Cool Macgyver fixes

[scottindenver]

Just thought it would be cool to share various Macgyver hacks and fixes. Macgyver was a TV shows from the 80s and he always got out of trouble by using whatever he had available and i loved that show.

Here is one from today. Lawn mower kept speeding up and slowing down. I went to my junk drawer and grabbed a few things and finally got a clothes line pin to hold the throttle at a certain level. It worked and got the lawn finished and can move on to more important things.

https://postimg.cc/wtV2m9Xv

[jacob]

Also see viewtopic.php?t=9739

[Sclass]

I really hated that show. They definitely had a science consultant on staff but Macgyver’s results were irreproducible.

I can recall one where he beats a steel pipe on the ground while pointing it to the north to make a temporary magnet to pick up a steel key ring. As a young science nerd I was like WTH!? Yes in theory you could likely line up the dipoles in steel by mechanically stressing it while aligned with an external magnetic field but you’d never get something powerful enough to pick up a keychain. Just go try it.

I know physicists ruin movies right? “No! Laser beams in space don’t make sounds!”

Good you got your lawn mowed. I think this kind of fix deserves its own class. There’s something to be said about a patch job that’s just good enough to get you back home.

ETA - oh no! They have it on YouTube!

https://youtu.be/QmEi-rWPnAc

[scottindenver]

Yeah they had science consultant but it’s Hollywood so not everything was reproducible in reality but for a kid it can be fun to watch.

The more important point was there was a character that used whatever was available and was resourceful and didnt panic. Also Macgyver was normal in that he wasnt a superhero with special powers or unlimited resources.

[Sclass]

Well, thinking back I was influenced by Macgyver’s use of Swiss Army knives. I have carried one ever since I was a teenager in the 1980s. Macgyver’s knife was usually a Tinker 84mm which is the more compact knife. It’s less common than the 91mm ones.

The 84mm are really nice for EDC because of their size. I have a lot of 91mm ones I don’t carry. So it doesn’t matter how many tools they have if you don’t have it when you need it. I must have been influenced by that show. The knife showed up in almost every episode.

https://www.macgyveronline.com/macgyver ... h-episode/

I own about fifty of these things. I used to bid on TSA seizures. It’s a great tool for Macgyvering things.

[loutfard]

I "fixed" a broken off secondary lid bracket on our oven. Its only purpose is to push a binary sensor button. Squeezed a piece of leftover flooring tile on top of the sensor button. It's a secondary security I decided I can live without until I 3d print a replacement. Has worked like that for more than a year now...

[scottindenver]

Just this summer i was driving through Yellowstone in our old Prius with my wife and two kids. It was raining and we were in the middle of Yellowstone National Park when suddenly the main windshield wiper blade snapped off. I pulled over and got on my rain jacket and took a look at the wiper blade. It looked like a break if the plastic clip that hold it on. I got back in the car and rummaged through the middle storage and found some zip ties. So I figured this was my best option as the closest car parts store was in Cody Wyoming which is 80 miles away. Sure enough i was able to use two zip ties to secure the wiper blade in place and it worked so well i drove it all the way home like that after our vacation.

[Gilberto de Piento]

Just this summer i was driving through Yellowstone in our old Prius with my wife and two kids. ...

I had to do something similar but I made the fix with tape. Always a good idea to keep tools, tape, zip ties, wire (good for exhaust repairs) in the car.

Another good tip is that if you car air conditioner compressor goes out sometimes you can find a shorter serpentine belt that will fit around all the pulleys except for the AC so you can keep driving. The truly paranoid/prepared could even sort this out and have the right belt on hand before any sign of ac problems.

[Sclass]

Reminds me of some friends. One guy stopped by my home on a road trip. We could hear his serpentine chattering a bit so I sprayed it with belt dressing and the sound went away. A few days later he called me from the road and said his AC clutch seized up along with the compressor. The mechanic in the small town he stopped in fitted the car with a shorter serpentine as you just suggested. He was really mad at me. He said we should have pulled the belt and spun all the accessories.

