Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) A SMASHing time

Called in a garage y/day to drop off some stuff to be sprayed and started chatting to the boss about how cars and owners used to be . Spoke of the peeing in the rad to get us to a farm for a gallon of water . A pal on his 1st date with his now wife told her to whip her tights off , his fan belt had snapped . Also people putting eggs in the radiator instead of Radweld. The garage owner told me how his pal had a Reliant 3 wheeler and the gear box was noisey so he popped a packet of Cadburys Smash ( dried mashed potato powder ) in . Said it did the job great . Speaking to Jnr last night she is unable to get her head around our fathers and grand fathers generation , thinks everyone just phoned the garage in those days and dropped it off for a service every year and the cars of yester years never broke down .

I remember on my first car, an MG tf 1250 operating the wipers with a loop of string and kicking the underside of the bulkhead to get the points on the SU fuel pump to spark, (not at the same time) i called it running maintenance……..

A length of electrical wire from the carby and through the side window to give temporary "get me home" hand throttle after the throttle cable broke.

Towing a small racing yacht to Torquay Regatta in my friends Reliant Scimitar had a blocked fuel pipe.
He got a long length of pipe stuffed it in down the filler pipe, duck taped it along the roof, under the bonnet and attached it to the fuel pump. Interesting seeing the fuel going in especially the old 3 litre V6 towing uphill.
He sold it after saying it used too much fuel.

I remember a "reverse" story my Dad told me. In the late 60's he and a friend drove one summer down to Greece. My Dad is pragmatic but not technical. His friend worried about a warning light on the dashboard.

One night Dad removed the warning light and said all was fixed. They got back to the UK OK.

I remember reading years ago in 'Motor' magazine about somebody driving through West Africa in a 2CV and in the muddy tracks hit a boulder and cracked the gearbox casing causing it lose all the oil. Being stuck in the middle of nowhere and no replacement oil he proceeded to fill the gearbox with bananas which were in plentiful supply. Apparently, worked enough to get them to civilisation to replace the gearbox.

Silliest thing I ever did, driving down the M1 in a 3litre Capri Auto, radio reception was lousy so was listening to a cassette, sick of the same music so went to retrieve a replacement from the glove box. Box was locked (opened with the ignition key) so picked a straight stretch of motorway slipped it into neutral removed ignition key, opened glove box, had my hand on cassettes, realised I was drifting slightly and made a steering wheel correction, then the steering lock engaged!!!!!!
First vehicle I had ever driven with such a device. WOW had to change my keks shortly afterwards.

Tony

I once had to se a safety pin to hold a throttle cable to the carb.
Bedford HA van at night.
Torch failed halfway through repair so finished by feel.
Only pricked my finger a few times!

A fitter in our factory was changeing the oil on his car and remembered he welded the drain plug in the previous time.....
He drilled several holes in the sump to drain it then pop riveted them afterwards....seemed to work..
He also fabricated a new " rad" from copper tubing with soldered joints. That also seemed to work...

Yikes!!!

a french story ...

http://citcity.citroen1.info/2CV/history2.htm