Weird Things You've Done to Keep Going.

Emergency Repairs
When I joined he armyin 1964 there were 3 grades of drivers Class 3.Driver, open licence for type of vehicle code held theindividual, Class2. Driver , the driver covered advanced recoverymethods , a more advanced knowledge of mechanical principles . With this you were taught emergency repairs some of them that I remember were, how tomake a rotor button, how to make a distributor cap, how to increase the intensityof spark, how to bypass a fuel pump, How to by pass a voltage regulator. Changea wheel without a jack, how to start a vehicle with a flat battery with nojumper leads, or crank handle (There aretwo methods and one is not clutch starting it) splints on leave springs ,removing pistons, How to make a condenser , how to use a broken winch when ithas a mechanical problem. How to make a towbar to tow a vehicle with a log, The list was much greater, 2 full scap pages. Somewhere in my archives I am sure I have a copy of the list
In these days every vehicle had a coil of copper wire and roll ofinsulation tape as part of its CES and every soldier was issued with a pen knife over the years Iused and saw many of these methods used by the older soldiers.
When national servicecame to be the class 2 drivers course was dropped as from memory a driver had to have 2 years service beforebeing eligible to complete a class two course And that ruled the nashos out The coursewas a four weeks one. I was very lucky to have done the last one at Broadmeadows.
Class 1 driver (6weeks course )You had to hold the rank of at least Corporal Thisinvolved transport management, some administration, training of and issuing drivers at all levels.
I hope some may findthis of interest.
Hodgo

I'd love to see those lesson plans, Hodgo.

Not me but my brother did this. He had either a Hilux or Navara ute and I think he was doing the Canning Stock route. He'd upgraded the suspension and from all the vibration the rear shocks had punched through the tray so the ended up sitting on the wheels.

His solution was to spend a few days digging a hole big enough to drive the car in and lift the tray from the edges. He then jammed wood between the tray and the chassis to lift it back up. He then finished his trip.

The funny thing about this is he had his dogs with him (2 Rottweilers) and because of the heat they were allowed to sit in the cab with the aircon running while his wife had to stay outside in the heat because there wasn't enough room for her and the dogs to sit inside.

I did the same trick with someone's Nissan Patrol once. On the track into Freshwater (Rainbow Beach) camping grounds and this vehicle going out was holding up others in and out, including us. Engine had stopped due to lack of oil pressure. Put the screw in; found some old sump oil and filled it up. By this time the engine had cooled enough to turn over. The rattling on start up, especially the big ends , was memorable. "Don't worry mate. It's not mine" was the other great memory.

Many years ago I broke a leaf spring centre locating bolt in the flinders ranges, on a land cruiser ute. The axle slipped back and locked the hand brake on. Managed to fix it using a thick tent peg which I had and the repair held up till I got back to Adelaide.

Second one was in the Kimberly a few years earlier, putting out fuel dumps for the helicopter sampling programs, we were running low on diesel so we added about 20l of jet A1 to the tank to get us back to camp.

Cheers

Steve

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Originally Posted by V8Ian

I'd love to see those lesson plans, Hodgo.

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Lesson plans in the early 60s were a very hit and miss affair training standards as we know them to day came into the services during the Vietnam period and training was done more at a unit level a soldier could be cross trained with in a unit eg. a driver could become a clerk with just OJT course reports did not exist as we knew them later on what was taught was based on the instructors knowledge What I have in relation to my post on this subject is a prasie. showing the topic. When I come back from Nepal I will find it and post it for all.

Over the years I have used this method several times to set the timing on an engine. when a timing light has not been available
1 Turn engine over by hand until the timing mark on the harmonic balance is set at 6 deg. ( or what the book recommends) before TDC ensuring you are not 180 deg out.
2 Remove no1 spark plug and attach it to its lead and earth the plug ensure its earthed out on the motor so that you have a clear view of the end.
3. Turn the ignition on
4. Loosen the distributor clamp turn the distributor until you get a spark at the plug then turn the dist. back and forward until you get a spark this will be a very fine movement.
5. Lock the dist. when the movement is very minuet.
This done correctly will be spot on.

Vehicles fitted with generators some times when a battery was in poor condition the starter motor would tend to draw all the power and not leave sufficient power for the ignition circuit. I have seen two 6 volt Big Jim batteries hooked up in series and wired into the ignition you had to be quick to realise the problem before you flattened the main battery. This method is very handy when you have no other means of help An old farmer showed me this one and I used it once to start my 46 straight Buick which was a 6 volt system.


hodgo

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Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

in a series III 2.25 I've pulled the remnants of #3 out of the engine after the rod broke, hose clamped the bearing shells back around the crank to keep the oil pressure up after removing the pushrods and scooping the remnants of the piston out of the sump and cylinder.

I've put a jerry can on the roof using a syphon to work around a dead fuel pump.

Ive tied CGI to the chassis and sat a back wheel on it after pulling the propshaft then driven out as a front wheel drive sled to get 3-4k home after seizing a brakedrum/bearing.

Ive cut down a tree with a suitable Y shaped branch set on it and used that, chains and ratchet straps to temporarily replace the A frame of a caravan to get it 300 km

Ive welded star pickets to a propshaft as braces to get a vehicle to limping so it could be gotten on and off of the recovery trailer to get across bridges we were over the load limit for.

used jam as gasket goo (make sure its the seedless stuff)

eggs in radiators (and pepper)

put diesel in the cooling system after doing a radiator repair. (old truck cooling system held ~40l)

used the electric winch on the vehicle to pull start a vehicle up a slope that was just enough that we couldn't push it (starter motor was dead usual routine was a roll start, that morning the nuff nuff reversed into a tree and stalled.)

used bits of tree branch as various drain and fill plugs

cut up and used floor mats as rubber blocks for body mounts

used a fan speed switch and resistor as the regulator for an alternator

long spliced rope to replace v belts

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This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is your tax dollar at work. ;)

Wow some pretty wild repairs. Apart from the usual tie wire cable tie repairs I've been pretty lucky to not have to patch much up on the side of the road except one time this old Datsun ute we were driving lost the clutch the slave was leaking and the fluid dropped enough to finally fail all we had was a few beers and they weren't getting tipped in the master then a mate got a bright idea and ****ed in the master cyl problem solved worst part was his aim was not the best and got plenty on the hot exhaust.

My most recent favourite was helping out a family who were stranded by the side of the road about 300km east of Timber Creek when we were up that way last year. They were in a Holden Apollo wagon towing a pop-top camper. The alternator had died and the guy was trying to charge the battery (thinking that a flat battery was his main problem) with the 12v output on their Honda generator. The multimeter showed the generator output to be 12.2 volts, which wasn't going to charge his battery effectively in a month of Sundays. We could jump-start the car but the EFI and electronic ignition needed a fair bit of 12v power to keep running.
The solution (which took a fair bit of convincing him would work) was to strap the generator onto the drawbar of his camper, run a pair of wires over the roof and connect to the battery cables to provide power to the engine electronics. Thus the twin-engined Holden Apollo last seen happily chugging westward toward Timber Creek.