA and got a generic one for about 12 bux. One heater hose comes looking like curly fries. There are two white marks in the middle where the heater valve goes. Align the hose with the old one, cut out the excess hose and install the valve. Make sure the hose clamp under the intake manifold is clamping the hose and not the metal adapter. You'll see what I mean if you look. Also, use a long scredriver between the intake runners.

Good fix, I really like turbo 900's. I would like to find a nice 95 944T.