31 May
2005
31 May
'05
12:54 a.m.
Fred Cisin wrote:
It helps to have a lot of different ones
Or lots of cheap crappy spanners that can be heated up and bent
Aha. I come from an agricultural background. 1/2" is ok for a lot of
things, but you really want to keep the 3/4" drive stuff closest.
I bought a (relatively) cheap breaker bar from Halfords (expensive car
bits chain in the UK). It's actually bloody good - a lot of their tools
they stock are made by Draper or Sykes-Pickavant, so I guess their "own
brand" stuff might be made by someone like that. It made short work of
the driveshaft nuts on my Citro?n CX, which had up to that point even
resisted the air wrench at my local tyre fitting place. The trick was
to get the wheel off, get the cap off the nut, put the wheel back on,
and have the car sitting on its wheels, with someone pressing the brakes
as hard as possible.
Cracking the cooling fan nut on my GSA (aircooled flat four up the
front) was another breaker bar job too - but because of the angle things
were at I had to get the bar on it and lift in weightlifter style. Once
I managed to stop lifting the car off the axle stands, things went well...
Dental mirrors are great. My girlfriend's Mum used to be a sales rep
for a medical company, and one of the freebies they had to ply doctors
with was sets of very, very nice highly polished stainless minor surgery
tools - scalpel handle, stitch cutters, stitch hooks and the like. Of
course, as they are, a lot of them are really only good for tieing and
cutting stitches. They are, however, a good start for a lot of little
funky custom tools for poking electronics with.
On Mon, 30 May 2005, Tony Duell wrote:
>>"reasonably complete" is a VERY subjective quantification.
>
>I would agree...
"obstruction" wrenches (box end in C and S
shapes, and with odd offsets)
Very useful... I've never
needed the 3/8" drive sockets. Where I need more torque than
can be applied with a1/4" drive, there's enough room for a 1/2" socket.
On the other hand, a 3/8" drive (or adapter) is essential, many timing
belt tensioners have a 3/8" hole in the plate which you use to untension
or tension them.
I have often needed more torque than a 1/4 could handle, but not enough
clearance for 1/2"
Around here, 3/8" is the default for auto repair; when I was in the
Washington, DC area (salted roads, etc.) 1/2" was the default. I've never
nneded anything over 3/4" drive to work on a car. The largest
torque wrench we have here has a 3/4" drive and goes up to 350lb.ft, so I
guess that's strong enough :-)
That'll do nicely for assembly.
I have encountered VW bus rear axle nuts that needed WELL over 1000 ft lbs
to break loose. I would never subject a torque wrench or even a ratchet
to that kind of force. The Craftsman 3/4" breaker bar just bends. Don't
forget the odd sizes. Very few UK spanner sets include 11/32", but
I have a number of tools that I've rarely had need of. But once is
enough.
I wonder what's considered to be a reasonable
hand toolkit (i.e. not
including test gear, soldering tools, etc) for classic computer repair.
My starting list would be :
medical hemostats (called "roach clip"s in California)
dental mirror(s)
inspection light(s) and/or otoscope
right-angle ratcheting 1/4" bit driver
small "slim-jim", such as IBM punch card jam clearer If others have been in it before, then add:
reachers/dropped item retrievers
5wR vise-grips for removing destroyed fasteners
taps
drill
BIG dead-blow mallet (only for use on Packard-Bell, etc.)
Angle grinder, gas axe...
Actually lock picks are often useful.
Gordon.