The other had an old car that had separate v belts. The belt to his water pump and alternator broke in the middle of nowhere. So he made one out of climbing cordage. He just sized it in place, tied a knot (sheet bend?) then tensioned. It got him thirty miles to the next town without overheating.

[Jim]

My 198x 1.9l NA diesel vw golf consumed a higher volume of alternator belts than it did diesel fuel.

At one point, one of the high pressure injector lines blew apart, causing diesel to start spewing all over the engine compartment, so I jammed the rubber overflow tube that runs from the radiator to the coolant reservoir over the broken line and ran the other end into the windshield washer reservoir. I drove home on 3 cylinders without any issue. After that I had about 2 fingers of diesel floating on the washer fluid, which remained there for the rest of time.

[Walwen]

Mine is a lot stupider.
The handle to my mom's dryer fell off years ago. We had a random handle around, but it was an awkward surface, I couldn't get it to glue because the handle was hollow, so on. I stuck a little play-doh in the hollow of the handle to give it enough surface area to stick. And it's still on the dryer today, 7 years later.

Growing up, one of the toilets would always run, and you'd have to stick your hand in the tank and pull this bit on the chain that looked like a paper clip to get it to stop. I mentioned this to my mom in passing, "the bit that looks like a paper clip." "It is a paper clip", she said.

[scottindenver]

Regarding AC compressor seizing this exact thing happened to me on road trip in old red 92 Toyota Camry. The engine was overheating and i could hear grinding before i finally figured out it was the AC compressor was self destructing. I pulled over at a rest stop off interstate near the South Dakota/Minnesota border. I slept in the back of the car in the middle of a thunderstorm which was crazy. In the morning i drove the car into Minnesota and pulled into nearest small town where there was NAPA auto parts. I pulled the belt off and asked the guy if he had smaller belt. He gave me some string and I measured how long belt needed to be if i bypassed AC compressor. I got the belt, put it on and worked!!! Went from there all the way to upper penninsula of Michigan and down back to Ohio.

[scottindenver]

And I never bothered to fix the AC, just left it as is and rolled down windows if it was too hot. Sold the car a year later and moved on.

[macg]

The more important point was there was a character that used whatever was available and was resourceful and didnt panic. Also Macgyver was normal in that he wasnt a superhero with special powers or unlimited resources.

This is my favorite TV show, hence the user name

During that era, it was the only "action" show where brains and ingenuity were used, instead of guns and brawn.

Love this thread, will contribute soon.

[scottindenver]

If your car wont start but you hear clicking it might mean the car battery connection is just bad enough that starter motor is not getting the high amps it needs to start car engine. So a mechanic told me about the old shoe trick. I asked what the hell do you do with a shoe? He said you whack the top of the battery posts with your shoe!!!. Sure enough it worked!! Great trick when you are stuck somewhere and need to get home. Plus even with no tools or multimeter at least everyone has a shoe and can try it.

[Sclass]

Whacking the starter motor sometimes will get a car to start if it has a bad starter or motor brush.

[Cam]

Whacking the starter motor sometimes will get a car to start if it has a bad starter or motor brush.

This also works with angle grinders. I remember working in the metal shop with the old ones with worn brushes. Just give em' a good smack and they'd run...at least for a little while

[davtheram12]

My buddy I had driven some 60 miles, after he had just swapped out the transmission, to pick up some car parts being sold off Craigslist. While we were getting off the freeway, the axle unbolted itself (6 Alan bolts on a 1989 VW GTI) and ripped a hole in the manual transmission spilling gear fluid all over the street. We pushed the car into a nearby parking lot and assessed the damage. Axle was still usable, transmission sustained a hole the size of a half dollar coin and all of the fluid had leaked out. Between my friend, myself and the cart part seller, we sourced 6 new bolts, reinstalled the axle, patched the hole with 'metal in a tube', filled it with gear fluid and drove back 60 miles to our hometown. Transmission sounded like it was going to grenade at any point but we made it home.