Midas Cars Forum - www.midascarsforum.com

We've all been there when you've taken the Midas out and it has spat it's dummy out seeking revenge for the overdue service or lack of a recent wash, what's your best bodge been to get you home again?

Mine from today was pretty bodge tastic. Went to drive to work today and because of all the mass hysteria there's not a drop of diesel in the village and I've learned not to try and cover much distance in the Rangey if the fuel light is on. Plan B grab the Midas from it's languishing spot at the bottom of the drive and despite having lots of trim missing due to it's imminent fettling the old girl fires up on the first turn of the key and has juice...bonus. On arriving to work sensed there was something wrong...mainly due to the coolant running out of the drivers side headlamp bowl! The heater pipe elbow on the head has developed a nice pin hole which is squirting coolant at the back of the headlight. Get you home bodge of the day was 4 cable ties and the rubber foot from an old PC case we had in the office. Reduced the flow very nicely and got me home tonight without losing too much coolant

Not a Midas get you home but my VW Transporter camper van once broke down when the throttle return spring broke and the throttle cable jumped out of the slot. In that particular van you removed a big cover over the engine at the back of the van, so I removed the cover and tied both ends of our washing line to each end of the throttle lever, this then threaded over the rear seat and over my shoulder. By gently pulling on one or the other half of the line I could accelerate and decellerate, but because the lever just flipped from tickover to full throttle I had to put gentle pressure on the slow cable whilst tugging slightly stronger on the fast cable. The whole process was really scary and I would have given it up if I had a long journey but because I only had a couple of miles to travel and the road was not too busy I did it. I'm sure that it was illegal and trying to change gear, steer and fly by wire all at the same time is dangerous driving in anyone's books.

Deviating even further off topic, a couple of days ago we were returning from a test session with the race car on the trailer, only to have the tow car grind to a halt, luckily not far from home. A Landie was summoned up, tied on to the tow car and dragged the whole lot home, at the expense of a bit of clutch wear, to judge from the smell. No doubt several laws were broken, but no harm done...

Throttle cable snapped on me on the coupe today funnily enough. 15 miles from home on a roundabout. I found a bit of 13amp electric flex, wrapped it round the throttle leaver and lead it back from the bonnet through the window. Worked a treat. My take on fly by wire.

no doubt I broke a law or two today too but it got me home instead of being stranded on a busy and dangerous roundabout.

I've tied up fallen off exhausts with lanyards, and done the shoelace-throttle trick in my old mini, only i was a passenger with throttle control, and my friend (the original owner) was driving!