A lot of you have written to us in recent months asking, "Whatever happened to Cheap Tricks? Don't you guys care about us 'wheelers on a budget anymore?" Well, yep, we're still as interested as ever in your favorite low-buck garage fixes, and we're always on the lookout for a bargain ourselves. We've just been saving and stockpiling the best Tricks we've received lately for inclusion in the expanded special section you see here. So keep sending in your best and brightest cheapies-in the months to come we'll run more of 'em, and we'll reward each submission we select with a box of exclusive Four Wheeler swag-stickers, license plates, T-shirts, and more. 'Till then, happy reading.
Hopefully, by the time you read this, Travis Patton will again be wheeling around his home in Ringgold, Georgia, in his Tacoma. You see, Travis sent us this Trick from Afghanistan, where he's been serving for some time now. Travis' Trick is for all you poor owners of lifted trucks that have to hassle with your local bumper-height laws. Travis has an easy fix if your rig sports a receiver hitch, front or rear. Your imagination can take over here as to the design and shape of your second, "legal" bumper, but the idea is to install it to your truck via the receiver hitch. That way, it is easily removable for wheeling with just one pin. During street driving, it is hanging at the legal height when the law is looking. It might not look too good, but neither does an unlifted truck! And as Travis points out, it also doubles as an easy access step to the bed (or engine). Thanks for the Trick, Travis, and be safe out there.
Ever wish you had an electric drill along on a trail ride when making repairs? Or maybe you've brought a battery-powered unit along, only to find the battery is always dead when you need the drill most. David Guarr of Shawnee, Kansas, has had this problem, and took care of it once and for all. He tossed that dead battery and instead soldered some jumper wires directly to the positive and negative terminals of his portable 12-volt drill. Making sure the wires were long enough to reach anywhere on his rig, he attached clips to the wire's ends and can now power his drill directly off his vehicle's 12-volt battery all day long. Thanks for powering this one our way, David.
Travis Patton also sent in this neat Trick for those of you with open-top Jeeps who worry that it might not be there one day. Travis occasionally got that feeling when driving his YJ. Then he purchased a bicycle lock with a long loop. The loop fit around the rods of his clutch and brake pedals so he could lock them together, making the vehicle pretty darn hard to drive, and hence not a good candidate for a would-be thief. Travis suggests that this Trick should work for other manual-tranny vehicles, and if a bike lock won't fit, a short chain and padlock can be substituted. Thanks again for the Trick, Travis, and for your service.
Tired of working on the underside of your rig while lying on that rocky gravel driveway? Ken Roberts always had a sore head, neck, and back after working on his GMC in his aggregate driveway in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The old Jimmy's drivetrain doesn't get along too well with the swapped-in big-block, so Ken is always wrenching under it. Though he can't cure his truck's ailments, he did cure his own by purchasing a dense-foam swimming pool floaty for about 15 bucks. It has a built-in headrest and is a big cushion, even on the sharpest gravel. We've even seen some with beverage holders for that toddy-or even for nuts and bolts. Thanks, Ken, for alleviating a pain in our backsides.
Are those big, out-of-balance, out-of-round tires and/or weird driveline angles vibrating your rig to the point where you can't see backwards? Hal Hutchinson just couldn't see his hometown of Evart, Michigan, in his rearview mirror after giving up on making his rig vibration-free. But at least his rearview mirror has been stabilized. Hall attached archery vibration dampeners to the back of his shaking mirror and now has a clear view of home-every time he leaves it. Although we've never seen or heard of these devices, Hal tells us you can get them at any sporting goods store that sells bows and arrows. They're cheap and self-sticking. Thanks go to Hal for keeping our backwards vision clear.
Just when we thought we'd seen the last Trick on oil-filter removal tools, along comes Benji Cullins from Coudrant, Louisiana, with yet another idea. Since we've seen our share of stubborn, hard-to-remove filters, we'll throw this one out there in case it might do the trick for any of you ... Benji took an old 5/8-inch socket and cut two holes in its sides with a die grinder. He then threaded a length of old tie-down strap through the slots. To remove a filter, slip the strap around the filter and turn the socket with a ratchet. This will cause the strap to cinch to the filter, and the ever-increasing tension will cause even the most stubborn filter to spin off. The part we like is, you could attach extensions between the ratchet and socket to enable reaching some of those impossibly inaccessible filters. Thanks go to Benji for another good spin on an old problem.
