Quick ways to get your vehicle moving without a parts store.

Someone recently gave me the idea to do a thread about the quick and common repairs that can be done to your vehicle, should TSHTF and mechanics and auto parts stores are no longer open. There are some myths to doing this, and there are some very good repairs that will hold up well over time.

Busted hose or radiator hose
A common occurrence on older vehicles, or vehicles being trashed off road and in bad conditions, is a broken radiator hose. You will know exactly when this happens, because your engine will overheat and you will open the hood to reveal a soaked engine compartment. After you've shut the vehicle down, and found the exact break, you have a few options to repair it. One, you may be able to cut the hose off and re clamp it to the fitting, if the leak happen close enough to the end of the hose. Two, you may be able to cut the hose in half, were the leak is, and splice it using two hose clamps and a length of piping. Any pipe will work, but PVC is noncorrosive and easy to work with. It may make some newer engines overheat, so keep an eye on the gauge.

Yes, my photoshop skills are amazing!

The last and least popular way, is to wind half a roll of duct tape around the leaky hose. It will hold up for a while, but not long. The old myths of salt, pepper, and raw eggs, in a leaky radiator won't work.

Busted radiator core
This is another one that may work, and it may not. If you have a busted radiator core, pouring a bit of DEX-COOL in may help seal the leak, if it's small. The bit about eggs, salt, and pepper, again, not gonna work. Salt will rust the inside of your engine though, I'm sure that will work out great for you later on down the line if you try it.

Power steering line leak
Another common problem is a leaking power steering line. These get corroded with age and will spring a leak under hard use. The best way that I know of to take care of this, without a new part, is something called JB weld. It's a two part epoxy that can be very strong. You'll need to remove the leaking line completely, clean it up, and smear the epoxy over it evenly and completely. Allow it to dry for as long as you can remain stationary. This repair won't last forever, so be looking to scrounge one for your vehicle in the next few hundred miles.

Blown head gasket
A very bad and often terminal problem, is a blown head gasket. You can't repair this one without a new head gasket, but you can coax your way to a garage if you know how. GM started using something called DEX-COOL in all of their vehicles in I think 1998, and it's a special type of radiator coolant. When it contacts air, it gels, and actually helps seal the water passages in the engine/head area. If you put this in a non-DEX-COOL engine, it will gel and limit the amount of havoc the blown head gasket is causing, and hopefully, get you to a garage. It's not good for the engine, it's not a real "fix", but it can limp your engine back to the garage, if it's a v-8 or v-6. It may however make that engine unrepairable.

Broken accessory drive belt
This one is at least partly myth. Some have claimed a thin belt will work in place of the drive belt, but that's not going to happen. Best case scenario, is that you have an old v-belt drive. To fix that you can try to use a length of bailing twine. It probably won't work, it might, maybe. Good luck with finding a drive belt, because that's the only real replacement.

Misplaced lug nuts
Before you tackle this problem, you should probably ask yourself how this happened to begin with. Then, if your vehicle has 5 or more lug nuts per wheel, remove one lug nut from each of your other wheels, and put them on the wheel that has no lug nuts. Now, you're ready to continue on your merry, jolly, lug nut losing, way.

I drove into a pond and the engine just stopped
Mmhmm, some people are that dumb. The reason it stopped, is because you drowned it out! The road to getting your vehicle back in working condition can be long if you're not used to changing fluids, but it can be done, as long as it's not salt water. First thing you're going to need to do, is find out what fluids have water in them. So go over your vehicle and check every single bit of fluid for white stuff, oil, transmission fluid, brake fluid, radiator fluid, gear oil in the axles/transfer case, gas tank, power steering fluid, everything. When petroleum has water in it, it turns white (usually). You may get lucky, or you may need to replace everything. Once you've checked them, replace everything that has water in it (this may take a while). Once you've done this, remove the spark plugs, and crank the engine over until it's done shooting water out. Take the distributor cap off, and spray it down with wd-40. Look over all the electronics under the hood, and spray anything vital with wd-40. Take off the air filter and let it dry, check it for debris and such. Go over the entire vehicle, and grease everything again (good to do while the air filter is drying). Clear the water from your muffler by either poking a hole in it with a screwdriver, or by running the vehicle up a steep incline as soon as it's running (that only works if the muffler is situated the right way). Now put everything back together, spray some ether starting fluid in it (if it isn't fuel injected), and give it a crank. It should fire right up, as good as before you went for a swim. If it's fuel injected, just leave it where it sits.

Emergency vehicle bag
Yes, I noticed that people around here are fond of packing things. They assign names to these bags, and have fun putting them together. For this "bag", you will need, a complete change of all vehicle fluids, a portable jumper box, all of the basic hand tools you own, any spare parts you own, hose clamps, bolts, zip ties, duct tape, electrical tape, grease, various small sections of pipe for splicing, rope, tie downs, a come-along cable puller, a winch (if you want to spend some money), wd-40, carb cleaner, JB WELD, starting fluid, some extra lug nuts , a portable air compressor, tire plugs and plugging tools, and an extra set of keys taped under your dash. This should have you covered for almost anything.

If anyone has any questions or suggestions for other repairs on your vehicle that require no parts or shop, feel free to ask. The majority of them are just not going to work without new parts though.

The drive belt issue is a tough one because of the serpentine belts on most newer vehicles. However, when I was younger, I read an article about a guy who was racing the Volkswagens at Baja, and he said they tied a pair of panty hose tightly around the pulleys and finished the race when theirs broke down. It was the old v-belt type. Of course, I wouldn't expect to get too far like this, but it could get you a few more miles.

