My DPO's Dummer Than Your DPO

I want to see the best DPO shots you have from your own car only please!
I have a few doozies for you this is to get you started:

Sometimes one washer isn't enough!

Sometimes five washers isn't enough either!

Sometimes you need 5 nuts and five... or ten... maybe 15 washers I didn't count!

I also have not corrected either because the seals are good.

If one hole is good, seven must be better.
I think maybe he was trying to relieve the stress which causes the crack of doom.

Hey Mike You should be grateful that he left you spares just in case you needed them, and there was no charge.:D As for the extra holes well, you probaly needed a way to vent out the engine heat that creeps into the cockpit. I didn't take any pictures of mine, trying to forget them.

Cheers

Bill

That looks like the old, "lets drill one more hole and see if it goes in the right place, after we grab another beer", routine.

michael, did all those washers cause a problem?

Those aren't washers. Those are "distance pieces."8-)

Great thread topic Mike!

I've had mine for over 13 years now, so that was before the age of digital photos. Plus, I don't remember anything offhand which was wacky when I worked on it back then so I suspect it was mainly shop maintained.

Here you go. Some creative wiring......

And a little more...... there's power in there somewhere.

Mike, did you buy your car sight unseen?

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=14m58jo&s=7

That's one of the a frames off my Sprite. Note the creative added strapping to hol the fulcrum pin in place.

I think my DPO has ya beat on the wiring Dave. Apparently a big sale on purple wire and zip ties.

At least it was zip ties and not black electricians' tape.

Someone in my car's history made their own door panels... I'm guessing the slots backed with speaker cloth were meant to act as sound baffles?

Pic two shows how he attached his homemade cards... screws with vinyl caps. Not bad but drywall screws??

Third pic shows what you do when you cut the speaker hole in your new homemade door card in the wrong place. You apparently don't make a new door card remembering to "measure twice, cut once"... no, you cut the door!

Or how about this one? The only thing anyone who has seen this can guess is that the keys got locked in the trunk so they cut a big ass whole to climb through cause this certainly wasn't cut for speakers!

OK, here's my entry, pretty self explanitory I think.

Geez, you guys are picky. :D

Ron - I would never do that to my seats. I stuffed a wheelbarrow innertube under the old tired things! Easily adjusted, and no commitment made!

Someone on here mentioned it, and for $5.00 at HF, it sure solved the problem.

I have to admit that there's less DPO in my car - it really wasn't all that maintained to begin with - than there is DCO. As I've climbed that learning curve, I've done some things that, while stupid, have held up so far. Most of them are electrical. One day I'll get around to correcting them, but until then, I just can't sell the car, lest I become a DPO.

My car had a washcloth rolled up and stuffed in the pedal box to "fix" the hydraulic leak.

Oh Drake,
I forgot...
When I got the car the 5 nuts and 17 washers were "spin the washers with your fingers" loose.
but the header has no leaks at the manifold.

Someone cut a hole to fit his battery. :(

Looks like you could attach a toilet seat to that! What a convenient accessory that would be. :)-D

Kevin

DPO apparently rebuilt the motor, put in a new radiator, new tires, did some bondo bodywork, rubbed the paint out for re-spray and then left the car for years. It turned into a rusty hulk which I grabbed for the dash, which turned out to be junk inside an out. But when I pulled the valve cover I found a brand new shiny silver surface; pulled the head and found almost perfectly clean Head & pistons.

One of my previous MGBs had some electrical repairs and additions done. All of the "new" wiring was done with single strand copper bell wire. It even included the low tension wire from the coil to the distributor. Too bad I didn't take pictures
Bruce

Those are hilarious!


My entries:
1. During the engine refreah @ Woody's last month, we found 18G push rods & tappets in the 18V motor. Apparently functioned like that though...(and yes, correct rods & tappets got put in) :)

2. While @ the ABFM, I figured out why the GT's left rear marker light wouldnt work but all the others do......that light is wired to the rear window demister switch!!

Well, Lou, that's probably to let you know when you leave your demister on, lol.

Repair to the brake switch - TELEPHONE TWISTED PAIR wires! And cut-down brake "switch" from a 1958 DeSoto . . . (I guess). Ya know what: it worked, kinda.

Geez Louise . . . but I got it all sorted out and it works fine now.

Gary75

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LOL Ron! As an added bonus, the demister light comes on when headlights are on (but demister switch is off) so I have TWO "ya left something on" circuits!! :)

Hey Lou, that PO must've been a real wiring genius, huh? It's a wonder anything is working properly, lol.

In my search for a GT I looked at this car. Seems they forgot a part when they were doing the sill work.

No I did not buy it. It was pretty scary to drive.

I AM the DPO. Sorry, no pictures...I'll take the fifth.

My PO apparently didn't believe in welding, more or less melting stuff into place.

Don't get me started...

But the title of this thread alone is worth the price of admission :)-D

The white fuel pump wire melted to the other wires in the harness. Instead of fixing it, the DPO cut off about two inches at the end of the wire, spliced a new end at the fuel pump and just re-taped the other end of the harness. the white wire was 90% bare and had melted the insulation off other wires in the harness. The fact that I drove it like that for 10 years not knowing what was in the harness with nothing catching on fire is some kind of miracle.

@ Ron Weber - What you show is similar in idea but no where near the execution I mentioned sometime back about a guy I know who also used old seat belt webbing, but his was sewn on to the frame as tho by the factory. Great support, but a wee bit stiff if you asked me. This is desperation in the photos you show.

I couldn't accuse my own POs of doing anything too stupid with the cars I've had, but I've helped plenty of folks with plenty of cars that were the victims of the DPO. Like using beer cans to make shims for loose wire wheel hubs so worn they should have been replaced, rather than jamming the wheels on over the aluminum shim stock. One was so badly corroded we almost didn't get it off except with beating and an oxy acetylene torch. Apparently it had been done a lot of years previously and it got stuck pretty good. Well, he got a new wire wheel out of that episode. Another was the "fiberglassed" repair on a VW using window screening and about 5 lbs of bondo. And the car a pal dragged home and couldn't wait to get it to run. When he went to fill the fuel tank (a 54 corvette that had sat behind a house in his neighborhood for probably 30-35 yrs), he found it didn't seem to hold very much and he couldn't get the fuel pump to pull much either. Eventually he found that apparently someone, as a joke or whatever, had filled the damn tank with pea gravel.

At some point in my car the handbrake warning light diode failed, so that the starter engaged whenever the handbrake was on. The DPO fix was to disconnect the starter relay and take it out of the circuit, so that there wasn't enough current coming through the diode to engage the starter. I discovered this while try to cure a poor starting problem, which led to me putting the starter relay back in the circuit, and then becoming extremely confused because I was testing with the handbrake on. At some point he also fitted driving lights and a towbar, including an extra flasher unit in the boot. And then disconnected them all, but left the wires in place. All of which were very confusing for a first time classic owner with just the workshop manual wiring diagram to go on (possibly the worst diagram in the history of the universe).

On the other hand, the DPO did leave a cassette of Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits. If only I had a cassette player.

When I bought my "B" it had a really nasty knock from the front end that the dpo played right down as if it was nothing. He admitted that he did nothing to the car himself but always took it to his local garage who had been right through the front suspension without being able to find the fault.

I was a bit sceptical until he showed me the STACK of receipts for work done. Anyway, I bought it.

Turned out to be the front bumper was about one thread on each nut away from falling off!

This is not a contest I would want to win.(tu)