jarath

Our cars are over 20 years old now and in that time the majority of the cars have had a few owners and a lot of them have modifications or changes that totally baffle all logical thinking or at least my own so... I thought I'd start a thread to list the amazingly intellectually absent yet humorous mods and repair jobs you've found on your car or another car that weren't your doing... (you can lie if you did it)...

I'll start... I am doing my suspension when I take off the Tension Rods and notice my left tension rods have a large nut right under the tension rod between the suspension arm... apparently the last owner thought the space was bad so it needed a lift... or something... I dunno...

The bolts from the right side of the car... looks pretty normal


And then I find this on the left side...

Slayer.

what would posess someone to lift one side of the car?!

DogBox

Not exactaly a mod, and not an RX-7, but when I baught my MR2 it came with two 185 profile tires and two 195s. Now this is hardly unusual. The car comes stock with 185s but 195s are optional for the rims and should give a little more grip, the problem was that the 195s were both on the same side of the car! That's right, 185s on one side and 195s on the other. All I can assume is that the previous owner was drunk whene he did his last tire rotation becuase I met him and he didn't seem mentaly difficiant. Evan better, both rear tires were nearly bald and I didn't have the cash for four new tires, so I was bassicaly left with two tires that needed to go and two good ones that were missmatched.

1badFB

iTrader: (1)

Having the bolts between the tension rod and the control arm wouldnt raise the car, It was probably just easier to get bolted on. However sometimes after time cars wont sit level, and in that case you would want to lift one side of the car..but this would be done with plates above the struts.
The tension rod thing is very unusual tho.


Maybe the car had some bad curb rash or something and the PO bought 2 wheels and just didnt realize the tires were different??

Turbo'dRotary

(its not an rx7, its an 87 accord, but iits unique!) how about this, and its me doing it! starter is broken, well, one of the bearings. i dont have time nor money, so i look at it, then at my skateboard..guess what, a skateboard wheel bearing fits perfectly inside the starter, and i've ran it like that ever since with no problems! also, a friend of mine was making an intake for his FD. he used a civic intake for the secondary turbo, wich is cool, he just cut the pipe and it fit perfectly, filter an all. but the primary turbo..haha, your gonna love this. well, he still has the air pump on the car, and it needs to be attached. he still uses the stock rubber.plastic intake elbow bit. but he needs a way to attack the filter and air pump hose. so he goes to the dollar store to se if he can find sumthing..he sees a metal tea cupo thing foir the stove. so he buys it, cuts the bottom out, so the filter fits in the bottom, the top goes over the hose, and the air pump hose ataches to the spout! Priceless..matter of fact, i have a picture from his car domain! post it a lil later..

ultimatejay

iTrader: (1)

Maybe because your 450lb girlfriend wore the springs out on the left side so she had to raise the car so her knuckles wouldn't drag on the ground. LOL!!

jarath

LOL that's just wrong...

bean13

iTrader: (1)

I saw an 56,000 dollar Volvo have an oiling bango fitting on the turbo replaced with a regular bolt.....5,000 repair bill vrs a $1 bolt.... Then on an S5 engine I recently bought instead of usung a gasket set on the intake they used silicon...so much that the squeeze out got onto the injector inside the port....leaned rotor and ka-blammo. No more rotor. that and they broke every connector they touched and tried to glue that back together with silicon.

on another they used stop leak..NEVER USE STOP LEAK IN A ROTORY!!!! It turned to a gelatonous mass in the coolling passages of the rotor housings and side housings. Whole engine was filled with what looked like unflavored gelatin. $3 bottle of stopleak trashed that one. Enjoy



In reply to the lifting the one side....perhaps he thought he was a circle track driver.....i dunno. my best guess

bean13

iTrader: (1)

or using JB weld as threadlocker...seen that one....water pump housing bolt and a few lug nuts. Try gettin that **** off

blademan189

ok i read this one and instantly thought of a bumper sticker i saw at our local swapmeet (were i got my 80sa) Said "no fat chicks car wil scrap!"
gonna pick that one up next time we have that

as far as mods go i havent completly riped that car apart to find them all yet
but i did find one that is going to be rather usefull come spring
i was doing a i thought was going to be a radio swap(going to be relocating it to glovebox now) and the previous owner had installed switches under the old radio.
so i decided to trace the on i didnt know what it went to (there were 3 befor<one for a nosie filter, and one to an equalizer in the glovebox>) so i followed the 3rd one onder the stearing cloum and to the side of the cars right next to the small speaker buy you feet on drivers side, then in went up thru the pillar and across to the guess were? the mirror and at the end of that cord was a well hidden power plug! With just enough cord left to plug into the radar detector i ordered yesterday cant wait to install that now

REVHED

When I bought my current 7 the previous owner had dropped an engine in with the wrong oil pan. It was resting on the steering centre link. I **** you not.

