Post your most ingenious hack

[b.honnold at comcast.net (Brian Honnold)]

On a trip back from Pt Reyes Ntl. Seashore to Sacramento years ago we
snapped the clutch cable going into a sharp left hand downhill turn.  After
a screeching halt I realized that the pinging clanking clunking sound from
under the car in the curve was ALL of the lower half of the cable attachment
hardware.

Now, it's 90 degrees and we are off on the side of a barely two lane country
road about 20 miles from the nearest phone/town/non-cow type animal and we
are screwed.  So all the backpacking gear comes out of the hatch and we dig
like madmen through the emergency parts crate and toolbox.  Sure enough, I
had left a rabbit clutch cable in the box.  In true MacGiver style we
scoured the roadside for a piece of steel to make a clamp out of.  Found
one.....perfect.......2 inches that might once have been a nail.

We put the rabbit cable in with the adjuster backed out to the last thread
and managed to bend that nail around the cable to hold the little ball part
onto the clutch lever.  It was ugly and the clutch was tight so off we went.


Got to the next town to tighten things up a bit and realized that the fix
would have to do for the next 100+ miles so off we went.

I drove with that rigged setup for nearly a month before finally putting in
the correct cable.

To this day my non-mechanical backpacking buddy tells that story around the
campfire.

Brian H
Still in Folsom
Still a 78 Ragtop shell in the driveway