Kind of wonder what two guys were doing with a pair of panty hose though...

reply to post by visualmiscreant


The fact is that most vehicles, even with v-belt drives require more traction on the belt than anything other than rubber can provide, to turn the pulleys. If you're lucky your accessories may spin freely enough to do that, but it's not very likely that an alternator will cooperate. They're pretty difficult to spin. It's also likely that nylon stockings will compress and provide little traction, and tear themselves to shreds. I think the bailing twine would be better.

Are you sure that VWs have an accessory drive belt? I was under the impression that they were air cooled and used a stator rather than an alternator.

Why did they have pantyhose? To start an urban legend. A vehicle will run for a ways without a belt at all, but not very far. A race car with high capacity batteries, or even a dual battery setup, could run for a long ways without a belt. They probably just finished the race without a belt and told someone they used pantyhose as a joke.

I can honestly say i've never heard any of these tricks, thanks for sharing op

Originally posted by visualmiscreant
The drive belt issue is a tough one because of the serpentine belts on most newer vehicles. However, when I was younger, I read an article about a guy who was racing the Volkswagens at Baja, and he said they tied a pair of panty hose tightly around the pulleys and finished the race when theirs broke down. It was the old v-belt type. Of course, I wouldn't expect to get too far like this, but it could get you a few more miles.

Kind of wonder what two guys were doing with a pair of panty hose though...

With my older truck, I had a spare serpentine belt behind the seat. I had the water pump go out twice, breaking the belt each time It paid to have the spare belt and the few tools on hand to change it.
If your belt doses break, more than likely something like a water pump made it go. In that case, its time to stick out the thumb and hope someone picks you up

Well considering that if a real SHTF hit, then machines would not last long, since they are primitive and not self repairing or self regenerating. But for the time that they did last and considering that you dude's all speaking martian, and it sounds like you all would know what the hell to do.

So I would take one of you more mechanical types along, just in-case some part that I don't know nothing about breaks. I used to have a friend who kept his van running for years and years, all with a few tools, and lots and lots of duct tape. He used to carry everything in his van, and it used to break down at least a couple times a week on him...And when you opened up the hood the whole thing looked like it was being kept together by duct tape.

reply to post by galadofwarthethird

When I had a vehicle made in the 60's and into the 70's, I did work on them. My old 91 s-10, I did some work, but it was plan to see that I was becoming lost. Now when I got my then new truck in 2007, FORGET IT!! I had no idea where to start, I don't even change oil myself.. So , other than maybe a flat, if it dies, them it would be a true FORD, found-on-road-dead..
With all the computer stuff on the engine, no way can one service it in a SHTF. I would be walking soon enough with or without gas..

Don't try this unless you are desperate.
Fuel pump goes out and you have a carburetor and gas in a gas can.
Use a soda or a beer can (tall boy) put small hole at bottom of can, fill can with gas, place can on carb, drive car till can emptys and start again. (Close hood enough to hold can on carb) Not really safe but it got me out of being strand out in the middle of nowhere.

reply to post by oldshooter1979


That's a ford for ya. My corvette's ls6 is pretty straight forward. It's a 2002.

reply to post by Evolutionsend
Yea, the nice thing about my ranger is that its paid for

reply to post by oldshooter1979


So is mine. Although I'm thinking I need a truck now. Have to sell my mini or my 'vette, to get one of those.

Bush mechanics .Here is a wealth of info for the budget traveller
www.youtube.com...

reply to post by oldshooter1979


Oh yes you would be better off with a buggy, to go with that bug out bag, in a SHTF situation, because lets face it simple things will go farther and last longer then today's more...advanced models.

As anyone knows, some of these advance's in automobile tech is there for a purpose, and that is. It has a lot of spiffy unnecessary things and parts, that cause a lot of unnecessary problems. And in a SHTF situation one can not afford to play the make things to break for profit game, that is so prevalent now a days.

reply to post by galadofwarthethird


Barring parts availability, the GM lS line of engines is really very good. They're not as complicated as they appear, and could last a very long time in harsh conditions. They're probably the best engine line of any American manufacturer right now. I wouldn't dismiss all newer things. After all, the LS engines are the culmination of 50 years of experience with two other engine designs that also worked very well.

I do not think vintage VWs have a belt drive at all, I think that was the joke in the article that the poster was referring to. They're also air cooled, that could be bad if the terrain got really rough and you had to go slow.

reply to post by Evolutionsend


If you say so, I will take your word on it. Since I don't really know what your talking about.

reply to post by galadofwarthethird

If and when the SHTF, there will be alot of " found on road dead"! Most would be walking before long, or horse and buggy time again. maybe I can come up with a way to change my Ranger to a one horse power

reply to post by oldshooter1979




How about camel power?

reply to post by galadofwarthethird


GM ls engines

If any kind of SHTF scenario would arise I would recommend learning how to change out your spark plugs first.

Most of the situations end up with a CME or all machines loosing power.

So having a car wouldn't do any good if all the electronics are fried in them.

If it isn't very electronic you can get away with just swapping out the spark plugs and your ready to go again.

So learn that first before anything.

reply to post by Evolutionsend

Sorry, not many camels here in Kentucky, But more than enough horses! That is one thing not talked about, horse meat. Maybe some lost cow?