Temporary Fixes and Jerry-Rigged Repairs. Whats your best/worst? - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

JamesDean · #1 01-06-2010, 09:14 PM

Hey everyone,

So I'm interested in hearing/seeing some of you're guys best and worst jerry-rigged/temporary fixed on your benz's....

Mine:
The other day my dad and I were driving around in his 300SD. We have two 300SD and this one is the beater while the other one is the clean one that has been stored most of its life and get tended to..you get the picture..

So we get home and he goes to turn off his headlights and they wont turn off. He turns the knob all over the place and nothing. Turns out he broke the little metal fingers that go into the knob. So to fix it, I wired in some switches...

Looks pretty rough. I feel bad for the car.. I had to jerry up his last car's headlamps (GM VAN), the high beam function on the stick broke, so I wired the high beams to the fog lamp switch (fogs were broken)... Atleast that looked factory.. This not so much..

What about you guys?

pawoSD · #2 01-06-2010, 09:57 PM

That is horrifying, is it really that difficult to find a replacement switch? A car with the rare green interior too! Treat it better!

I rarely do a non-stock/factory repair....one of my only ones was some epoxy around the turbo drain tube to slow a leak while I had the proper seals on order.

JamesDean · #3 01-06-2010, 10:04 PM

No its not difficult I have a list of compatible vehicles and two places that I'm aware of that have a few of them. My dad needed the car for the next day and it was around 6pm when it happened.

big dog 2 · #4 01-06-2010, 10:22 PM

LOL!

cliffmac · #5 01-06-2010, 10:40 PM

I bought my wife a used 1974 BMW 2002A in 1981 and the starter lockout switch evidently failed. I could start the car by jumping the posts of the starter with a large screwdriver but she couldn't/wouldn't. So, I bought a toggle switch, super glue, 10 gauge wire and little rubber plumbing washers and bypassed the starter switch. What you had to do was turn on the ignition and then flip the starter switch and it worked fine. But you had to manually turn off the starter switch once the engine was started. The wife handled it OK and then I sold it to a friend (bad idea as always) and I expressly went through this with him when he left with the car...He calls like 5 hours later telling me that he stopped at a bar to celebrate his new car purchase and the engine is still trying to turn over...he never turned the starter switch off! It cost him like $500 for a new starter, flywheel, battery...what have you....who can screw a car up more than a mechanic? we know how to do this..if you can fix em, you can wreck em

slk230red · #6 01-06-2010, 11:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cliffmac

I bought my wife a used 1974 BMW 2002A in 1981 and the starter lockout switch evidently failed. I could start the car by jumping the posts of the starter with a large screwdriver but she couldn't/wouldn't. So, I bought a toggle switch, super glue, 10 gauge wire and little rubber plumbing washers and bypassed the starter switch. What you had to do was turn on the ignition and then flip the starter switch and it worked fine. But you had to manually turn off the starter switch once the engine was started. The wife handled it OK and then I sold it to a friend (bad idea as always) and I expressly went through this with him when he left with the car...He calls like 5 hours later telling me that he stopped at a bar to celebrate his new car purchase and the engine is still trying to turn over...he never turned the starter switch off! It cost him like $500 for a new starter, flywheel, battery...what have you....who can screw a car up more than a mechanic? we know how to do this..if you can fix em, you can wreck em

That's how Ford used to design their starter circuits. My '49 Ford had a push button momentary switch that you would push to engage the starter after turning the ignition on. My '55 Buick had the switch as part of the accelerator pedal. Turn the ignition on, then press the gas pedal and viola....vroom vroom.

JamesDean · #7 01-07-2010, 08:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cliffmac

I bought my wife a used 1974 BMW 2002A in 1981 and the starter lockout switch evidently failed. I could start the car by jumping the posts of the starter with a large screwdriver but she couldn't/wouldn't. So, I bought a toggle switch, super glue, 10 gauge wire and little rubber plumbing washers and bypassed the starter switch. What you had to do was turn on the ignition and then flip the starter switch and it worked fine. But you had to manually turn off the starter switch once the engine was started. The wife handled it OK and then I sold it to a friend (bad idea as always) and I expressly went through this with him when he left with the car...He calls like 5 hours later telling me that he stopped at a bar to celebrate his new car purchase and the engine is still trying to turn over...he never turned the starter switch off! It cost him like $500 for a new starter, flywheel, battery...what have you....who can screw a car up more than a mechanic? we know how to do this..if you can fix em, you can wreck em

I had to do something similar to this with my one 300SD...my lockout didnt fail but my neutral safety switch did. So I would turn the key, hop out and pop the starter with a wire across the terminals... I still leave the wire in the engine bay just in case. lol.

JamesDean · #8 01-07-2010, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cliffmac

I bought my wife a used 1974 BMW 2002A in 1981 and the starter lockout switch evidently failed. I could start the car by jumping the posts of the starter with a large screwdriver but she couldn't/wouldn't. So, I bought a toggle switch, super glue, 10 gauge wire and little rubber plumbing washers and bypassed the starter switch. What you had to do was turn on the ignition and then flip the starter switch and it worked fine. But you had to manually turn off the starter switch once the engine was started. The wife handled it OK and then I sold it to a friend (bad idea as always) and I expressly went through this with him when he left with the car...He calls like 5 hours later telling me that he stopped at a bar to celebrate his new car purchase and the engine is still trying to turn over...he never turned the starter switch off! It cost him like $500 for a new starter, flywheel, battery...what have you....who can screw a car up more than a mechanic? we know how to do this..if you can fix em, you can wreck em

Nice. Could you have used a momentary switch instead of a toggle switch?
It sounds like something I would have done though. lol.

