Your favorite Macgyver moments\tricks

I kept finding my tubes of silicone seal dried out. It's just not a product I use all the time.

Now, I generously wrap the threads, of the tube, with teflon tape. Replace the cap as normal and the drying out process is considerably slowed or stopped. I teflon taped my first tube this past May. I just opened it. It was like a new tube. It might be a good idea to add more tape after you open the tube.

I don't know if this is posted elsewhere, but it's working for me.

In the past I tried a plastic bag between the cap and tube, vaseline over the end on the tube... No Help.

The oil filter stuck once in a year ago... BUT we did the job.

I remember a time I used three batteries, two or three sets of jumper cables, and some scrap iron to do an emergency roadside frame repair on a $75 Isuzu pickup I used to have. Glad I had some ARC rod on board!

Looks like a BMW filter, them sure have a thick skin and not easy to cut into.:eek1

Won't a wire coathanger also work as welding rod in a pinch?

I've used them as braze rod before.

I'm not a welder but every time I've seen a coat hanger used to weld something it does not come out "Brazed". It looks "tacked". Maybe strong enough but when a guy put my muffler's on this way I was not happy. I did borrow a gas outfit and brazed them myself later and actually I did a pretty good job. (was maybe just luck)

I've seen ARC welds that couldn't hold up to a hard stare, all things worth doing, are worth doing right-ish....

Well technicality brazing would involve brass brazing rods, Gas welding (hotter than brazing) on the other hand would work but both pieces would have to be real clean and itis a weld base metal melting to other base metal with coat hanger as filler.

Brazing doesn't melt base metal it softens it to adhere to it.

Most braze rods need flux to remove the impurities like flux in soldering some brazing rods are flux coated some are not and use a separate container of flux.

I was trying to get the tire off my 59 ford 3/4 ton it had snap ring wheels at that time. The tire was an old real 8 ply tire on for years I was lifting the whole front of the pick up off the ground with my handy man jack on the tire no luck, rusted on. My neighbor came by said he would haul me and the tire to town but first pour coca cola around the bead and wait 20 minutes. I did and it pushed right off when i started to jack again.

Simpler fix: Before screwing the cap back on, squeeze the tube such that some of the RTV comes out and as you screw the cap shut, there should be some RTV pushed along the the thread in front of the cap.

This will cure - till the end of the thread. The stuff in the nozzle will stay uncured. Remove the old, cured RTV the next time before you shut the cap again, and as before, squeeze some RTV onto the thread as you start screwing the cap back on.

Alternative - Use the conical dispenser. After you finish, just let it be. The material will cure in the dispenser (pretty easy to remove as is is conical plastic), but not inside the nozzle. While threading the dispenser back on, try ensure that there is some RTV on the nozzle thread.

I have heard of doing this with some newspaper tightly wrapped around the coathanger. As it burns off the smoke creates a cloud of gas to keep the metal from oxidizing too bad. Crude version of flux on the outside of real welding rods.

Z-axis scaling.

When trying to measure something and all you have is a finger and a phone, take a photo. Later, when you pull the photo up on your computer and you realize that your fingertip isn't lined up with the edge of the item and it's way bigger than real life, place the same finger between your eye and the photo until they're the same apparent size, then measure the item in the photo from the distance that your finger is sitting.

I once worked as a bus mechanic. One day got a road call for a no air situation, and arrived to find one of the discharge valves on the 2 cylinder air compressor had shattered and holed one piston.
I bummed a quarter off of the driver and placed it under the discharge valve retainer. This blocked the holed cylinder from the good one allowing it to pump air , and got the bus back to the shop without a huge towing bill.

A buddies voltage regulator fried while out on a ride which fried his battery. I taped up 8D batteries in series (8 x 1.5v =12v) and got him home.

how did you connect the 8 d cell batteries to each-other and to the bike?

Tape. He said he taped up... The question of the day was electrical tape or Duct tape.

With the modern plastic bumpers, you have to get more creative.

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And don't do this with an MG. Was jumping my MG from a buddy's car and the bumpers rolled together. Welded 'em together.

MG is positive ground. A complete electrical disaster.