C.Noble
30th September 2008, 12:58 AM
For anyone who has ever picked up a spanner... with the intention of actually using it to work on a car;
Hammer:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive car parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.
Mechanic's Knife:
Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard boxes delivered to your front door- works particularly well on boxes containing convertible tops or tonneau covers.
Electric Hand Drill:
Normally used for spinning steel Pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age, but it also works great for drilling roll-bar mounting holes in the floor of a sports car just above the brake line that goes to the rear axle.
Hacksaw:
One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.
Aviation Metal Snips:
See Hacksaw.
Vise-Grips:
Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.
Oxyacetylene Torch:
Used almost entirely for lighting those stale garage cigarettes you keep hidden in the back of the Whitworth socket drawer (What wife would think to look in there?) but can also be used to incinerate almost anything expensive within the vicinity of seized bolts and nuts.
Whitworth Sockets:
Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for hiding six-month old cigarettes from the sort of person who would throw them away for no good reason.
Drill Press:
A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against the Rolling Stones poster over the bench grinder.
Brake pipe cutting tool:
A tool used for cutting front to rear brake pipes, 2 inches too short.
Wire Wheel:
Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say, "Ow".
Hydraulic Floor Jack:
Used for lowering a car to the ground after you have installed a set of Motorsports lowered road springs, trapping the jack handle firmly under the front air dam.
Eight-Foot Long Douglas Fir 2X4:
Used for levering a car upward off a hydraulic jack.
Tweezers:
A tool for removing wood splinters.
Phone:
A tool for calling your neighbour to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack.
E-Z Out Bolt and Stud Extractor:
A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.
Timing Light:
A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease build-up on crankshaft pulleys. Also good at inducing epilepsy in higher mammals.
Two-Ton Hydraulic Engine Hoist:
A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of ground straps and hydraulic clutch lines you may have forgotten to disconnect.
Craftsman 1/2 x 16-inch Screwdriver:
A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.
Battery Electrolyte Tester:
A handy tool for transferring sulphuric acid from car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought.
Hand Lamp:
The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin", which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.
Phillips Screwdriver:
Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads.
Air Compressor:
A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty suspension bolts last tightened 40 years ago by someone in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and rounds them off.
½” drive 12” power bar:
A tool specifically designed to shear the heads off bolts with ease, particularly effective in the hands of apprentices.
½” drive 24” power bar:
Twice as effective as a 12” power bar at shearing bolt heads.
Torque wrench:
A special power bar that is cleverly designed to snap that last cylinder head bolt exactly 4.28lb/ft before the specified torque has been achieved.
10mm Spanner:
When used to short out battery terminals and starter leads makes an excellent hand warming device.
Magnetic pickup tool:
A telescopic rod fitted with a powerful magnet on the end that is designed to stick to anything except that little grub screw that cant be replaced and that you dropped into that little crevasse that you couldn’t have placed it in if you tried.
Hammer:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive car parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.
Mechanic's Knife:
Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard boxes delivered to your front door- works particularly well on boxes containing convertible tops or tonneau covers.
Electric Hand Drill:
Normally used for spinning steel Pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age, but it also works great for drilling roll-bar mounting holes in the floor of a sports car just above the brake line that goes to the rear axle.
Hacksaw:
One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.
Aviation Metal Snips:
See Hacksaw.
Vise-Grips:
Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.
Oxyacetylene Torch:
Used almost entirely for lighting those stale garage cigarettes you keep hidden in the back of the Whitworth socket drawer (What wife would think to look in there?) but can also be used to incinerate almost anything expensive within the vicinity of seized bolts and nuts.
Whitworth Sockets:
Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for hiding six-month old cigarettes from the sort of person who would throw them away for no good reason.
Drill Press:
A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against the Rolling Stones poster over the bench grinder.
Brake pipe cutting tool:
A tool used for cutting front to rear brake pipes, 2 inches too short.
Wire Wheel:
Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say, "Ow".
Hydraulic Floor Jack:
Used for lowering a car to the ground after you have installed a set of Motorsports lowered road springs, trapping the jack handle firmly under the front air dam.
Eight-Foot Long Douglas Fir 2X4:
Used for levering a car upward off a hydraulic jack.
Tweezers:
A tool for removing wood splinters.
Phone:
A tool for calling your neighbour to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack.
E-Z Out Bolt and Stud Extractor:
A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.
Timing Light:
A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease build-up on crankshaft pulleys. Also good at inducing epilepsy in higher mammals.
Two-Ton Hydraulic Engine Hoist:
A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of ground straps and hydraulic clutch lines you may have forgotten to disconnect.
Craftsman 1/2 x 16-inch Screwdriver:
A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.
Battery Electrolyte Tester:
A handy tool for transferring sulphuric acid from car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought.
Hand Lamp:
The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin", which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.
Phillips Screwdriver:
Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads.
Air Compressor:
A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty suspension bolts last tightened 40 years ago by someone in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and rounds them off.
½” drive 12” power bar:
A tool specifically designed to shear the heads off bolts with ease, particularly effective in the hands of apprentices.
½” drive 24” power bar:
Twice as effective as a 12” power bar at shearing bolt heads.
Torque wrench:
A special power bar that is cleverly designed to snap that last cylinder head bolt exactly 4.28lb/ft before the specified torque has been achieved.
10mm Spanner:
When used to short out battery terminals and starter leads makes an excellent hand warming device.
Magnetic pickup tool:
A telescopic rod fitted with a powerful magnet on the end that is designed to stick to anything except that little grub screw that cant be replaced and that you dropped into that little crevasse that you couldn’t have placed it in if you tried.