PanzerSD · #9 01-08-2010, 01:24 AM

Here's my prize winner and HUGE money saver.

My heater fan went on my SD a few years ago, and of course it was the coldest part of winter, and I NEEDED to get this fixed. the nearest replacement had to come from the states and was going to cost me ALOT, I think around $400. NO GO. so I took a heater motor from a 1990 Nissan 240SX, and trimmed the flange and cut the mercedes motor from it's flange and welded it up and did some swappage with fan cages from several I had lying around.

I think I was almost at one point, ready to install a modified fan from a 1955 Ford

JamesDean · #10 01-08-2010, 01:48 AM

i like the ingenuity with the fan.

I have another one sort-of...

I was working on my dad's one 300SD (the work car) trying to diagnose a charging system issue (theres a thread in the diesel discussion forum) and I was going out to check some voltages and get something to do drink. I walked out of my house into the garage, checked the voltage grabbed my beverage and then found out that the door had locked.

I had no keys, no phone or anything else to get back in...my parents's bedroom is right above the garage and I usually get yelled at pretty good for making noise in the garage at night..so I figure some horn action from the van would wake them up and let me in.. that didn't work.

Next I found some oranges/grapefruit. I figured the classic "throw stuff at the window" trick would work. I re-examined this and decided I would aim for the siding rather than the glass. I don't want to break the glass. That failed and as an added bonus there is now around a pound of fruit on the roof.

My next plan was ingenious, but flawed. I knew I could startup the SD and potentially drive it to my grandma's house (she sleeps at odd hours and would be awake) and then phone home to get the door open. I got the engine running and was all set...however I couldn't bypass the steering lockout and driving in a straight line was not going to work.

Finally I was able to use a combination of long horn honking and beating the ceiling with a 4' lead pipe (which consequently cut the garage door wires--which I had to fix) that finally woke someone upstairs.

30 minutes later...

That really doesn't qualify as jerry-rigged but it was interesting and worth sharing lol

Hopefully some on gets a laugh out of it.

73Elsinore · #11 01-08-2010, 04:44 PM

Right on, good thread. I once saw a guy use a car battery to weld an alternator bracket that had broken off the lug where it mounted to the engine block. This was in a jeep and we were off-roading umpteen miles out in the middle of BFE in the Calif desert. The bracket had broken and the weight of the alt was causing it to hang just enough sideways to cause it to get into the fan. He used jumper cables as the welding leads and some baling wire as the electrode and kind of looked away as he struck the arc. Obviously this was in an old jeep that did not have a PCM or anything electronic. When you're off-road and stuff breaks, you get pretty creative... It wasn't pretty but it dang sure worked. I had always heard that you could use a battery to weld with but had never actually seen it done.

mpolli · #12 01-08-2010, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 73Elsinore

Right on, good thread. I once saw a guy use a car battery to weld an alternator bracket that had broken off the lug where it mounted to the engine block. This was in a jeep and we were off-roading umpteen miles out in the middle of BFE in the Calif desert. The bracket had broken and the weight of the alt was causing it to hang just enough sideways to cause it to get into the fan. He used jumper cables as the welding leads and some baling wire as the electrode and kind of looked away as he struck the arc. Obviously this was in an old jeep that did not have a PCM or anything electronic. When you're off-road and stuff breaks, you get pretty creative... It wasn't pretty but it dang sure worked. I had always heard that you could use a battery to weld with but had never actually seen it done.

http://www.4x4wire.com/isuzu/minutemods/welder/

MB220D300D · #13 03-10-2010, 02:17 PM

Hello ! Regarding post #23, wherein it was said "...rubber in the throttle linkages on a 617 diesel", I have a '84 300D (Turbo)(bought in '95, and a '73 220D before that), and although I know about the 20 or so ball-n-socket rods, where are the rubber pieces ?

Dave H.

strelnik · #14 03-11-2010, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PanzerSD

Here's my prize winner and HUGE money saver.

My heater fan went on my SD a few years ago, and of course it was the coldest part of winter, and I NEEDED to get this fixed. the nearest replacement had to come from the states and was going to cost me ALOT, I think around $400. NO GO. so I took a heater motor from a 1990 Nissan 240SX, and trimmed the flange and cut the mercedes motor from it's flange and welded it up and did some swappage with fan cages from several I had lying around. I think I was almost at one point, ready to install a modified fan from a 1955 Ford

East German Commies had once handcuffed me with McGuyver to a nuclear reactor that had been set to leak, thereby bursting, after which twenty tons of concrete would come down on us to reduce the radioactivity.

Mac Guyver found that one of the guys had left a piece of wire on the table. After straining I got the wire, the end of which Mac Guyver used to open the handcuffs. Mac Guyver then stuck the wire in my mouth and used two of my teeth as a wire stripper to get several fine filaments. He broke off the edge of a plastic spoon he found to open the main panel and jury rigged things so that the reservoir below would flood the coolant chamber. At the same time, we emptied a 55 gallon drum, and Mac Guyver then jury-rigged the circuitry to send the concrete crashing down. We stood up in the drum, which acted as a boat as the concrete slowly floated us to higher ground and an access vent, whereby we made our escape.

We then made our way out of the country but that's another story....

oldsinner111 · #15 03-11-2010, 04:11 PM

Long ago,overheated in the El Paso sun off road.We had beer my 2 friends and a girl helped fill the radiator with pee.