Reel Repair by Alan Tani

While getting ready to fish the Russian river in Alaska for sockeye, I close the car door on a rod ~ 18" from the tip and snapped it. Luckily, the ID of the rod was clothes hanger size. Clipped a 6" piece and inserted into both open ends and superglued it, followed by duct tape. Actually caught a few sockeye until a good-sized one bent the rod 90 degrees at the repair site but I still landed it. You should have seen the looks and heard the chuckles when it happened(combat fishing on the Russian river means anglers every 10'). The next year, I brought along UV cured epoxy!

I once repaired a pin hole in a fuel tank by rubbing a bar of soap over it.  Lasted  until I got home.  For some reason gas didn't wash out bar soap, Ivory I think.  My grandpa told me how to do that one to get home.  I always called my grandfather for advice when I got into these situations.

I had my boat in Seward, AK on the trailer fixing to leave for home on Sunday night.  On my walk around noticed one of the hubs was  broken and bearing shot.  I didn't have an extra hub and nothing was open.  I took the rest of the hub and tire off and then jacked up the axle and tied it up with some winch rope I had for a 4 wheeler.  I drove 110 miles on three tires and had no problems.  Took my time and kept it under 55 but the one bearing on that side never got hot.  That is why I spec'd my trailer oversize.  Not sure why the hub broke in the fist place but there were some major pot holes in the side road.  I now carry a complete hub assembly and bearing attached to my spare.

Fishing with father in law pulling the boat out of a unimproved dirt ramp in NM.  He spun the tires and broke the lugs off of one axle, I still don't know how he did it but he did.  Took a punch and knocked out the broken lugs and took one lug off the other three axles and put them on that axle.  This was while the rear tires were in about 6" of water and then we limped home on three lugs on that tire, with the boat.  Sounds simple enough but took about 4 hours.  I was in shorts and no shirt and burned to a crisp.  I almost got an article 15 for destruction of government property as I was in the Air Force at the time. 

I didnt do it but explained to my son via cell phone how to.....he blew a radiator hose in the desert somewhere between Victorviile, CA and BFE....it split longwise about 3 1/2 inches....he had a 1/2 roll of duct tape and electrical tape.....I had him cut open a soda can to get a sheet of aluminium, wrap it around the split hose, start wrapping duct tape and electrical tape over that, had his buddy go start filling a gallon jug from a vacant house, the repair lasted for a 45 mile drive to the nearest auto parts where he did a parking lot repair and went along his merry way.....I would have had him use bailing wire also, but hay bales are now tied with nylon twine.....my dad always kept a wire coat hanger in the truck for such repairs..

I did something similar to TARFU's repair in the summer of 66.  We were on our way to Vegas for our 5 yr anniversary and also our honeymoon as we could not afford one we got married.  About 1/2 way to Vegas the upper radiator hose literally blew out on our "56 Merc.  I was a lineman with a utility company and a good lineman NEVER goes anywhere without a couple of rolls of electric tape.  After everything cooled off a little bit I was able to assess the problem.  In those days, (at least in my Merc) the radiator hose had an internal coil spring.  I centered it to the split in the hose and had (fortunately) just emptied a couple of beer cans waiting for the hoses, etc to cool down.    Cutting the cans to fit over the split was harder for me as the beer i was drinking still came in steel??(tin) cans.   Lineman always put on electric tape under pressure so we would stretch the tape while putting it on to about 1/2 its size.  So it it was 3/4 inch wide, we would apply it at about 3/8" wide and then stop about 1 lap at each end so you wound up with a tapered splice that had most of its strength in the middle.  I did this in the summer heat and thought I would replace the hose after I got to Vegas.  Remember I was 25 yrs old and drinking beer and our main venue was to see the "Supremes".  Once that was done, I forgot about that radiator hose.  We went to 2 different  walk-in "Lounge" shows that you did not have to pay to see--well you did need to buy a drink each and since my wife didn't drink it meant I HAD to drink 2 drinks to see Joni Mitchell in one show and then Waylon Jennings in another show.  In fact, Waylon & his band came over to watch Joni and he sat right in front of me--been a fan of both ever since.  Waylon had a song that I said described my life,  "I've always been crazy, but it kept me from going insane!!"  The crazy, insane part is I did not remember the radiator hose repair until we had been home a week.  The repair was still good when I replaced the hose.  I always regretted not saving the "repaired" hose as a souvenir of our 5 year anniv/honeymoon!! 
TomT

Broke the last and only shear pin on a 10hp Evinrude . Cut off a piece of wire from a crab pot for a replacement . Started off slowly , increased throttle until  my brother and i were flat chat and thumping through large blue jellyfish and made the three miles back to the ramp , laughing our heads off.

I lost one of the cotter pins that holds up the deck on my riding mower this past summer.
I got out the metal detector and couldn't find it where I started to scalp the lawn.
I used a piece of #22 toothproof wire. Its still holding.
On my first car, the throttle cable mount broke on the carb. I fastened a tie wrap to hold it on the throttle lever.
I was stationed in California when this happened.
I sold that car in Kentucky after I was discharged and it still had that tie wrap on there.

 I once borrowed a school bus to travel 300 miles to a bass dam with a whole lot of friends. In this part of the world pot holes are more like craters, so vehicles take a pounding.On this trip the bracket holding the fuel tank came detached, and the tank was dragged along a narrow tar road for sometime before I realized there were sparks coming from the rear of the bus.

Like AlasKen mentions, I was able to repair the whole underside of the tank with bar soap. Was a lot more than a few pinholes, but the soap worked. It was something that I had heard about from my father, who used it in WWII. Got us to the destination some 20 miles away, and we were then able to empty the tank and send it back to the nearest town to get it brazed.

They say necessity is the mother of invention.........and no where else in the world does it apply more than in Africa, where basic essentials are often non existent, rather than scarce