The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Bailing Wire

So I'm going thru my truck and finding all sorts of places where the PO used bailing wire to hold or "fix" things on my truck. Electric fan, radiator support, exhaust system and even my pedal return springs and pedals. Nothing that can't be fixed or repaired though. My question is, what is the craziest thing you or anyone you have known bailing wired together as a "fix". Thought this might be a fun reminiscing thread.

I don't know if you could consider this a "fix" but the PO of my truck used about six different lengths of wire to get power from the dash to the tail lights. Among these was a section of lamp cord with two isolated wires in the same rubber casing. He just split it at the rear axle and branched it off to either tail light. He also seemed to have something against electrical tape. There were three or four places where the bare copper was just twisted together to splice two wires together and just left like that. I nearly had a fire beneath the dash and that's when I ripped every last piece of the old wiring out.

I had 'barbed wire' holding the exhaust up.

It wasn't baling wire, but a piece of clothes hanger that was holding the idler arm together on a car that came into the shop for a front end alignment. The bushings had disentigrated, and the nut on the bottom had disappeared somewhere a long time before. The owner got highly perturbed when we told him we wouldn't try to align the wheels unless he replaced the idler, and a couple of ball joints that were on the verge of coming apart.
Jerry

I've had a couple of '80s Fords come in the shop with the tie rods held together like that, Jerry. They were those rubber encapsulated tie rods that Ford thought were a good idea back then.

My 29 Model A had bailing wire holding the shock lever arms to the shocks. Saw a lot of tin cans and bailing wire on exhaust systems over the years. Lost art. Farmers no longer use bailing wire, they use twine.

lets see, hay season approached before I had a chance to do "real" wiring so I took an extension cord, cut both ends then just attached the wires so I had my rear turn signals, brake lights and tail lights. I still haven't changed that since it works. My exhaust system was held up with baling wire, when I replaced the muffler I just put new baling wire on. Hmm and my cab has sheetmetal screws and jb weld threw the front part of the cab above the windshield to hold the roof together. This is all on my 1963 c60.

I was driving my '42 on the highway when the accelerator spring broke, causing the pedal to fall to the floor. Traffic was moderate so, as the truck accelerated and approached a car in front of me, I had to shut off the ignition, put the clutch in and I coasted to a driveway.

After assessing the situation, I realized the accelerator spring broke at one end. I walked over to a fence and appropriated several inches of excess baling wire and with pliers made myself a hook, reattached the remainder of the spring, and I was on my way. The incident reminded me of the simplicity of design of these vehicles and in this case allowed a simple emergency fix.

Kent

The PO of my truck did a respectable job repairing a snapped e-brake cable with baling wire. If everything weren't so rusty and caked with dirt, I probably could have adjusted things so the e-brakes worked perfectly. But instead, I removed the repaired cable and gave everything an industrial strength cleaning.

I found a piece if an old small car spring with one end bent over and the other end drilled supporting the alternator and bolted to the frame on my '69 C20 panel. There was also a piece of coat hanger, today's urban bailing wire, in the throttle linkage. I got a whole 50' roll of speaker wire and a box of Scotchloks out the rear of my 1971 C10!

Les

I used my belt and shoe strings to hold up the starter and motor in a 1991 VW Jetta for a 2 hour return trip from chicago. the starter and mount all share the same bolts, my friend had the clutch changed, guessing the shop forgot to torque them and the mount fell off in chicago traffic. so we improvised.

the shoe strings held the starter up from draging on the ground, and the belt kept the motor balanced on the other two mounts.

Good thing we didnt shut the car off