MattG

iTrader: (2)

I wanna see that pic! lol

diabolical1

iTrader: (3)

me, too.

Hyper4mance2k

iTrader: (40)

I bought a 13BT that had a 12A oil pan redrillled to "fit" the engine. They guy thought it was actually going to work

Yellow '79

in my auto class a teacher came in with her car saying there was a funny nose coming from the engine compsrtmant. so we when and poped the hood and we did a quike look and didnt see anything, but then my teacher started to laugh and we saw what he was looking at, who ever put the batter in the car thought it would be a good idea to look them on the one of the things that go around the terminals b/c the nut was broken. it wasnt a 7, i think it was a Daywoow (sp?)

84rx7gsl

the exhaust heat sheilding on my 7 is being held up by what looks like very thin aluminum wires at 2 points where the bolts to the factory mounts rusted off. so far they havent gave up yet but i cant wait cuse theres gonna be a nice spark show when they do and a good reason to get rid of all that weight

Whizbang

i found crack rocks in my glove box when i bought my TII. does that count for anything?

teamzzyzx

My friend bought a 82 from a guy on here, wont name names, but should because he was a total lying ***, but anyway, he had a 4AWG wire from the + on the battery to a 14-16AWG wire (electrical taped together of course, no good connector) and that went to a switch for the fuel pump. 4 gauge wire, that pump must DRAW some current

Then, on the same car, the fuel filter in the back was leaking, so my friend replaced it, and while doing so, he saw that the leak was coming from the fuel line that was also electrical taped. WOW! This guy he got the car from was a total . . . . . .

There are quite a few more interesting "finds" on this car, but I'll let my friend tell you guys the rest.

C'mon MoleFB, share the story about your car and the great craftsmanship of the previous owner

slashdawg00110

My son bought a '90 Prelude a few months ago. It had a bad shimmy, but the title was clean and the price was real good. I took the front wheels off to get a better look at the brakes, and that's when I found the problems. Somebody lost one of the swaybar bolts on the lower control arm, and instead of getting one that fit, he just dropped something in there. The bolt was too small and wallowed around in the hole, and the nut was stripped. Worse, the lower control arm itself had been replaced - with the wrong LCA. A few trips to boneyards and I had what I needed.

I think the LCA came from a later-year Accord. I've gots pics somewhere of the wrong one and correct one side-by-side. It's no wonder the tires were bad. The geometry was all messed up. It still pulls a bit, but the shimmy went away as soon as the new LCA and new tires were installed.

perfect_circle

definately the side post battery, with a pillow case between it and the fender to keep it form chorting out(but in al actuality, it would just accelerate an engine fire in the event of a short. that or the pennies glued over the vacuum ports.

ejanm17

not as funny, but more of the fact is why it was done... when i bought my 84 7 the previous owner had put in an apexi boost controler but the car was NA. still dont understand why

defakto

Well, it gave him more horsepower to tell his friends he had a boost controller on his car.


Only thing on mine when I got it was someone removed and bolted closed on of the hoses from the ACV on the back but didn't do anything else. WHich I think explains why it wasn't running right for a long time until I did the full emissions removal.

dean23

man. im really happy the PO that i got my car was rich.... he kept it in his garage for all but sunny days. and the only shop it EVER say was the mazda dealership... but now i guess i have to make up for all the ****-ups that never happened to it. hahahaha

Tanjo

One time I stripped the threads out of my starter, in the hole for the really long bolt, cant remember if it was the top or bottom. I needed the car running and didnt have time to order that bolt. So, I took a piece of all thread, cut it to length, and used a nut on each end of it gooped up with locktight, and used two wrenches to tighten both nuts. It worked for the remaning 6 months or so that I owned the car.

513rotary

When I bought my S5, it had receipts form a local, pretty reputible stereo shop, fomr a system, I noticed soem wires under th edash hanging down, and after further inspection tore the car apart to see wtf they were, they had ran 4 gauge underthe hood and throug the fire wall(drilled hooe, no gromet at all) then under the carpet where it was tapped on the floor, then, I geuss they cut it too short or used a peice of wire they had, and it was tapped together and connected to abou tan 8 gauge peice.

I also got an 88 from the same guy, I go tit homwe and up in the air, someone used 3/4 inch fence post to make their own header and exhaust, then cloths hanger to kep it on the car, that was wrapped around whatever was close, WTF was the guy thinking