Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

Rick · Site Admin Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 22783 Location: UK

Morning all

Inspired by posts in oddball's intro thread, lets see or hear about some of your favourite tools.

What great finds have you had at autojumbles, or at car boot sales and garage clearance sales?

Have you inherited great quality old tools from a family member?

Have you lent cherished tools out, only to never see them again?

Do you have a correct set of factory-supplied tools to match your old vehicle?

Let's hear it for classic tools, what brands are/were your favourites?

Are makes from the past still around? - I'm thinking of the likes of Britool, King Dick, and so on ...

RJ
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MikeEdwards · Joined: 25 May 2011 Posts: 2704 Location: South Cheshire

I've had a few car boot sale finds - mainly Britool and Snap on spanners and sockets at low prices because a lot of people are getting rid of imperial sizes. I'd once sworn off buying any more sockets as I must have more than I can ever use, then saw a nice Britool metal box containing 50-odd sockets and a couple of handles, all for a tenner.

I've had a few "Colourtune" kits for a pound a go, which is handy as it means I can put them on multiple cylinders at the same time to check the idle mixture - the twin Dellortos mean it is adjustable per cylinder and it saves letting the car cool down enough to remove and swap from plug to plug. I just need one more to have a full set. And a nice find last year was a "Trackrite" device to set the tracking, which has been used to good effect on my modern after I changed some front suspension bits.

Britool are still around as far as I know, but they somehow don't look as good quality. For example I see a lot of new spanners marked Britool, but it's etched onto the metal rather than being stamped as they used to be, so I don't know if they're really the same.

Rootes75 · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:31 pm Post subject:

I remember when i first started out with classics I spent years trying to find a valve guide tool for my sidevalve Ford, I was over the moon to find one at Beaulieu as I recall. Now with ebay I have seen many so the find is not that rare now.

The best specialist tool find has to be a pre-war steering wheel removal tool with adaptors to suite various sizes etc. Its one of those tools that you don't use often but when you need it its worth its weight in gold.

kevin2306 · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 3:26 pm Post subject:

I have an old 3'0 folding joiners ruler that I bought when I was a 16 y/o apprentice, its made from boxwood and brass.
that doesnt get used by anyone but me due its sentimental value and fragile nature.

kev

Dipster · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 4:38 pm Post subject:

For me it is all the old tools that I inherited from my Dad. He started putting his tools together in the 1920s when he set off as a "Motor Engineer" in what I think he saw as an exciting new technology.

It is just a shame that I could not inherit the vast experience and all the metal working skills he acquired over many years. He taught me a lot but I would never claim to be as good as he was in skills such as machining.

Ray White · Joined: 02 Dec 2014 Posts: 7102 Location: Derby

Rick · Site Admin Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 22783 Location: UK

I recently rescued a modern-ish, 12-ton pressure, pipe bending tool. It had been left out for the scrapman, which seemed like a waste, so I offered it a home. Whether I'll ever use it is another matter, but, well .... Smile

RJ
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lowdrag · Joined: 10 Apr 2009 Posts: 1600 Location: Le Mans

I have a rather stupid obsession with the little Carrington adjustables that came as standard in a Jaguar took kit. I don't know how many I have, but it is a few. It was the one thing that never got sold with the car, always ending up in peoples everyday kit in the shed. Talking of which I came across a Mk 1 toolkit - or part of one today - buried and found during the spring clean, complete with timing key and a few Jaguar spanners.

MikeEdwards · Joined: 25 May 2011 Posts: 2704 Location: South Cheshire

BigJohn · Joined: 01 Jan 2011 Posts: 954 Location: Wem, Shropshire

A pair of pre-war bumper ringing irons that were my dads, I have used them for all sorts of jobs and they are never used by anyone else in case they walk. (They are about 18" long bar with a F shaped head for dropping onto bumper blades and tweaking them, one of them has a stepped F so fits all sorts of things that need unkinking).

Rootes75 · Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2015 8:46 pm Post subject:

Talking of tools going down the generations, my grandfather left me a battery charger. This is no ordinary charger but a pre-war Westinghouse type that is about a metre tall by a half a metre deep by about a metre and a half across the front. It is hidden away at the back of the shed now but I remember when I was younger seeing it charging 4 or 5 batteries at a time.

Lovely piece of kit that I really should have set up and working.
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Various Rootes Vehicles.

Jonv8 · Joined: 28 Jan 2009 Posts: 66

I have two favourite tools,neither is old but I greatly enjoy the results I get with them.First is my 4 channel Pico oscilloscope. This is helping me to fix old and new vehicles/engines on a daily basis,the oldest engine I have used it on is a 1917 Wade 2 stroke dragsaw engine.
Second tool is a Thermal Dynamics 200A AC/DC Tig welder,lovely bit of kit - again useful for repairing just about anything that can be welded.
Many of my hand tools I have had from the age of about 10 when I first rebuilt a bike engine,the collection has steadily grown since then.

Ellis · Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2015 11:17 pm Post subject:

One of my favourite tool possessions is this complete and original Jaguar Mark 2 toolkit :

[

]

On the subject of lending tools you might be interested in the experience of my cousin's husband, Tony. He's a very good self taught mechanic and about 15 years ago, fed up with hiring engine hoists, he bought a good electric one and attached it to a huge beam in his garage which I helped him install.
His sons were now 17 - 20 and destroying engines or buying bigger ones and asking their father to fit them.

As they grew older and bought better cars the engine hoist was used less and less and one day a resident living on the same estate asked if he could borrow it.
That was the last Tony saw of it and he even forgot to whom he had lent it.

Four years ago, when I was there one evening, his friend called and said that there was a garage sale at the house of a departing resident. A magpie for tools of any sort I accompanied him to this house and there was a good selection of tools - compressors, jacks and so on and included in the sale was the very same electric hoist Tony had lent out some years previously!

A "fair and frank" exchange of views followed and he was reunited with his engine hoist after some 7 years.[/img]
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Starting Handle Expert

1964 Jaguar Mark 2 3.4 litre
1962 Land Rover Series 2a 88"
2002 BMW M3 E46 Cabriolet

goneps · Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2015 11:43 pm Post subject:

BigJohn · Joined: 01 Jan 2011 Posts: 954 Location: Wem, Shropshire

When my sons were at home, and the garage became a hangout for various broken items from bikes to cars, with various dishevelled youthful owners, tools were lent out on the usual deposit applies rule.
One youth asked what the usual deposit was.
"One testicle" I replied.
I never lost any tools, but I never had any borrowed either! Wink