What have you done to get yourself home. I'm sure there must be some good stories out there!

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http://www.ausmini.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=71255

driven home with no clutch disengagement a few times, thats no big deal

pulled out wiring for a fuel pump kill switch and ran it around the outside of the car to the fuel pump when the pump mysteriously stopped one night

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did I tell you that I won a trophy?

exhaust bracket broke so cut a fence to get some wire and hold it up no real big deal......

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1964 smooth roof panel van
1967 Mk 1 X-Police cooper s
1970 mini k
1975 leyland

Wired a piece of fence wire from the muffler to the electric fuel pump.

The pump would stop every now and then as the fuel pump points were old and dirty. So when the pump stopped, the engine would miss and shake, and the shaking muffler would rattle the fuel pump to make it work again.

That got me home, and then to work, and then home, and to work, and a mates place, and to work and home again...
I left it like that for a few weeks, cos I was too cheap at the time to buy a new one

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

Maybe not quite what bill.b was asking, but preparation for the inevitable bit of bad luck, in my case on a Cooper S competing in navigational rallies in the middle of the night in the middle of no-where back in the 60's and 70's.

1. A spare fan belt wired to the front of the engine in a few places behind the water pump so it could be quickly fitted if the normal belt broke. Didn't have to fiddle around trying to slip a new belt over the fan and around the radiator shroud, usually a pain of a job and even more so in darkness and pouring rain.

2. A hole on each side of the back seat upright panel adjacent to the shock absorber top mounting bolt (dry car) so the shockers could be disconnected and swinging arms dropped without having to remove the fuel tanks. A couple of hinged flat panels secured with wing nuts managed to seal the hole to a certain extent in normal use.

3. A roll of fencing wire and gaffer tape could often hold things together while getting back to civilisation.

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ex-NSW Police 1970 MK II Cooper S
VMCI #43

My rod change coupling pin worked it's way out when my brother was driving through the main road in Hobart. He was stuck in 3rd gear. I got some old split pins, straightened them out and shoved about 6 in the place of the old pin. And they stayed there for about 8 months before I changed it back.

Kept blowing fuses on a trip and didn't have a multimeter or spare fuses.
Used a nail - and my sense of smell to find the short.

My remote change gear stick broke off near the bottom, used a hammer to change gears, then only used 3Rd and reverse when needed.

Accelerator cable broke.
Wound up the idle to about 2500rpm and drove home. But the gear changes were a little bit crunchy.

I made this !

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SPO41 Mk2 Cooper S very original
1993 R32 Nissan Skyline GTR

I remember my rear exhaust mount letting go as I took from the set of lights at the end of the Tulla Freeway / start of Flemington Road on my 73 Van. Scraping across the intersection and pulling off to the side to have a look. Two guys in business suits on hands and knees looking under the rear of the van. Luckily a couple of spare long tyraps in the back of the van held the exhaust up of road for the next couple of months till got around to rewelding the mount onto the pipe!

Cheers Shane

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If it's not a Cooper S, the mini was designed to be modified!

Worn splines on the gearshift knuckles above final drive housing - hit with an arc welder. Although I've heard of unscrupulous workshops charging for a gearbox o/haul

Years ago the entire exhaust pipe, from the diff back, came off my 1275LS. We got some funny looks on the way home. ...not sure if it was the ear splitting noise from the exhaust, or the fact that my future wife was holding on to the exhaust pipe in the car, with half its length poking out of the sunroof.

Just recently broke the ball off the clutch arm end, I was surprised that I was able to remove the slave cir-clip, over adjust the clutch and make it home with the broken clutch arm working the clutch normally for the 1 and a half hour trip in peak hour traffic.

Not me, but my father had a good one. Back in the late 50's, on his honeymoon in Narooma in his relatively new '55 Morris Oxford he broke a conrod. Using a local garages workshop driveway he dropped the sump and removed the broken piston and conrod and drove home to Sydney on 3 cylinders.

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68 Morris Cooper S Mk1 (*ex 78 1275 LS 4th last built, 70 Morris 1500 OHC & 70 MiniMatic)

Broke the plastic Heim joint on the Weber throttle linkage at Wakefield Pk once. 2 good sized cable ties came to the rescue..

Another time down there, a tooth came off the starter pinion, got bashed around in the clutch housing and broke a hole into the breather boss at the top. Then of course the clutch housing filled with oil, but I drove it home to Sydney, topping the oil up along the way.
[edit] I MIG welded & machined the breather boss yesterday so this Mk2S housing is good to go, again.. when I refit that gearbox.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Put a hole in the sump on my Valiant on the Strezlecki trail (don't ask). After initially dumping the entire engine full of oil in the middle of the campsite, Selley's knead it held it together for the next 3000km.

My '74 Corona lost the idle jet on the down draft weber once, 300km without dropping below 2000rpm in an automatic was fun. Same car used to lose the headlights every time you hit a bump, but a paperclip fixed that. For another 30,000km. Gave it away three times and people kept on giving it back.