Field Improvised Fixes, whats yours?

[lalakai]

carry really fine steel wool for use as tinder. even soaking wet, just wring it out and it lights fast; it will rust, so rotate it if you have it in a bugout kit.

a piece of nylon stocking over the primary filter of your water intake (katadyn style filters) will extend life of filter.

to fix minor scratches in glass lenses, use some lipstick or tooth paste. Both are very fine abrasives and will take the scratch out without "fuzzing" the glass lense. Lipstick is commonly used as the final polishing agent on home made telescope optics.

[Shadow_otw]

1) A bar of soap (real soap) will plug a hole in a fuel tank.

2) A small can of wd-40 to dry out engine electrical systems

3) Distilled Water (its non-conductive) to clean electronics

4) A can of coke can also clean road grime and grease off windshields.

5) Hairspray will take ink and some makeup out of a dress shirt..(don't ask...but its true)

6) A small nail will take up the space in a battery terminal that won't otherwise tighten.

...more as I think of them

[geminidglocker]

Touching a plain old nine-volt battery to the fine steel wool will ignite it if you don't have matches. Guitar strings can be unwound and use in place of other "High Resistance" wire. On Mythbusters I watched them add egg to the radiator to stop a small leak and it worked.

[Naxet1959]

Touching a plain old nine-volt battery to the fine steel wool will ignite it if you don't have matches. Guitar strings can be unwound and use in place of other "High Resistance" wire. On Mythbusters I watched them add egg to the radiator to stop a small leak and it worked.

Good one, just went out to the garage and it works very well! Thanks for the tip...

[M4Fundi]

when crossing rivers we put chewing gum over hole in distributor cap to keep water out & uncover it the other side of river

With the help of a local village in the middle of the night our capture truck (a 7 ton Nissan) had no starter & died in flat sand and we jacked it up, put rope around the tire and popped clutch in 2nd gear while pull starting the truck like a giant lawn mower. Took 20 of us a couple of hours but it worked & is easier on smaller trucks.

We all carry bandanas in the bush and we call them "101s" and around the campfire with some "refreshments" each person has to come up with a NEW use for the bandana and you keep taking turns till you get to 101 and you would be surprised at how many uses you can come up with a for a 101

[wake.joe]

Deleted

[Rooster15]

Raw honey for healing wounds. The sores diabetics get on their legs seem to respond to this quite well.

The glass filament out of a 1000watt Sodium Halide light bulb works great as a sharpening rod.

Dryer lint as tinder works great. Also keep some duct tape with your fire kit to stick the tinder to when the wind is blowing hard.

I have others just can't think of them right now.

[HPFlashman]

Cinnamon for smaller leaks in the cars cooling system.

I`ll second the raw potato for pierced radiators, one of the girls in the local LR club drove 150 miles with one after a branch pierced her radiator on an outing. Some minor topping up of the coolant was neccesary on the trip home, but a good field grade fix anyhow...

Some lengths of electrical wire for juryrigging lights and electrical fans directly from the battery may come in handy as well, atleast if you have a basic understanding of car electrics or drive a Rover 4X4...

[Mo_Zam_Beek]

Plain aspirin to jump start a dead battery.

This has saved my bacon many times.

The salicylic acid is enough to get them going in many cases.

2 tabs per cell, fill with water, let dissolve. Make sure you give it time to dissolve as you are only going to get one or two shots at turning it over.


Good luck

[Spade]

I can use my daily glasses to start a fire if needed.