First, you need to have "special ladies" who like to bake-and trash their baking trays and muffin tins to a condition where they a too nasty for the kitchen any more. Matt Joplin, a student engineer at Western Washington University, has just such ladies (grandmas, Mom, and girlfriend), and they're more than happy to pass the scuzzy tinware on to him when their cooking is done. Matt has found all kinds of uses for the second-hand tins around his shop. Muffin tins are great for holding small parts that need to be kept in order during a disassembly. Larger parts store nicely in bread pans; baking pans make great tool trays for keeping jobs tidy; and cookie sheets make solid lids with the help of screws and wing nuts. Matt has also utilized old speaker magnets, stuck to the tins, to magnetize them and keep all the little parts in their various compartments. On a final note, Matt points out that most of these tins are stackable for easy storage when not in use. Thanks for the creative recycle, Matt.
Will Castlebury of Chester, Virginia, thought his rig was stylin' after he installed a rollbar with a lightbar on top of it. But within a month or so, the plastic caps that plugged the ends of his lightbar tube had disappeared, leaving ugly holes and a place for water and rust to collect. Feeling bummed, Will wandered through the local mall, where he spied a candy machine that sold large bouncy balls for 50 cents a pop. Four quarters into the machine and Will had solved his hole problem. After painting his two new balls to match his truck, he shoved them into the offending holes and voil, his ride is stylin' again-and for only a buck! Thanks for the plug, Will.
Larry Lee of Orange, California, had a problem. He had zip-ties and he had wires he needed tied down, but the area where the wires ran was all smooth sheetmetal with no place to attach the zip-ties to. Then the light bulb went off. Larry grabbed an 8/10-gauge electrical ring from his collection. He stripped away the plastic shield and spread the tines just enough to slide a zip-tie through. Once inserted, he crimped the tines down over the 'tie, creating a metal mounting ring, firmly attached to a still-usable zip-tie, and ready to attach to any flat surface, using a screw or bolt. Thanks for holding us down with this one, Larry.
Ashley Wilson's husband wrecks wheels. She doesn't say how he wrecks them; just that he ruins a lot of them. They were piling up around her Iberia, Missouri, home until that clever gal put them to use as water hose holders, air hose holders, extension cord holders, and so on. You get the idea. There are now wheels hanging everywhere around their place (like the nice mag screwed to a tree in the photo she sent. Shudder! We tree-huggers in California cringe at stabbing a tree like that, but we guess there are enough trees in Missouri that you can screw them. We'd prefer a building, or at least a dead fencepost). Anyway, her husband wants to take a spin from Keith (see previous) and add a wheel hub to these hose holders, making it easy to recoil his hoses and cords. He has just got to figure out how to wreck more hub and spindle assemblies for donor parts! Thanks for tidy recycling, Ashley.
We thought we must really have hit the big time around Harlem, Montana (pop. 882), when we received two Cheap Tricks from two different people from Harlem, on the same day! Then we noticed the P.O. Box was the same, and knew we probably had a family contest on our hands-one of those "Bet they'll publish my 'Trick, not yours" kind of feud. So we'll getcha both and run 'em both, but we'll say we like Deidra's better, so it goes first. Besides, girls go first. Deidra Gone 'wheels a '75 F-100 with an '84 302 that got thirsty on the way to town the other day. Deidra knows her way around her truck and soon figured out the fuel filter was clogged. Scrounging around behind her seat, she procured a hammer and a six-penny nail. She rammed the nail through the clogged filter, which was enough to get to town for a new filter, saving her from calling Austin for a tow. Who the heck is Austin? Read on ...
Austin Cochran shares a P.O. Box and Four Wheeler magazine with Deidra Gone in Harlem, Montana. They also both have an affinity for nails and Cheap Tricks. Austin was out hunting in the middle of nowhere in his '76 F-100 when the left rear brake assembly decided it had had enough of the no-maintenance lifestyle and disintegrated with a loud noise. This allowed brake fluid to pour from the wheel cylinder. Austin needed to stop fluid from getting to the cylinder, and the obvious thing to do was crimp the line. But being the frugal guy that he is, and knowing the fact that this truck seems to be full of all sorts of nails, Austin found just the right one (behind the seat?) to insert into the brake line. He was able to thread the line back into the cylinder with the nail inserted, creating a block in the line and allowing him to get back to Harlem for proper repairs-and he didn't have to purchase a new brake line. Thanks for the 'Tricks you two, and keep driving those nails (and that Ford).