Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Amnesty - Questionable Modifications...

I put twin spots on my Honda CB360. They were linked to the full beam and I had one each side on the crash bars.
All was great driving around London (I was at UCL) to warn cars you were there. But I remember flashing a guy doing 40 on the newly dualed A303 towards Stonehenge who was sat in the outisde lane as I approached at c 70


I flashed the lights and the draw was such the bike lost 10 mph.

John, you reminded me of another, perhaps misjudged, modification I made to a car in the 80s... installing fog lights with plastic covers.

The covers, I suppose, were there to protect the glass lenses but surely having covers fitted someone defeats the function. Driving into fog, having to pull over to take off the covers, seems more risky than simply driving with regular main beams!

I'm sure there are plenty of other dubious fashion, style and decade specific modifications that people can admit to.

I know at least one TM long standing member had Carlos Fandangos back in the day because they told me the tale... I'll let them reveal themself

I always had soft top cars and fitted Colonel Bogey horns wired to to door switches and left the doors unlocked to save the hoods getting slashed. I came out of TG&W HQ one night to see a lad opening the door on my Suzuki SJ 410 he lent in and the air horns wound up he legged it away an almost ran straight into me, threw my briefcase at him but missed doh.

An uncontrolable desire to paint everything satin black. I still haven't grown out of that.....

I used to go out with a girl who's Dad worked at Audioline, and so had all manner of equalisers and speakers, even an early ultrasonic car alarm. They also owned Cradley Heath Speedway, but that's another story.

I also rigged up an equaliser to two domestic 10" bass speakers in the back of my Spitfire - this was long before proper ICE installs and such like.

Had an completely standard Escort Mk1 with a PECO back box

The Smiths Gauges thing reminds me of a bloke on the Morgan Experience - I don't think he could fit any more on his Morgan!

Drove around for 9 months with a rachet strap holding the fuel tank in place on my Renault Espace.

Even passed an MOT with it on.

Ditto rachet strap holding a broken gearbox mount together on a Seat Ibiza.

Couple of rally car bodges but probably doesn't count as I needed to get the car out of a stage and back to service:

Leaking rear calipers clamped off

Broken track rod 'repaired' with two spanners and two worm drive clips

Probably many others...

Arwyn

Back in the 80's we had a toga party at a friends house. I made a set of sheet metal teeth and screwed them to the front of some old Dodge that was in his driveway. We made a turret out of a 55-gallon drum and put it on the roof. The idea was to have a Death Mobile in the driveway for the party, like something from Animal House.

Sometime later I took those teeth and screwed them to the front of my VW Scirocco. I drove around like that for at least a year. At some point the teeth came off, and I wired a plastic, pink Flamingo to the front. I don't remember the exact connection, but it had something to do with a ski movie.

I'm not saying I had them all and certainly not all on the same car, but my mechanical skills were often called on by mates...

Vinyl roof kits & oodles of messy EvoStik

Jigsaw hole in roof & fit lift up glass sunroof - became quite proficient at these

Some sort of special paint to turn those BL dogshite brown vinyl seats to black

Granada Estate with huge chrome sidepipes

Wheel spacers with dodgy extended studs to make your wheels look super wide

Wolfrace Alloys !

Formica covered centre consoles that never fitted as well as the sales literature photo

Big grille bar bracket with 4 huge Cibie Oscars that a Lucas dynamo couldn't cope with

Corbeau high back bucket seats

Paddy Hopkirk throttle pedal

Sparkrite electronic ignition

The first Halogen headlamp bulbs that promised to be 1000% brighter than the Sun

Makes me want to dig out some old photo albums

Breakdown mods......
Safety pin as a link for the throttle cable on the Bedford HA van after a breakage. My first car
Cable tie on the Renault 19 diesel commuter wagon when the plastic socket split on the fuel pump so the speedo cable ball end popped out. Managed 50 mph max until it would pop out again. Got a replacement in the Renault dealership opposite where I worked when I got there.
Klaxon horn fitted for fun. Still got it but in a box. "Aroohah" sound. I thought it went well on the 4/4 !
Go faster stripes that, apparently, worked. Well I thought so.

In the 80's there was a brief phase of hanging Grolsch bottle tops from the tag on the back of Doc Martens. I used mine to fix the throttle linkage on my Spitfire.....

I have a Klaxon on the 4/4 as well as a normal horn. It annoys my Mrs, so happy to give it a toot three or four times per journey.

I think I have typed of this previously, many decades back while driving my battered old 60`s Lotus Elan, I saw the temp gauge rising to the extent I stopped to investigate, the cause was found to be a hole in one of the obviously corroded core plugs, the front of the plug looked OK in finest Ford blue, but once I pulled it out the rear of the plug was very badly corroded to eventually cause a water leak.. I found that a two pence coin could be encouraged to fit if it was slightly domed, and once in position with the dome facing outward, tapping the dome then tightened the fit....

Think I also typed of pouring boiling water into the fuel tank in freezing weather to resolve a fuelling issue on my then girlfriends car....Though I do begin to wonder if we might still be breeding young who may be able to think out of the box...? I sure hope so..