Having just taken part
in the 2009 Mongol Rally there are all kinds of stories I've heard, which I will recount in a couple of paragraphs. Do they count as techno-hacks though? Probably not... but I don't care.

My own tale is a fairly rubbish one. Having destroyed the air filter on our Fiat Punto by not screwing its holding bolts in hard enough and it working its way loose and burning on the exhaust, we bodged together a fix with those eternal favourites, duck tape and coathangers.

I cut off all the burned ridges of plastic using a Tesco multi-tool saw, then covered the hole with large strips of duck tape. I reattached the air filter then replaced the bolts with lengths of carefully-bent coathanger wire, wrapping them round helpfully-placed bits of engine. We then drove 150km on the worst roads in existence to the nearest town. And it worked!

It's not as good as some of the other stories though. One team snapped their back axle and drove the last 400km with it held on by belts, cloth and cable ties. Another team lost their oil filter, so replaced it with a tin of peaches and some elastic bands. The number of people who replaced their broken suspension with a pair of trainers is too large to count.

It was awesome.
(cypherspace is not a toaster, Fri 21 Aug 2009, 9:10, 4 replies)

.
A click for the adventure.

has there been a qotw about "your greatest adventure"? there must be
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 21 Aug 2009, 10:44, closed)

A mongol rally?
I think you're supposed to call it a 'special needs' rally these days. But all credit to the windowlickers for their innovative skills.
(stalinism, Fri 21 Aug 2009, 13:34, closed)

I did this in 2006
They went soft after that. More than one litre? Less than ten years old? Fuck that, Mr Tom, fuck that double.
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Fri 21 Aug 2009, 15:58, closed)

I know, I know
Blame the Mongolians. Some fuckers did it in a sodding Land Rover this year (it broke down three times and every time it did I laughed my ass off). If it helps, the ten-year rule actually makes the cars harder to fix as they're more complicated - try finding someone with an electronic diagnostic system in Turkmenistan!
(cypherspace is not a toaster, Sat 22 Aug 2009, 14:15, closed)