Best "duct tape" repair?

[spdrun]

Here's my story and I'm stickin' to it. A few months ago, I was at my family's farm in VA. I discovered a small puddle of oil under the 240D. Tried to tighten the drain plug -- the thing stripped out.

No Mercedes dealer open over the weekend, and I needed to get back home the next day. The train was an option, but I wanted to bring the car back.

I bought a drain plug a few mm oversized (they didn't have self-tapping plugs of the right size), drill, tap, and gasket material from the local car parts store. I thought that there would be enough "meat" left in the oil pan to drill it out and put in the new plug. Nope. Drilling it out just ripped the inner nut out.

I ended up cleaning up the hole and finding a piece of iron fence post. Drilled and tapped the fence post, cut out an approx 1" by 1" section around the hole. Cleaned up the section and the mating part of oil pan with an angle grinder. JB-Welded it to the inside of the pan. I've changed the oil at least once, and the repair is holding!

One of these days, I'll pick up a new oil pan and install it.

[Txjake]

not mine, but I recall either MClaren or Porsche team duct taping a Group 7 car together at Sebring in order to continue the race after a crash. Saw it in Road & Track or Car and Driver...... 70s?

[Jim B.]

Originally Posted by Txjake

not mine, but I recall either MClaren or Porsche team duct taping a Group 7 car together at Sebring in order to continue the race after a crash. Saw it in Road & Track or Car and Driver...... 70s?

^^^^^ I Alabama Chrome!!!!

[jplinville]

2009, the day of my FIL funeral. My wife had been in KY for a week as her dad died, I showed up the day after he passed, in the Mercedes he had sold me. Wife had driven her Mitsubishi Outlander. She was parked in front of her brother's house, which had a fire hydrant that was lower than law, and covered by grass...the grass the city mowed. As we were leaving for the funeral home in separate cars (mine was the lead car, hers was in case anyone needed something prior to leaving) she, not thinking clearly, drove over the hydrant and the top of it pierced the oil pan. It took too wreckers to lift it off...no damage to hydrant, but ripped the hell out of the air dam and oil pan.

Before I left to drive back to UT, I pulled the pan, made a call to a shop I was referred to, and used their facilities to make the repair. The pan was cast aluminum, and they didn't have the ability to weld AL in house. I heated and hammered the pan semi flat, and cleaned everything up real well. They gave be a 1/8 thick X 4 X 4 plate of steel. I cut it to fit, and glued it down with JB Industro Weld...the strong stuff. Installed it and got her back on the road. She was able to drive back to UT on that repair...and the person we sold it to still is driving with it...no problems at all.

I've kept some cars on the road with bailing wire and duct tape out of lack of funds when I was younger. I've repaired exhaust systems with soup cans and large hose clamps. On a Durango I recently sold, the thermostat is on the bottom of the engine. I had to replace it once, and broke the bottom bolt (4.7l engine, reverse flow cooling system) and was unable to get it out, and didn't have time for a proper drilling and tapping, so I used a small 1" c-clamp on that flange...dang thing stayed like that for years, and I sold it like that...no leaks at all.

[t walgamuth]

I've never had much luck with patching things with duct tape, though I love the idea of it.

[catmandoo62]

i bought a 66 toronado at a swap meet that had been setting for a number of years,it still had bias ply tires so this kinda tells ya how long it had sat.it ran and moved so i said to heck with it i'll drive it 150 miles home.stopped at a gas station for gas and saw one rear tire was really low.so as i'm putting air in it the rotten valve stem decided it was time to exit this world and broke off almost flush with the rim.thought man i'm screwed now no spare and didn't know what to do .well we happened to have a couple kitchen chairs in amoungst our swap meet stuff,so i took a woodscrew out of the legs held the valvestem together long enough to put some air in the tire then quick screwed the screw in what was left of the stem.got me home just fine and that tire held air for over a month like that.

[cmbdiesel]

"repaired" a u-joint in my lifted '78 Blazer with bailing wire and duct tape...

was about 5 miles from home, out in the woods, taking a "shortcut" from a friends cabin we had just moved him into.... which was why my tool box was not in the truck... (said tool box contained spare u-joints, and the required tools to replace one... truck used to eat u-joints)

Held together long enough to get back.

[cmbdiesel]

Originally Posted by t walgamuth

I've never had much luck with patching things with duct tape, though I love the idea of it.

ever since moved beyond bar level sound reinforcement, it has been nothing but gaff tape.

More expensive but a vastly superior product.

In fact, I have a small piece of dark blue gaff on my SD covering a dime sized rust hole above the cladding on the door. Virtually unnoticeable.... from 20'...

[jplinville]

Every lifted truck I've owned eats u-joints. I usually have a spare set in the glove box.

Instead of duct tape, I learned that Gorilla Tape holds much better...even when wet.

[chasinthesun]

Im a lot like you in that repairs need to be cheap and the replacements sometimes have to what.The well tank sprung a leak last fall on the property I rent and I got a tip that using a fresh tree sappleing limb or a wooden dowl rod to drive into the hole will work for the time being ,still holding a yr later.

[Can't Know]

After I graduated from law school I was not working while I was studying for the bar. When I left the grocery store one afternoon the car (1976 Datsun F-10 hatchback, one of the ugliest things ever to grace a showroom) barely started to crank and that was it. I knew by the sound it wasn't the starter or battery and just to confirm I tried to push start it, and it locked the rear tire when I let out the clutch.

I pulled the spark plugs and cranked it over, and got a gush of coolant from one of the cylinders, so I figured it blew a head gasket. I pulled the dipstick and was happy to see no evidence of coolant in the oil, so I knew it had just happened and wasn't something that had been building up over time.

However, on pulling the head I found that the aluminum had corroded, pitted and ultimately failed between the edge of the combustion chamber and the water jacket, so that coolant had just poured into the cylinder. Since I was broke and there weren't any serviceable heads in wrecking yards, I took a Dremel tool and some small bits and cleaned up the corroded area until it was all bare metal; I didn't make it smooth but left lots of valleys. Then I mixed up some JB Weld and really forced it into all the little gaps, building it up until it was a little higher than the mating surface. I let it cure for 24 hours, then filed and sanded it back down to flush. I sprayed a new head gasket with copper coat, and then reassembled. I also changed the oil.

I owned the car for a couple more years after that and then engine was still fine when I sold it. That really surprised me, and it sure made me a believer in the folks behind JB Weld products.

[elchivito]

The 240D brake vacuum line had a little hard rubber or plastic junction where a smaller line split off to the shutdown switch. That little piece broke from heat and age I guess and the car would not turn off at the key. Phil had a hard time finding the replacement line as apparently the euro 240's is different. Took about a month to get the new line and about a hundred bucks as I recall from MB in europe. Meanwhile, I used JB weld dough, some little snippets of drink stirring straws and molded an entire new one. It worked fine. I sold the car that way and forgot to give the new owner the part.