Post by wp29p4a on Jan 13, 2018 15:25:11 GMT -5
Has anybody had a memorable MacGyver moment where you were stranded and had to get creative to make it home? I was on a first date and after we came out of the movie theater we got back into my 1974 Chevy van and smelt burnt electrical. Put the key in the ignition switch to try to start the van and could feel that something in the switch was bad and the van would not start. That year van had the switch in the dash so it was easy to remove without tools. I pulled the switch and noticed the plug was partially melted and the switch was burnt. I pinched two key together and stuck one in the power connection and probed around with the other until I found accessory and starter then stuck one key in the accessory port and touched the starter port and it fired right up. It was a little tricky to hold the keys in the ports to maintain the connection while I drove home with the other hand.
My best Mac Gyver moment was a day at the lake with my water ski boat with a 455 oldsmobile engine and jet drive. We were at the lake water skiing and the engine died in the middle of the lake. I did some trouble shooting and found spark but no gas and traced it back to the electric fuel pump. I had limited tools but enough to remove and disassemble the pump. When I opened it up I found the plastic part that keeps the impeller from spinning freely on the "D" shaped shaft was broken. I studied the materials I had to work with at the time and pulled a pocket clip off a bic pen and cut it down to fit on the flat part of the shaft but could not keep the small piece in place long enough to get the impeller back on before the piece would fall off the shaft. I looked around and noticed my friend was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I scooped up a small bit of peanut butter and used it to keep the clip in place while I reassembled the pump. I got it back together and the boat started right up. Everyone thought we were done for the day and an average person would have limped it back to the dock and called it a day, not me we skied for the rest of the day and right as they were closing the lake for the evening we ran out of gas and had the Sherriff boat tow us back to the dock. My friends thought fixing a fuel pump with a pen clip and peanut butter was pretty clever.
My best Mac Gyver moment was a day at the lake with my water ski boat with a 455 oldsmobile engine and jet drive. We were at the lake water skiing and the engine died in the middle of the lake. I did some trouble shooting and found spark but no gas and traced it back to the electric fuel pump. I had limited tools but enough to remove and disassemble the pump. When I opened it up I found the plastic part that keeps the impeller from spinning freely on the "D" shaped shaft was broken. I studied the materials I had to work with at the time and pulled a pocket clip off a bic pen and cut it down to fit on the flat part of the shaft but could not keep the small piece in place long enough to get the impeller back on before the piece would fall off the shaft. I looked around and noticed my friend was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I scooped up a small bit of peanut butter and used it to keep the clip in place while I reassembled the pump. I got it back together and the boat started right up. Everyone thought we were done for the day and an average person would have limped it back to the dock and called it a day, not me we skied for the rest of the day and right as they were closing the lake for the evening we ran out of gas and had the Sherriff boat tow us back to the dock. My friends thought fixing a fuel pump with a pen clip and peanut butter was pretty clever.
