"monkey rigged" things you have found onyour car!

[G_Body_Enthusiast]

when i bought my car it was all factory original at less than 60K miles when i bought it. i feel very lucky. the original owner was some old person, i'm the second owner.

 

[gwhiz]

when i got my 84 monte carlo it needed exhaust. it had single exhaust that looked to be replaced 1 or 2 feet at a time.there must have been 20 or more clamps and adapters and some sort of mesh type wrapping over some of the joints. also the drivers side mirror was held in by what looked to be a full tube of white painters caulk. luckily i got the car before more DIY mahem could be done.

 

[Mikes84GP]

Oh boy, this thread is perfect because this is what I'm currently involved in fixing on my car from previous owners-

- V6 to V8 conversion with the wrong clamshell mounts so the engine was held in by only one mount
- zip-tied radiator to core support
- belt for power steering pump was too long so the pump and pulley were rubbing the steering box
- transmission lines are cut and spliced with rubber hoses that were allowed to rest against the passenger side header
- Heater/blower box "reconfigured" by smashing it in with a hammer and covering the hole with cardboard and duct tape
that rested about an inch from the header
- Oil dipstick modified by cutting it in half and jamming a stick into the hole (WTF?)
- ratchet shifter installed with a hammer. The existing console was smashed and the shifter was installed in the hole
- worst exhaust setup ever- drivers side pipe smashed at the trans crossmember for clearance, then smashed even
further because the engine would tilt up and down because of the missing engine mount. This was a simple four foot
straight pipe to muffler to straight dump off that was cut and hacked so much that you'd have to see to believe... I have
pics if anyone is interested (Large rust hole in drivers side floor pan with exhaust that dumped midway under the car-
Who likes carbon monoxide poisoning? I do!)
- tips of radiator fan blades bent to make clearance for the top radiator hose because of the motor mount issues and
incorrect fan blade. Radiator shroud was removed and probably thrown away. I imagine all this happened at the same
time the radiator was zip tied to the core support.

I don't think I'm finished with this list yet. I'm sure there is something new to discover with this car.

 

[DRIVEN]

when i bought my car it was all factory original at less than 60K miles when i bought it. i feel very lucky. the original owner was some old person, i'm the second owner.

I was in the same club with my Cutlass and consider myself very fortunate. It's the most unmolested car I've ever owned. I almost feel bad about changing anything. Not bad enough to leave it stock though :lol: .

 

[Minion1186]

Had one car with a cracked quadrajet casting and a cracked air horn on top of it.
Another with an olds 307 with a nut welded to a broken air pump nut and line on the cylinder head.
And the more popular headliner cheap fix, THUMBTACKS! in another olds

 

[G_Body_Enthusiast]

when i bought my car it was all factory original at less than 60K miles when i bought it. i feel very lucky. the original owner was some old person, i'm the second owner.

I was in the same club with my Cutlass and consider myself very fortunate. It's the most unmolested car I've ever owned. I almost feel bad about changing anything. Not bad enough to leave it stock though :lol: .

I dont change things on the car, I improve/update them. I never feel bad, I feel better. Happy even. It's the ame reason i use Bilstein shocks instead of AC Delco shocks. Do you feel bad for using a better designed replacement part Vs an OEM part? I dont, I feel awesome. Feel awesome, it's awesome.

 

[G-Body_Vet]

I went to buy a 78 Malibu years ago and the guy thought it had a blown head gasket because it was smoking. Ok cool, $300 for the car and took it home. Turns out it had 3 GALLONS of oil in it. It had a Goodwrench 305 in it, so I drained the excessive oil and it ran great! Then.......

The radio didn't work so I go to check the fuses and there's a small screwdriver jammed in the fusebox with a wire wrapped around it.

After that I went to investigate the spongy pedal and found a small pair of needle nose vise grips pinching off a rear brake line.

I also helped out a girl I knew with a early 80-ish Eldorado that someone tried to fix and there was fried 22ga speaker wire ran to the starter solenoid!

 

[Oldsmoletick]

Rather than clog up this thread, most of the rigged things I have found are here;

viewtopic.php?f=61&t=35096&start=30

Worth a laugh or two if nothing else. I am by no means innocent in making questionable repairs though 😳 , sometimes you gotta get off the side of the road, or get to work in the am.

 

[Bonnewagon]

For more like this-go here:http://failblog.cheezburger.com/thereifixedit/tag/car/

 

[AndiamoElky]

My dad bought my 86 el camino brand new. But he's let various backyard mechanics work on it over the years. He did a 350 swap from the factory 305 sometime in the 90's and the guy used half of the parts from the old 350 truck motor and half from the elky. He used the exhaust manifolds off of the 350 and used a sledgehammer to make the flanges line up and that made the exhaust stick down almost 12" under the car. Yes that made it hit things when I'd hit a bump hard enough. He also thought it would be good to use half of the accessory brackets from each car. They didn't quite line up right and ended up with quite a few burned out bearings from it.

Some people just scare me.